But the instinct of the Scotch people has guided it aright in choosing him for its national hero.

He was the first to assert freedom as a national birthright, and amidst the despair of nobles and priests to call the people itself to arms.

At the head of an army drawn principally from the coast districts north of the Tay, which were inhabited by a population of the same blood as that of the Lowlands, Wallace in September 1297 encamped near Stirling, the pass between the north and the south, and awaited the English advance.

It was here that he was found by the English army.

The offers of John of Warenne were scornfully rejected: "We have come," said the Scottish leader, "not to make peace, but to free our country." The position of Wallace behind a loop of Forth was in fact chosen with consummate skill.