BRAVEHEART....FACT AND FICTION PAGE 2


 




Pro Libertate



                               

                    The 5'6" Sword of William Wallace






The Man, The Legend, The Movie, The 
Facts













 






The movie Braveheart opens showing Sir Malcolm Wallace and his
oldest son, also Malcolm, riding off to a secret meeting.  This may
be true in as much that at time there were many such meetings taking
place throughout Scotland.   What is liberty is that Sir Malcolm and
his son were not hanged at one such meeting, but died in battle when
William was a young man.  Also, his mother and younger brother were
still very much alive.



This takes us to point no. two.  Wallace went
to stay with the brother of his father not because he was orphaned,
but because he, as the second son, would not inherit lands and title.
 The uncle was in the clergy, which at the time, was the  the place
for younger sons to get both education and power.  Young William
would stay with the uncle, whose name is not known, for 3 years,
until the age of 17.





















William did not start his fight with over a woman as the movie shows! 
Whether, or not, there ever was one woman, I have yet to find out.  I
will let you know when I do.  His actual first outlaw act was when he
was about 19 yrs. of age. Sir Malcolm Wallace and his oldest son,
also Malcolm, had returned from their exile to the north.  Rioting
and isolated battles had broken out all over Scotland, resulting in
ambush-style battles.  Sir Malcolm was killed in one such battle,
leaving Malcolm Jr. as the family head.  This also left William's
mother devastated.



William grew up seeing his kinfolk being split
and killed by infighting caused by the English.  It became too much
to sit about by the bindings of the church as his father was killed
by Fenwick, his mother and younger brother exiled, and kinsmen were
being killed.   He shrugged off those bindings to his Uncle and the
Church, and picked up his sword! 



The first teachings of William Wallace would have been about liberty, the
right of the individual, and the right to own land.  As a Scot
wanting to protect these rights, his first blow for his family and
these rights was not far off.  The castle Dundee was under English
rule, headed by a constable named Selby, who had a thirst for blood,
especially Scot blood.  His son, just a bit older than William,
caught site of the rather large young man in a crowd one day, pulled
him aside, and started ridiculing him about his attire.  Mind you,
Selby was accompanied by a group of his English friends and probably
felt bigger than he actually was!  When Selby basically demanded the
nice dirk in William's belt, William gave it to him!  As young Selby
died, the crowd gathered in to see, making it difficult for the
English irritators to make a move on Wallace.  It also gave Wallace a
chance to wound or kill most of the gang with his dirk and make his
escape.



William ran to his uncle's house, where the
housekeeper threw a red cloak about him and sat him hunched in a
corner by a spinning wheel.  As the English guards hunted for
Wallace, they did not stop at the house
of his uncle, for all they saw were two old women spinning and
weaving.  That afternoon, the warrant for William Wallace went out
with the threat that if the town did not give up this man who, by
description, could only be William Wallace, the whole town would be
burnt to the ground! 





















AUTHOR'S NOTE!  Sorry this is taking so long, but I
hope you will find it worth the wait!












































 












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