George Neilson

“ It is a risk, notwithstanding, which both the critic and the criticized must run from the examination of sources wherever the theme is so tangible and ponderable as a historical figure. Especially is this search of quellen an inevitable element of the critic's task in cases where, as in Harry's Wallace, the claim to be a vitally true record differs so little from the historic 'soothfastness' which Barbour so solemnly declared as the design for which he wrote the Bruce. How deliberately Harry parallels it in the Wallace! ”

“ ON BLIND HARRY'S WALLACE
Poet and Quasi-Historian
The contrast between Barbour's Bruce, a poetical narrative of history written in 1375–6 on the one hand, and Blind Harry's Wallace on the other, is among the most interesting in literature. The exact date of the Wallace has not been ascertained beyond that it was after 1470 and before 1488. The personality of the author is dark: there is little in John Major's biographical paragraph [1] about him, and as little in the entries in the Treasurer's Accounts, [2] that would explain. A greater gulf than usual stands between the poem and the poet. ”

“ The phrase was radically a Lancastrian taunt, Scotland had long and with fair consistency favoured the red rose. Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI had once found shelter in exile at the Scottish court. The French and the Scots were leagued enemies of the house of York. Edward IV, the Yorkist victor, veritably enough a 'king of reyff' in England, had both by war and policy become a 'revare' in Scotland too and the country was up in arms. Of the national indignation Harry's poem is a passionate expression. ”

“ In all these respects it is far as the poles asunder from Barbour's Bruce, which, never vindictive or savage, achieves its purpose of patriotism in the spirit of chivalry without the incessant vengeance and refusal of quarter which make Harry's Wallace reek of the shambles. [116] Written in or about 1482 or 1483, the poem was shaped when Scotland and England were at war, when Edward IV, intriguing with the exiled Duke of Albany and Earl of Douglas, was the object of intense exasperation. He had supported Albany's pretension to the crown, and fomented every treason against the Scottish throne ”

“ Things otherwise in themselves void of offence stand on the perilous verge the moment the poem claims to be a record of truth. They prepare the way for adaptations emphatically unscrupulous. Some artfully dovetail into the true story of Bruce, as told by Barbour, incidents feigned or imagined regarding the career of Wallace. This is a delicate process for a poet to adopt if at the end of the day he is going to ask his readers ' Which, think you, is the greater hero of these twain? ”

“ Central and vital, however, to the consideration of the Wallace is its extraordinary relationship to the Bruce—a relation which it may not be much easier to parallel than to justify in certain of its ramifications. Harry's borrowings and adaptations from Barbour were many and of many kinds. On the count of diction the indebtednesses are infinite; lines by the score were 'lifted' and with an extra dissyllable thrown in to fill up the metre were transferred from the earlier poem, most notably perhaps in descriptions of battle. ”

“ Wallace's battles and exploits in the capture of castles again and again manifest the same extraordinary forestalling of the historical achievements of Bruce, and sometimes the adaptations display a coolness of daring unsurpassed in the dashing careers of Wallace and Bruce themselves. ”

“ To Ramsay the scribe we gratefully owe copies of both poems, but the proposition that he was 'redactor' of the Bruce and 'collaborator' in the Wallace would be sufficiently rebutted by the single line of objection that the texts show that he did not always quite understand either poem. [5] There are other texts which, though later in date, have many clearly correct readings where his are palpably corrupt. Such errors are not a privilege that can be conceded to the autograph either of poet or editor. Intelligible as a copyist's errors, they are untenable as editorial. ”

“ Brown into the sources of Harry, whether he had a collaborator or not.
The Wallace is a Renaissance heroic poem so curiously composite that one need never expect to trace all its elements. But many are patent, and their character is sufficient not only to bring into the literary contrast challenged by Dr. Craigie certain ethical factors which cannot be set aside, but also to show yet more fully than before the dependence of Harry's Wallace on Barbour's Bruce. ”

