Wallace (Scotland) laid siege to Dundee. This move
threatened Stirling Castle, thus the English had to respond. An experienced
English navy of fifty thousand foot and a thousand cavalry moved to meet
Wallace's army of less than forty thousand foot and a mere hundred and
eighl
horses. Wal1ace was a guerrilla fighter, the
English were not. The English leader
was John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey and Governor of Scotland. For armour
the Scots used rags stuffed in their shirts. were bare foot, only
axes, clubs, etc.
for fighting, but they
had one important tool, hatred of the English.
Wallace knew the English would march from Stirling
Castle to the River Forth over
Stirling
Bridge, a wooden structure with no more than two
horsemen abreast. Wallace placed
his men in dense
undergrowth. The Earl of De Warrene
wanted to go up stream by three miles but Bishop Cressingham the
King's treasurer
and tax collector said it
would be too costly, he had his way and
the English army started across the bridge. Once over the bridge they
fanned out on the Scottish side in a semi-circular to guard
the crossing,
then came the foot soldiers. Wallace gave the signal and out of the
underbrush poured thousands of barefoot men, women and children
with spears,
axes, clubs and blood curdling
screams. The horsemen of the English
were thrown off their
horses by the
frightened animals, thus they
were
defenceless, the foot soldiers turned to go back over the bridge only to
be met by thousands of soldiers trying to cross the bridge.
The hapless de Warenne watched as
his army was cut to pieces. He
gave the order to retreat. Wallace sent his men after the running English
who had no time to stop for food or sleep. Prisoners were of no
problem
as the Scots
only wanted to kill. Bishop Cressingham was captured, flayed and his skin presented to Wallace as a
covering for his sword. De Warrene gathered his
defeated army,
marched to the crossing
he wanted
to cross in the
first place, crossed over the
river, attacked Wallace guerrilla army using his archers with the long
bow. The Scots were no defence against this type of armour. Arrows flew at speeds
fast enough to pierce light
metal armour, flights of
arrows met the
Scots who
fled. Wallace was chased Into a thicket by Sir Brian
de Jay. Master of the English
Templars. Wallace killed him. After the
battle,
ten thousand Scots lay dead. Noblemen of Scotland
disgraced who later refused to
follow Wallace.
Wallace then asked the King of France
to aid him, he agreed. By way of response King
Philip of France put Wallace
in jail. Edward, King
of England expressed his gratitude by
asking the King of France to hold Wallace for him. Philip changed his mind
and released Wallace.
In 1304. John
Stewart of Montelth
a Supporter of Wallace had gone
over to the
English, who in turn contacted a man called
Jack Short, a servant of Wallace, who
agreed to turn Wallace
over to the
English for a reward by sitting
at a table with a Ioaf of bread. He was to turn the bread toward Wallace.
As the soldiers entered. Monteith picked up the
loaf, turned it
around, whereby
Wallace was seized.
