CHAPTER IX.

ATTACK ON CRAWFORD CASTLE.--RETURN TO LANARK.--CONFLICT WITH THE ENGLISH.--MURDER OF THE HEIRESS OF LAMINGTON.--HER DEATH REVENGED.--THE ENGLISH DRIVEN OUT OF LANARK.

The Castle of Lochmaben is supposed to have been the first fortress in which Wallace ventured to place a garrison; and it is probable he was enabled to do so, in consequence of a great many in the neighbourhood having joined his standard, encouraged no doubt by his late successes. This supposition is confirmed by the circumstance of his leaving behind him a few of those who had been in the engagement with Graystock.

While the insurrection was thus spreading in Scotland, Edward was prosecuting his views against France. The accounts of the proceedings of Wallace occasionally reached him, and arrested his attention in the midst of his victories; and though he felt no immediate apprehension from the attempts of the freebooter, as he was pleased to call the patriotic leader of the Scots, yet he considered him such an enemy as it was not altogether prudent to neglect.

The applications, therefore, which were made from time to time, by Percy and others intrusted with the management of Scottish affairs, were promptly attended to, and the requisite supplies forwarded to the different garrisons. Part of these supplies, as has been already hinted, had reached Lochmaben before the late rencounter; most of the other fortified places had received their quota; and the garrison of the Castle of Crawford were in daily expectation of their proportion.

This fortress, which had belonged to the maternal ancestors of Wallace,[84] attracted his attention. Having learned, from a female whom he stopped on the moor, that the garrison, which consisted of about twenty men, were carousing in an hostelry in the neighbourhood of the castle, he proposed to Sir John Graham to attempt a surprise. For this purpose, he directed Graham to follow slowly with the others under his command, while, with a companion, he went forward himself to observe the condition of the revellers. On approaching the door, the language within had become sufficiently audible; and he soon ascertained that he and his exploits were the subject of discussion; their captain, one Martindale, in the heat of his pot-valour, declaring to his men the pleasure which the presence of Wallace would afford him. Finding himself in request, the fearless Scot stepped forward. The “Benedicities” on both sides were brief. Wallace plied his weapon with his usual effect; and, aided by his companion, the maudlin braggadocio and his fellows were soon overpowered. Meanwhile, Sir John Graham, who had reached the door during the contest, was ordered off to secure the castle;[85] which duty, from the small number of its defenders, he easily performed.

Having burnt the castle, and divided the spoil among his followers, Wallace retired to Lanark, on purpose, it is supposed, to concert measures for withdrawing from that place the object of his affections, and placing her in some retreat less exposed to the exactions of Hazelrig.

On this occasion, our hero, for the more effectually disguising himself,[86] had thrown a green mantle over his armour, which he fastened with a belt, from which depended his sword. At the entrance of the town, his dress, and particularly the uncommon length of his sword, attracted the notice of some of the soldiers belonging to the garrison; and one of them, more insolent than the others, made a snatch at it. Wallace evaded the attempt to deprive him of his weapon; when a sarcastic[87] dialogue ensued, which soon ended in blows; and the English, seeing their companion no match for the Scot, rushed forward to his assistance. Hemmed in on all sides, Wallace became roused into fury, and dealt his blows around him with fearful and destructive energy. His ponderous blade descended with rapid and crashing effect among the bucklers and head-pieces of the enemy, who had begun to retire in confusion, before his irresistible arm; when others arriving, who were unacquainted with the foe they had to contend with, rushed headlong to the fray. Experience, however, soon taught them to be more cautious in their advance; and Wallace had set them completely at bay, when young Hazelrig came on with a fresh party to their assistance. Thus re-inforced, and eager to revenge their companions, they were now fast gathering round our hero, when a door facing him suddenly opened, and a fair hand beckoned him from the _melée_. Wallace quickly embraced the means of escape thus afforded him; and the door being instantly shut against his enemies, gave him an opportunity of saving himself by an outlet behind the house.

Old Hazelrig,[88] or, as Wyntown calls him, the Sheriff, was not in Lanark at the time of this affray; but, on hearing the account of it, and learning the number of English who had been killed, he hastened to town, and caused the fair orphan of Lamington to be brought before him. On discovering her connection with Wallace, and the assistance she had so opportunely afforded him, in a paroxysm of rage and disappointment, he ordered her for instant execution.

