Ayrshire > Volume 1

76 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
have thought that his act would eventually conduce to
the peace of the country. But whatever may have been
his motives, Scotland never forgot the act itself, and
never forgave it.
Wallace was put upon his trial in the great hall of
Westminster. Charged as a traitor to the King, he
replied that he had never sworn fealty to the King of
England, and that therefore he could not be a traitor to
him. The sentence that followed was a foregone
conclusion. It was adjudged, according to the record
of the period —
" That the foresaid William, for his manifest sedition,
plotting the King's death, perpetrating annulment of
his Crown and dignity, and bearing banner against his
liege lord, should be led from the Palace of Westminster
to the Tower of London, and from the Tower to Allegate.
and so through the middle of the city to Elmes, and be
there hanged and afterwards drawn, for the robberies,
and homicides, and felonies which he had committed in
the realm of England and country of Scotland ; And
because he was an outlaw and had not been restored to
the King's peace, that he should be beheaded ; and
thereafter, for the vast injury he did to God and Holy
Church in burning churches, vessels, and biers, wherein
the bodies of the saints and relics of them were placed,
the heart, liver, and lungs, and all the inner parts of the
said William, whereout of such perverse imaginations-
preceded, should be cast into a fire and burned ; and
also, because he had done the foresaid sedition,
depredations, fire-raisings and homicides, and felonies,
not only to the said King, but to the whole people of
England and Scotland, the body of the said William
should be cut and divided into four quarters, and the
head set on the Bridge of London, in sight of those
passing both by land and water ; and one quarter
suspended on the gibbet at Newcastle-on-Tyne, another
quarter at Berwick, a third quarter at Stirling, and a
fourth quarter at St. Johnstoun, for the dread and
chastisement of all that pass by and behold them."