The one bridge which crossed the river was only broad enough to admit two horsemen abreast; and though the English army had been passing from daybreak but half its force was across at noon when Wallace closed on it and cut it after a short combat to pieces in sight of its comrades.

The retreat of the Earl of Surrey over the border left Wallace head of the country he had freed, and for a few months he acted as "Guardian of the Realm" in Balliol's name, and headed a wild foray into Northumberland in which the barbarous cruelties of his men left a bitter hatred behind them which was to wreak its vengeance in the later bloodshed of the war.

His reduction of Stirling Castle at last called Edward to the field.

In the spring of 1298 the king's diplomacy had at last wrung a truce for two years from Philip the Fair; and he at once returned to England to face the troubles in Scotland.

Marching northward with a larger host than had ever followed his banner, he was enabled by treachery to surprise Wallace as he fell back to avoid an engagement, and to force him on the twenty-second of July to battle near Falkirk.