But on the presentation of the Earl of Lincoln, his punishment was
mitigated from death to the infliction of a certain number of lashes.
This sentence, which the honest officer regarded as worse than the loss
of life, was executed. On stripping him at the halberts, Lady Helen's
gift, the diamond clasp, was found hanging round his neck; this was
seized as a proof of some new crime; his general now gave him up; and
so inconsistent were his judges, that while they allowed this treason
(for so they stigmatized his manly resentment of Heselrigge's cruelty)
to prejudice them in this second charge, they would not believe what
was so probable, that this very jewel had been given to him by a friend
of Sir William Wallace in reward for his behavior on that occasion. He
appealed to Edward, but he appealed in vain; and on the following day
he was adjudged to be broken on the wheel for the supposed robbery.
Every heart was callous to his sufferings, but that of the wife of his
jailer; who, fancying him like a brother of hers, who had been killed
ten years before in Italy, at the dead of the night she opened his
prison doors. He fled into Normandy; and, without a home, outlawed,
branded as a traitor and a thief, he was wandering half-desperate one
stormy night on the banks of the Marne, when a cry of distress
attracted his attention.
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