Wallace had, we can easily perceive, many of the qualities which go to form a guerilla leader. He had great bodily strength and “violent passions;” he had learned, by frequent exercise, expertness in the use of both sword and cudgel; and such a gallant as this was sure to be followed by multitudes of young admirers. So prepared for the fray, he seems to have entered the arena of public life just at that critical period when the conquest of Scotland had been accomplished, and the English rule of Scotland had but just been begun. This English rule was, to one of his feelings, intolerable. We may look with some degree of allowance on prejudices of this kind; but our indulgence can hardly be extended so far as to justify the young Scotch‐Welshman in the course which his eulogist describes him to have adopted;—of killing every Englishman that fell in his way, so soon as he could find an opportunity.
After several homicides of this kind, it was inevitable that Wallace should be under the necessity of disappearing from the neighbourhood of his abode. He had been able, repeatedly, when an Englishman came in his way,
“To cut his throat, or stick him suddenly;”
but to such amusements there is always a natural limit. Mr. Tytler says, “He was driven to seek safety in the wilds and fastnesses. Here he collected, by degrees, a little band of men of desperate fortunes.” “In his attacks on straggling parties of the English, he was generally successful. Confidence came with success, and multitudes flocked round the standard of revolt.”[86] “Wallace and his men lived by plunder; retreating, when pursued, to the woods and fastnesses, whence they again issued forth to attack the English convoys. All the soldiers who fell into their hands were instantly put to death.” “Great numbers of the English were openly massacred in almost every district beyond the Frith of Forth.”[87] Mr. Tytler adds: “It was not uncommon for them, at these times, to drive before them troops of aged priests and nuns, whose hands were tied behind their backs; and while the brutal soldiery and their hard‐hearted leaders sat on the bridges, these unhappy wretches were cast down headlong, or compelled to precipitate themselves into the stream, while their drowning agonies were the subject of savage derision.”[88] These atrocities are recorded by Knighton and Trivet, two historians who lived at the time; and Knighton adds that he had received the description from the lips of a priest, who himself had been present at, and managed to escape from, one of these massacres.