In this manner was Scotland once more restored to that liberty of which she had been so unjustly deprived. Nor was the benefit conferred on the country less, than the glory which redounded to her gallant liberator. The brilliant and decisive victory at Stirling Bridge was gained on the 11th September 1297, exactly twelve months and eleven days from the return of Edward to Berwick, after what he conceived to be the final subjugation of the kingdom.
The state of Scotland in the early part of 1297, was such as might well have extinguished the ardour of any mind possessed of less energy than that of Wallace. He saw his country humbled and debased at the feet of a tyrant, whose talents and power forbade every hope of emancipation, while the boldest of her nobles dared not express a wish to be free. His own indignant feelings blazed forth, and, with his kindling enthusiasm, he breathed into his torpid and enslaved countrymen, the breath as it were of a new existence. The regenerating influence of his heroic example, was quickly caught by those whose bosoms still beat responsive to the call of honour; and in the short space we have mentioned, those banners which had lately waved over hecatombs of butchered Scots, and had been paraded through the land with all the triumphant arrogance of conquest, were now trampled under foot, and the colossal power by which they were sustained, overthrown before the virtuous indignation of a people determined to be free. When we contemplate the might and the resources of Edward, who, in addition to those of his own kingdom, had Ireland, Wales, and his Continental possessions to depend upon; it is impossible not to feel impressed with admiration at the greatness of that mind, which, with the fractions of a divided and dispirited people, could form the idea of braving a force so overwhelming: But when we find those plans which he had conceived in the deep recesses of his woodland retreats, not only perseveringly carried on against a tide of adverse circumstances--in defiance of the aristocracy of his own country, and the opposition of secret and avowed enemies--it may with truth be said, that, however highly he may have been extolled, a tythe of his greatness has not yet been appreciated. Much has been said of romance being mixed up with the accounts given of him; but it would be difficult for any of those who delight in _nibbling_ at great names, to point out any tradition respecting Wallace, sufficiently romantic to outstrip the simple facts that stand recorded of him in the authentic annals of British history.