Braveheart: William Wallace

When Edward of England was asked to decide the Scottish succession by the feuding Scots nobility, he chose John Baliol. By the strict law of primogeniture Baliol had the best claim, but was by far the weakest candidate in terms of character and ability. It was during the reign of this most hapless of Scots monarchs that William Wallace came into his own, and with the combination of military skill and personal bravery, fought Edward's forces to a standstill.

For the purposes of plot, Braveheart telescoped events, but the most egregious example of Hollywood's twisting of historical fact comes in the purported relationship between the first Princess of Wales (Isabella of France), and the rebel Wallace. Medieval kings looked upon women as brood mares, who were to be tolerated only as long as they could provide suitable heirs. The idea that Edward I would dispatch his daughter-in-law to deal with a rebel that had already massacred an entire English army and invaded northern England is an incredible flight of fancy. The idea that Wallace would negotiate with a woman is equally absurd. Twentieth-century man still has trouble with the idea of feminine equality. To a thirteenth-century man it would be an impossibility.

Added to the unlikelihood that Isabella of France would ever have been sent on such a mission is the fact that the dates involved would preclude any chance that she and the Scotsman would ever have met, much less become personally involved. Isabella was born in 1292 in Paris - during the height of Wallace's depredations against the English. She was married to Edward II, King of England, in January 1308 at the age of sixteen - four years after Wallace's execution in London.

Did the romance between Isabella and William Wallace as portrayed in the movie enhance the plot? As an avid moviegoer, my answer would be yes. The story, taken as a whole, was riveting, and well deserved the Academy Awards it received. It was an honest portrayal of the struggle, triumph and ultimately tragic defeat of a great man. It showed the brutal nature of warfare in the days when hand-to-hand combat was the norm, and the barbaric forms of capital punishment which were reserved for those branded as traitors. Braveheart introduced the public to a man whom the Scottish people rightly revere as the symbol of their struggle to maintain their national identity. Mel Gibson's William Wallace emerges from

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