to get ‘the pope's favour for his beloved William Wallace, knight, in the matter which he wishes to forward with his holiness’ (National MSS. Scotland, i. No. lxxv.). Whether Wallace went to Rome in the year of the jubilee we do not know, but the internecine conflict between Edward and Wallace has left its reflection in the lines of Dante:
… the pride that thirsts for gain,
Which drives the Scot and Englishman so hard
That neither can within his land remain
(Paradiso, xix. 121).
Meantime the Scots had sent an embassy to Rome to combat the claim of Edward to the supremacy of Scotland. A long memorial entitled ‘Processus Baldredi Bisset, contra figmenta Regis Angliæ,’ has been preserved in Bower's continuation of Fordun. It can scarcely be doubted that the object of Wallace in wishing to visit Rome was to support this memorial. He received also letters of safe conduct from Haco, king of Norway, and from Baliol. These were once in a hanaper in the English exchequer, but now unfortunately lost; the description of them in the ‘Ancient Kalendar’ of Bishop Stapylton in 1323 is important, and has not been sufficiently noted (Palgrave, Kalendars, i. 134). Besides showing the support Wallace received, not only from Philip of France, but from the king of Norway, it appears from this brief entry that there had been both ordinances by and treaties between Wallace and certain of the Scottish nobles, now lost. Probably he never presented the letter at Rome, and deemed his presence in Scotland more important; nor is there any trace of his going to Norway. The next record of his name is a grant to his ‘chère valet,’ Edward de Keth, by Edward I, ‘of all goods he may gain from Monsieur Guillaume de Waleys, the king's enemy,’ by undated letters patent issued in or prior to 1303. It is remarkable that we have no certain evidence of his having been in Scotland between 1299 and 1303, so that it remains possible he may have gone to Rome or elsewhere.
Meanwhile Boniface had claimed the dominion of Scotland by a bull dated Anagni, 27 June 1300, to which the English barons replied in their famous letter of 1301 repudiating all interference by the pope in the temporal affairs of England. Boniface thereupon abandoned Scotland and the Scots, and on 13 Aug. 1302 wrote a letter to the Scottish bishops exhorting them to peace with Edward (Theiner, Nos. ccclxx. and ccclxxi.). Philip followed his example, and, securing terms for himself by the treaty of Amiens on 25 Nov. 1302, confirmed by that of Paris on 20 May 1303, made a separate and perpetual peace with England, in which Scotland was not included.
The war, however, still went on, though what part Wallace took in it is not known. There is no proof that he was at the battle of Roslin on 24 Feb. 1303, when Sir John Comyn defeated John de Segrave [q. v.], the English commander. Edward now resumed the war in person and with greater vigour. Bruce surrendered at Strathord on 9 Feb. 1304; Comyn and the principal barons submitted; and on 24 July Stirling fell. At this date at least, and probably for some time before, Wallace had been in arms, though not in command. His name occurs, with those of Sir John de Soulis, who had been assumed as an additional guardian of the kingdom—it is said at the instance of Baliol—Wishart, bishop of Glasgow and the Steward of Scotland, as specially excepted from the capitulation. ‘As for William Wallace, it is agreed,’ it ran, ‘that he shall render himself up at the will and mercy of our sovereign lord the king as it shall seem good to him’ (Ryley, Placita Parliamentaria, p. 370; Calendar, ii. Nos. 1444–5 and 1463). In a parliament of Edward at St. Andrews in the middle of Lent, Simon Fraser and William Wallace, and those who held the castle of Stirling against the king, were outlawed (Trivet, p. 378), from which it would appear that Wallace had not merely cut off supplies to Edward's troops, but taken part in the subsequent defence of Stirling.
The pursuit of Wallace proceeded with unremitting zeal, and has left many traces in the English records. A payment was made on 15 March 1303 in reimbursement of sums expended on certain Scottish lads who by order of the king had laid an ambuscade (ad insidiandum) for Wallace and Fraser, and other enemies of the king (Calendar, iv. 482). A similar payment was made on 10 Sept. 1303 for the loss of two horses in a raid against Wallace and Fraser (ib. p. 477), and for other horses lost in a foray against him near Irnside Forest (ib.) On 12 March 1304 Nicholas Oysel, the valet of the Earl of Ulster, received 40s. for bringing the news that Sir William Latimer, Sir John Segrave, and Sir Robert Clifford had discomfited Fraser and Wallace at Hopperew (ib. p. 474), and three days after 15s. was paid to John of Musselburgh for guiding Segrave and Clifford in a foray against Fraser and Wallace in Lothian (ib. p. 475). It was provided on 25 July after the capitulation of Strathord that Sir John Comyn, Alexander de Lindesay, David de Graham, and Simon Fraser were to have
