Fra Gamlis peth the land obeyt him haill Till Ur wattir, bath strenth, forest, and daill. Agaynis him in _Galloway_ hous was nayne, &c.--B. VI. 793.
It is to be observed, that John Major expressly affirms the treachery of Menteth, as acting in concert with Aymer de Valloins, Earl of Pembroke. He says that Menteth was considered as his most intimate friend;--ipsi Vallaceo putatus amicissimus. Hist. Fol. LXXIII. Now, although he rejects many of the transactions recited by Blind Harry “as false,” so far is he from insinuating the slightest hesitation as to this business, that he formally starts an objection as to the imprudence of Wallace in not being more careful of his person, and answers it by remarking, that “no enemy is more dangerous than a domestic one.” He differs from the Minstrel, in saying that Wallace was “captured _in_ the city of Glasgow.”
It may be added, that Bower expressly asserts that Wallace, “suspecting no evil, was fraudulently and treacherously seized _at_ Glasgow by Lord John de Menteth.” Scotichron. XII. 8. Bower again refers to the treacherous conduct of Menteth towards Wallace when afterwards relating a similar plan which he had laid for taking King Robert Bruce prisoner, under pretence of delivering up to him the castle of Dunbarton, on condition of his receiving a hereditary right to the lieutenancy of the Lennox. V. Lib. xii. c. 16. 17. Vol. II. 243. These two chapters are not in all the MSS., but are found in those of Cupar, Perth, and Dunblane. Now, Bower was born A. 1385. Ibid. II. 401. The date assigned to the Scotichronicon, as published with his continuation, is 1447, and that to the Minstrel’s poem 1470. V. Pinkerton’s Maitland Poems, Intr. LXXXVI. LXXXIX. It is therefore impossible that Bower could have borrowed the account given of Menteth from Blind Harry. Bower was born, indeed, only eighty or eighty-one years after the fact referred to; and, considering the elevation of the character of Wallace, and the great attachment of his countrymen even to this day, as well as the multitude of his enemies, it is totally inconceivable that a whole nation, learned and unlearned, should concur in imputing this crime to one man _without_ the most valid reasons.