“ Historically Edward I was not in England; the poet makes him flee personally from battle with Wallace; he also makes him hold parliament at Pontefract. Historically the invasion never reached Yorkshire; in the poem Wallace makes his head-quarters for forty days at Northallerton, [68] and between that place and Malton a battle [69] is fought in which 7,000 men, under Sir Rauff Rymunt, are defeated and Sir Rauff is slain. ”

“ The rivals were not to be weighed against each other by the sole balance of truth, the nil nisi verum which history—a trifle unreasonable sometimes in its standpoint to literature—might seek to apply, regardless of wrong to that imaginative faculty which ranks so high among poetic gifts. ”

“ But it is not in these incidental adaptations of earlier poetical episodes or ideas that the peculiar quality of Harry consists. Mr. Joseph Bain was well within the mark when he said [20] that a great part of the Wallace was 'plagiarized from Barbour '. How remarkable a fact this is will appear the more when we recall the deliberate challenge of comparison which Harry makes between his hero and the Bruce:
All worthi men that has gud witt to waille,
Be war that yhe with myss deyme nocht my taille,
Perchance ye say that Bruce he was none sik? ”

“ Made in May, 1323, not exactly at Northallerton but at Thorpe, not far away in Yorkshire, it was a truce for thirteen years. [94] In the negotiations [95] which led to it there was trouble about the terms of recognition of Bruce himself, and early in the following year there was keen discussion at the papal court with Edward II over the title of king which had at first been refused to Bruce—an element which convincingly accounts for the curious and otherwise unintelligible tale of the crown and title of king to be borne by Wallace in the poem. ”

“ Closely analogous is criticism by scrutiny of sources: the scalpel may lay bare every bone and muscle, but its action may arrest the blood, and most likely will fail to discover any trace whatever of the soul. ”

“ In Yorkshire Harry's English geography appears to have been exhausted; the next place he knows south of York is St. Albans, where Edward's queen—
Weill born scho was off the rycht blud off France—
comes to beg for peace to be granted to her pusillanimous husband and his oppressed realm (viii. 1114.) After negotiation Wallace foregoes his claim of battle and agrees to peace, declining, however, to seal any treaty until he again reaches Northallerton, [79] where at last
Thai seyllyt the pes without langar delay. ”

“ William Bunnock in the Bruce uses a stratagem to seize Linlithgow, and in Wallace the hero by the same hay-wain stratagem captures Perth. [49] Bruce having, as above noted, won Linlithgow by an ambush against its 'peill' [50] —constructed, as we know, [51] in 1301—Harry naturally deemed it well to make Wallace take the 'peyll' too, [52] notwithstanding its having been set up after Wallace's brilliant but brief season of victory was ended. Plagiarism is not nearly the word for such literary pillage. Harry nearly uproots Barbour. ”

“ This fierce proceeding [100] will recall the episode in Scott's Quentin Durward, [101] the suggestion for which was the actual sending of a false herald [102] by Louis XI to Edward IV in 1475.
Something, although not much, can be deduced from certain indications of particular knowledge of local institutions; those alone crucial are such as concern the burgh and county of Perth. The poet had a peculiar interest in the town of Perth and its vicinity, and also in its institutions. ”

“ Some allusions may be roughly, and some almost exactly, dated. Sleuth hounds of Esk and Liddell referred to [30] were a special feature of the debatable border land, more developed in the fifteenth century than before. To the same general period belongs the glove stretched out as a sign of truce. [31] More definite hint of date is given by the ceremonial of 'bauchilling' of King Edward's seal. When Edward failed to keep his word and give battle, Wallace ”

“ As literature it requires an almost deranged patriotism to accept as worthy of the noble memory of Sir William Wallace so vitiated a tribute.
Geo. Neilson.
↑ John Major's Historia, lib. iv. cap. 15. ↑ Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol. I. xcix. 133, 174, 176, 181, 184. ↑ Mr. J. T. T. Brown's The Wallace and The Bruce Restudied, Bonn, 1900, P. Hanstein's Verlag. ↑ G. Neilson's John Barbour, Poet and Translator, Kegan Paul, 1900, reprinted from the Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. for 1899–1902 ”