1296 Edward invaded Scotland, took Berwick and slaughtered eight thousand of its citizens; defeated the Scots at Dunbar; occupied Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth; compelled Baliol to surrender, and sent him to the Tower of London.  Edward then made Scotland a dependency of his crown.

This submission was not the act of the people, but of their leaders.  “The Scots assembled in troops and companies, and betaking themselves to the woods, mountains, and morasses, prepared for a general insurrection against the English power.”

They found their leader in the outlawed knight, William Wallace.  Wallace was born about 1274.  Popular tradition, which “delights to dwell upon the beloved champion of the people,” has invested him with many striking qualities, ascribing to him a gigantic stature and enormous strength, as well as extraordinary courage.  Little, if anything, is really known of his personality and private life; while all that belongs to history concerning him is told by his celebrated and admiring fellow-countryman, Sir Walter Scott, in the following narrative.

Wallace is believed to have been proclaimed an outlaw for the slaughter of an Englishman in a casual fray.  He retreated to the woods, collected around him a band of men as desperate as himself, and obtained several successes in skirmishes with the English.  Joined by Sir William Douglas, who had been taken at the siege of Berwick, but had been discharged upon ransom, the insurgents compelled Edward to send an army against them, under the Earl of Surrey, the victor of Dunbar.  Several of the nobility, moved by Douglas’ example, had joined Wallace’s standard, but overawed at the approach of the English army, and displeased to act under a man, like Wallace, of comparatively obscure birth, they capitulated with Sir Henry Percy, the nephew of Surrey, and in one word changed sides.

Wallace kept the field at the head of a considerable army, partly consisting of his own experienced followers, partly of the smaller barons or crown tenants, and partly of vassals even of the apostate lords, and volunteers of every condition.  By the exertion of much conduct and resolution, Wallace had made himself master of the country beyond Forth, and taken several castles, when he was summoned to Stirling to oppose Surrey, the English Governor of Scotland.  Wallace encamped on the northern side of the river, leaving Stirling bridge apparently open to the English, but resolving, as it was long and narrow, to attack them while in the act of crossing.  The Earl of Surrey led fifty thousand infantry and a thousand men-at-arms.  Part of his soldiers, however, were the Scottish barons who had formerly joined Wallace’s standard, and who, notwithstanding their return to that of Surrey, were scarcely to be trusted.