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Braveheart: William Wallace

© Wendy J. Dunn

"William Wallace, a runaway from righteousness, a robber, a committer of sacrilege, an arsonist and a murderer, more cruel than Herod and more debauched in his insanity than Nero." Matthew of Westminster, The Flores Historiarum

In the Academy Award-winning movie, Braveheart, Robert the Bruce states "…history is written by those who have hanged heroes." Although Hollywood played fast and loose with historical fact in order to make the story more compelling, the truth of Bruce's statement remains. Even Thomas B. Costain, (author of The Three Edwards, third volume of his series on the Plantagenet kings) treats the subject of Wallace with neglect, relegating this freedom fighter to the status of a footnote in history. In reality, William Wallace was of great concern to Edward I, (Longshanks) costing the English monarch time, treasure and lives in his quest to conquer the Scots.

William Wallace was born around the year 1267, second son of the Scottish middle-class landowner Sir Malcolm Wallace. As a second son, he was not entitled to inherit either lands or status from his father, and he received a church education. It isn't known if his father intended him to enter into holy orders (the church was a haven for the have-nots of primogeniture), but Wallace entered manhood able to read and write in three languages: Scots Gaelic, French, and Latin.

Contemporary descriptions of Wallace agree that he was of gigantic stature, just a few inches shy of seven feet tall. His sword, which is on display in a Scottish museum, was over 60 inches long, which tends to bear out the eyewitness testimony. From the start, William Wallace was first and foremost a freedom fighter and patriot, struggling to keep Scotland independent from the grasp of the English king.

The movie correctly identified the clash of wills between Wallace and Edward I. Edward was the foremost soldier of his day, and spent many years of his reign fighting in France trying to regain the provinces lost by his father and grandfather. The traditional enmity between the Scots and the English began long before the Norman Conquest: intermittent war and constant raiding across the border was the norm. Edward had tried diplomacy, even going to the extreme of betrothing his heir to the granddaughter of Alexander III of Scotland (who had no male heir), in the hope that he could secure his northern border. After Alexander's death, the little Scots queen was on her way from her native Norway when she took sick and died, thus ending Edward's hope of a dynastic union of the two thrones.

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