He was tried in Westminster Hall,with a crown of laurel on his head-it is supposed because he was reported to have said that he ought to wear,or that he would wear,a crown there and was found guilty as a robber,a murderer,and a traitor.What they called a robber (he said to those who tried him)he was,because he had taken spoil from the King's men.What they called a murderer,he was,because he had slain an insolent Englishman.What they called a traitor,he was not,for he had never sworn allegiance to the King,and had ever scorned to do it.He was dragged at the tails of horses to West Smithfield,and there hanged on a high gallows,torn open before he was dead,beheaded,and quartered.His head was set upon a pole on London Bridge,his right arm was sent to Newcastle,his left arm to Berwick,his legs to Perth and Aberdeen.
But,if King Edward had had his body cut into inches,and had sent every separate inch into a separate town,he could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame.Wallace will be remembered in songs and stories,while there are songs and stories in the English tongue,and Scotland will hold him dear while her lakes and mountains last.
Released from this dreaded enemy,the King made a fairer plan of Government for Scotland,divided the offices of honour among Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen,forgave past offences,and thought,in his old age,that his work was done.
But he deceived himself.Comyn and Bruce conspired,and made an appointment to meet at Dumfries,in the church of the Minorites.
There is a story that Comyn was false to Bruce,and had informed against him to the King;that Bruce was warned of his danger and the necessity of flight,by receiving,one night as he sat at supper,from his friend the Earl of Gloucester,twelve pennies and a pair of spurs;that as he was riding angrily to keep his appointment (through a snow-storm,with his horse's shoes reversed that he might not be tracked),he met an evil-looking serving man,a messenger of Comyn,whom he killed,and concealed in whose dress he found letters that proved Comyn's treachery.However this may be,they were likely enough to quarrel in any case,being hot-headed rivals;and,whatever they quarrelled about,they certainly did quarrel in the church where they met,and Bruce drew his dagger and stabbed Comyn,who fell upon the pavement.When Bruce came out,pale and disturbed,the friends who were waiting for him asked what was the matter?'I think I have killed Comyn,'said he.'You only think so?'returned one of them;'I will make sure!'and going into the church,and finding him alive,stabbed him again and again.Knowing that the King would never forgive this new deed of violence,the party then declared Bruce King of Scotland:got him crowned at Scone-without the chair;and set up the rebellious standard once again.
When the King heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger than he had ever shown yet.He caused the Prince of Wales and two hundred and seventy of the young nobility to be knighted-the trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down to make room for their tents,and they watched their armour all night,according to the old usage:some in the Temple Church:some in Westminster Abbey-and at the public Feast which then took place,he swore,by Heaven,and by two swans covered with gold network which his minstrels placed upon the table,that he would avenge the death of Comyn,and would punish the false Bruce.And before all the company,he charged the Prince his son,in case that he should die before accomplishing his vow,not to bury him until it was fulfilled.Next morning the Prince and the rest of the young Knights rode away to the Border-country to join the English army;and the King,now weak and sick,followed in a horse-litter.
Bruce,after losing a battle and undergoing many dangers and much misery,fled to Ireland,where he lay concealed through the winter.
That winter,Edward passed in hunting down and executing Bruce's relations and adherents,sparing neither youth nor age,and showing no touch of pity or sign of mercy.In the following spring,Bruce reappeared and gained some victories.In these frays,both sides were grievously cruel.For instance-Bruce's two brothers,being taken captives desperately wounded,were ordered by the King to instant execution.Bruce's friend Sir John Douglas,taking his own Castle of Douglas out of the hands of an English Lord,roasted the dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of every movable within it;which dreadful cookery his men called the Douglas Larder.Bruce,still successful,however,drove the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into the Castle of Ayr and laid siege to it.
The King,who had been laid up all the winter,but had directed the army from his sick-bed,now advanced to Carlisle,and there,causing the litter in which he had travelled to be placed in the Cathedral as an offering to Heaven,mounted his horse once more,and for the last time.He was now sixty-nine years old,and had reigned thirty-five years.He was so ill,that in four days he could go no more than six miles;still,even at that pace,he went on and resolutely kept his face towards the Border.At length,he lay down at the village of Burgh-upon-Sands;and there,telling those around him to impress upon the Prince that he was to remember his father's vow,and was never to rest until he had thoroughly subdued Scotland,he yielded up his last breath.