Gloucester understood the object of such anguished solicitude, and
while Wallace again seated her, he revived her by a protestation, that
the clause she so fearfully deprecated, had been repealed by Edward.
But the good earl blushed as he spoke, for in this instance he said
what was not the truth. Far different had been the issue of all his
attempts at mitigation. The arrival of Athol from Scotland with
advices from the Countess of Strathearn, that Lady Helen Mar had fled
southward to raise an insurrection in favor of Wallace, and that Lord
Bothwell had gone to France to move Philip to embrace the same cause,
gave Edward so apt an excuse for giving full way to his hatred against
the Scottish chief, that he pronounced an order for the immediate and
unrestricted execution of his sentence. Artifice to mislead the French
embassadors with an idea that he was desirous to accord with their
royal master's wish, had been the sole foundation of his proposals to
Wallace. And his interview with Lady Helen, though so intemperately
conducted, was dictated by the same subtle policy.
When Gloucester found the impossibility of obtaining any further
respite from the murderous decree, he attempted to prevail for the
remission of the last clause, which ordered that his friend's noble
body should be dismembered, and his limbs sent, as terrors to
rebellion, to the four capital fortresses of Scotland.
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