An alleged ancestor of our author, William de Monte Alto (Mouat),[189] took part in the patriotic resistance of Scotland against English oppression which is associated with the names of Bruce and Wallace, and the faint local traditions of that time partly corroborate Urquhart's statements. "This William," he says, "caried himself so lovingly towards King Robert, that when almost all Scotland was possest by King Edward's faction, and his lands at Cromartie altogether overrun by them, and his house garrisoned and victualed with three yeers provision of all necessaries for one hundred men, he by a stratagem gained the castle, and with the matter of fourty men, keept it out against the forces of Edward for the space of seven yeers and a half, during which time all his lands there were totally wasted, and his woods burnt; so that, having nothing then he could properly call his own but the mote-hill onely of Cromartie, which he fiercely maintained against the enemies, he was agnamed _Gulielmus de Monte Alto_. At last William Wallace came to his relief, but, as I conceive, it was the brother's son of the renowned William, who in a little den [or hollow] within two miles of Cromartie, till this hour called Wallace Den, killed six hundred of King Edward's unfortunate forces. Afterwards, raising the siege from about the mote-hill of Cromartie by the assistance of his namesake the other William, the shire of Cromarty was totally purged of the enemy."[190] Tradition, according to Hugh Miller, is silent respecting the siege, but relates many details of the battle. The Scottish forces lay in ambuscade in the ravine or hollow which is still, or was until recently, called by Wallace's name, and attacked a large body of English troops on their way to join some of their countrymen, who were encamped on the peninsula of Easter Ross. The English were surprised and panic-struck, and left six hundred dead on the field of battle. The survivors were unacquainted with the country, and were under the impression that there was continuous land between them and their countrymen on the opposite shore. "They were only undeceived," we are told, "when, on climbing the southern Sutor, where it rises behind the town, they saw an arm of the sea more than a mile in width, and skirted by abrupt and dizzy precipices, opening before them. The spot is still pointed out where they made their final stand; and a few shapeless hillocks, that may still be seen among the trees, are said to have been raised above the bodies of those who fell; while the fugitives, for they were soon beaten from this position, were either driven over the neighbouring precipices, or perished amidst the waves of the Firth."[191]