In these years Bruce alternately served Edward and conspired against him; the intricacies of his perfidy are deplorable.
Bruce served Edward during the siege of Stirling, then the central key of the country.

On its surrender Edward admitted all men to his peace, on condition of oaths of fealty, except "Messire Williame le Waleys." Men of the noblest Scottish names stooped to pursue the hero: he was taken near Glasgow, and handed over to Sir John Menteith, a Stewart, and son of the Earl of Menteith.

As Sheriff of Dumbartonshire, Menteith had no choice but to send the hero in bonds to England.

But, if Menteith desired to escape the disgrace with which tradition brands his name, he ought to have refused the English blood-price for the capture of Wallace.
He made no such refusal.

As an outlaw, Wallace was hanged at London; his limbs, like those of the great Montrose, were impaled on the gates of various towns.
What we really know about the chief popular hero of his country, from documents and chronicles, is fragmentary; and it is hard to find anything trustworthy in Blind Harry's rhyming "Wallace" (1490), plagiarised as it is from Barbour's earlier poem (1370) on Bruce.