In the account of this affair, we have adhered to the statement of Wyntown,[89] who adds, that Wallace, from a place of concealment, had the heart-rending misfortune to be a spectator of the execution of his mistress, without having the power of attempting a rescue. This would not have been the case, if he had, as the Minstrel says, been attended by Sir John Graham, and twenty-four of his associates. Wyntown represents it as a mere personal adventure of Wallace; and states, that, _after_ the melancholy catastrophe, he went in search of his friends, to assist him in revenging the atrocity. Having collected thirty of his followers, he returned with them, for that purpose, to Lanark. At the dead hour of night, the door of the sheriff’s apartment was burst from its hinges, and the iron-grasp of Wallace awakened Hazelrig from his sleep. On being dragged headlong to the street, after a stern reproof for his cowardly conduct, the trembling victim instantly received the reward due to his villany. The alarm now spread, and the garrison soon engaged with Wallace and his party; but deeply incensed at the late disgusting act of barbarity, the people of Lanark rose _en masse_ against their oppressors, who, unable to stand their ground, were soon overpowered, and driven with great slaughter from the town.

The inhabitants of Lanark, having thus identified themselves with the cause of Wallace, saw no alternative left them, but to join heart and hand with the avenger of their country’s wrongs; and the number that now flocked to his standard enabled him to take the field openly, and bid defiance to the enemy. Indeed, so formidable was the force under his command, that he met and defeated a considerable body of the English in a regular engagement in the neighbourhood of Biggar. It has been alleged, that, on this memorable occasion, Edward commanded in person; but such could not have been the case, as the English monarch was not in the country at the time. That a considerable battle was fought in the neighbourhood, there is reason to believe, as well from current tradition, as from the number of _tumuli_ which are still to be seen. In the statistical account of Biggar, the subject is thus taken notice of:--“At the west end of the town is a tumulus, which appears never to have been opened; and there are vestiges of three camps, each of a roundish figure, at different places in the neighbourhood. There is a tradition of a battle having been fought at the east of the town, between the Scots, under Sir William Wallace, and the English, who were said to be sixty thousand strong, wherein a great slaughter was made on both sides, especially among the latter.”

These accounts, however, are decidedly at variance with truth, both in regard to the amount of the English, and the person who commanded. It is more probable, that the enemy did not exceed eight, or at most ten thousand men, part of which appears to have been under the command of Roden, Lord de Whichenour. On the side of the Scots, Sir Walter Newbigging,[90] already referred to, headed a body of cavalry. His son David, a youth, at that time little more than fifteen years of age, held a command under him, and the well-tried military talents of the father were not disgraced by the efforts of the young patriot, whose conduct on this occasion was afterwards rewarded by the honour of knighthood, probably conferred by the hand of our hero himself. The family of Newbigging, as has already been noticed, came originally from England; and Sir Walter and his son, on this occasion, found themselves opposed to their near kinsman, the Lord of Whichenour.

At the head of what might now be called an army, Wallace kept the field; and the celerity of his movements confounded all the calculations of the enemy. While the main body of his forces appeared in their formidable intrenchments, occupying the attention of the English, distant garrisons were surprised, and put to the sword by foes, who seemed to spring up as it were within their walls, and of whose approach they had not the slightest intimation.

About this time, one of those iniquitous acts, so often met with in the cold-blooded and relentless policy of Edward, was perpetrated at Ayr, against the barons and gentry of the west of Scotland. This part of the country had been the nucleus, as it were, of the insurrection; and the ill-disposed and well-affected had now become equally objects of suspicion to the usurper’s government. Under the pretext of holding a Justice-Aire, they were summoned to attend; and those who appeared (among whom were Sir Raynald Crawford, Sir Bryce Blair,[91] and Sir Hugh Montgomerie) were treacherously seized, and hung up without even the formality of a trial.

Wallace heard of the infamous proceeding, and determined on severe retaliation. Selecting fifty of his confederates, he hastened to the spot, and being joined by a number of the retainers of the murdered gentlemen, they surrounded the buildings where the English were cantoned, and who, indulging in fancied security arising from the terror which they imagined the late severity was likely to impress upon the Scots, had, after a deep carousal, betaken themselves to rest, little dreaming of the vengeance that awaited them.

Having procured the necessary combustibles, Wallace, after disposing of his men, so as to prevent the escape of any of the English, set fire to the thatch, which being covered with pitch, the flames soon spread to every part of the buildings, and rose in one general conflagration; while the screaming wretches within vainly attempting to escape, were received on the points of the Scottish swords, and either killed, or forced back, to perish in the devouring element. It is said, that five hundred of the English suffered in this lamentable manner. The severity of the retaliation can only be palliated by the nature of the war the parties were engaged in, and the desperation to which the cruelty of the invaders had goaded on the wretched inhabitants. If tradition may be credited, Wallace did not remain till the flames were extinguished; for, when about two miles on his return, at an elevated part of the road, he is said to have made his men look back on the still blazing scene of their vengeance, remarking, at the same time, that “The barns of Ayr burn weel.” The ruins of a church are still to be seen on the spot where the chief and his followers stood to take their last look, and which is named from the circumstance, “_Burn weel Kirk_.”[92]