On entering the citadel, Bruce was informed by Mowbray, the English
governor, that he would find a lady there in a frightful state of
mental derangement, and who might need his protection. A question or
two from the victorious monarch told him that this was the Countess of
Strathearn. On the revolted abthanes having betrayed Wallace and his
country to England, the joy and ambition of the countess knew no
bounds; and hoping to eventually persuade Edward to adjudge to her the
crown, she made it apparent to the English king how useful would be her
services to Scotland; while with a plenary though secret mission, she
took her course through her native land, to discover who were inimical
to the foreign interest, and who, likely to promote her own; after this
circuit, she fixed her mimic court at Stirling, and living there in
real magnificence, exercised the functions of a vice-queen. At this
period intelligence arrived, which the governor thought would fill her
with exultation; and hastening to declare it, he proclaimed to her,
that the King of England's authority was now firmly established in
Scotland, for that on the twenty-third of August Sir William Wallace
had been executed in London, according to all the forms of law, upon
the Tower Hill!
On the full declaration of this event, she fell senseless on the floor.
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