{36} The popular account of his early adventures given in the poem by Blind Harry (1490 ?) is of no historical value.

His men destroyed the English at Lanark (May 1297); he was abetted by Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, and the Steward; but by July 7, Percy and Clifford, leading the English army, admitted the Steward, Robert Bruce (the future king), and Wishart to the English peace at Irvine in Ayrshire.

But the North was up under Sir Andrew Murray, and "that thief Wallace" (to quote an English contemporary) left the siege of Dundee Castle which he was conducting to face Warenne on the north bank of the Forth.

On September 11, the English, under Warenne, manoeuvred vaguely at Stirling Bridge, and were caught on the flank by Wallace's army before they could deploy on the northern side of the river.

They were cut to pieces, Cressingham was slain, and Warenne galloped to Berwick, while the Scots harried Northumberland with great ferocity, which Wallace seems to have been willing but not often able to control.