returned to England in August after an absence of nearly fifteen
months. He crossed the Humber early in December, kept his Christmas
court at Lincoln, and reached London late in February. As a sign of the
completion of the conquest, he ordered that the law courts, which since
1297 had been established at York, should resume their sessions in
London.

A few heroes still upheld the independence of Scotland. Foremost among
them was Sir William Wallace, who, since his mission to France in 1298,
had disappeared from history. The submission of the barons to Edward
gave him another chance. He took a strenuous part in the struggle of
1303-4, and he was specially exempted from the easy pardons with which
Edward purchased the submission of the greater nobles. It was the
daring and skill of Wallace that prolonged the Scots' struggle until
the spring of 1305. But he was then once more an outlaw and a fugitive,
only formidable by his hold over the people, and by the possibility
that the smallest spark of resistance might at any time be blown into a
flame. At last he was captured through the zeal, or treachery, of a
Scot in Edward's service. In August, Wallace was despatched to London
to stand a public trial for treason, sedition, sacrilege, and murder.
He denied that he had ever become Edward's subject, but did not escape
conviction. With his execution, the last stage of Edward's triumph in
Scotland was accomplished. Though the full measure of Wallace's fame
belongs to a later age rather than his own, yet it was a sure instinct
that made the Scottish people celebrate him as the popular hero of
their struggle for independence. His courage, persistency, and daring
stands in marked contrast to the self-seeking opportunism of the great
nobles, who afterwards appropriated the results of his endeavours. Yet
we can hardly blame Edward for making an example of him, when he fell
into his power. Even if Wallace had successfully evaded the oath of