Against this terrible force, before which in the succeeding reign the military power of France was compelled to bow, Bruce had to array the scanty troops of a barren land and the divided force of a turbulent nobility. Scotland was in his time fallen low, indeed, from that state of peace and prosperity in which she was found at the first invasion of Edward I, and on which so much light has been thrown by the ingenious research of our own times. The disputed succession had sowed the seeds of inextinguishable jealousies among the nobles. The gold of England had corrupted many to betray their country’s cause; and the fatal ravages of English invasion had desolated the whole plains, from which resources for carrying on the war could be drawn. All the heroic valor, the devoted patriotism, and the personal prowess of Wallace had been unable to stem the torrent of English invasion; and when he died the whole nation seemed to sink under the load against which his unexampled fortitude had long enabled it to struggle. These unhappy jealousies among the nobles, to which his downfall was owing, still continued and almost rendered hopeless any attempt to combine their forces; while the thinned population and ruined husbandry of the country seemed to prognosticate nothing but utter extirpation from a continuance of the war. Nor was the prospect less melancholy from a consideration of the combats which had taken place. The short spear and light shield of the Scotch had been found utterly unavailing against the iron panoply and powerful horses of the English barons, while the hardy and courageous mountaineers perished in vain under the dreadful tempest of the English archery. What, then, must have been the courage of the youthful prince, who, after having been driven for shelter to an island on the north of Ireland, could venture with only forty followers to raise the standard of independence in Scotland against the accumulated force of this mighty power! What the resources of that understanding, which, though intimately acquainted from personal service with the tried superiority of the English arms, could foresee in his barren and exhausted country the means of combatting them! What the ability of that political conduct which could reunite the jarring interests and smother the deadly feuds of the Scottish nobles! And what the capacity of that noble warrior who, in the words of the contemporary historian,[22] could “unite the prowess of the first knight to the conduct of the greatest general of his age,” and was able in the space of six years to raise the Scottish arms from the lowest point of depression to such a pitch of glory that even the redoubted archers and haughty chivalry of England fled at the sight of the Scottish banner!