Note 61 — Chapter X · EDWARD’S POLICY RESPECTING THE SETTLEMENT OF SCOTLAND.—ENDEAVOURS TO GAIN WALLACE TO HIS INTEREST.—SIEGE OF STIRLING.—IT SURRENDERS.—CONDUCT OF EDWARD TOWARDS THE PRISONERS.—HALIBURTON UNDERTAKES TO BETRAY WALLACE.
Reading edition
Fordun relates, that when this offer was made to Wallace, and on his being pressed by his friends to comply, he thus expressed himself:—“O! desolated Scotland, too credulous of fair speeches, and not aware of the calamities which are coming upon you! If you were to judge as I do, you would not easily put your neck under a foreign yoke. When I was a boy, the priest, my uncle, carefully inculcated upon me this proverb, which I then learned, and have ever since kept in my mind:—
“Dico tibi verum, Libertas optima rerum; Nunquam servili, sub nexu vivito, fili.”
“I tell you a truth,—Liberty is the best of things, my son, never live under any slavish bond.”
“Therefore, I shortly declare, that if all others, the natives of Scotland, should obey the King of England, or were to part with the liberty which belongs to them, I and those who may be willing to adhere to me in this point, will stand for the liberty of the kingdom; and by God’s assistance, will only obey the King, viz. John Baliol, or his Lieutenant.”