Text: Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won. Then never live within the bond of slavery, my son. -- Favorite verse of William Wallace
A few months back, a new movie based on Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe was shown on cable. In it, Richard the Lionhearted was portrayed as a rather normal looking English lord, who travelled alone, helped the Saxons against the Normans and spoke English fluently.
The reality about Richard the Lionhearted was that he wasn't English at all. He was a Frenchman. He spoke French exclusively. That also meant he was a Norman. That he was extraordinarily tall for the period, standing almost six feet six inches. That he usually travelled with other men, and is now assumed by scholars to have been most definitely homosexual. And that he really only spent about six months total in England during his ten-year reign.
But you couldn't really complain about the movie because it was an accurate portrayal of the original novel. It wasn't supposed to be factual. I mean, after all, Scott even had Robin Hood fighting for Richard!
But the movie Braveheart was supposed to be a factual account of the life of William Wallace, so it should have been more accurate. It wasn't. About the only thing historically accurate about the movie was the manner of Wallace's execution. Everything else was altered rather drastically from the historical facts.
The sad thing is, the history is in many ways far more romantic than the movie.
This morning I'd like to give you a history of William Wallace in order to set the record straight.
The movie begins with Wallace as a scrawny little kid, always dirty, who lives in a mud dugout in the Scottish hills. He becomes a rebel when the English kill his wife. He goes to war against the English and wins the battle of Stirling Castle by using long spears against the armored knights. He ends up having an affair with Isabella of France, Edward II's queen and becoming the father of Edward III! Meanwhile, Robert Bruce's father (who has leprosy) forces Bruce to betray Wallace and support the English.
None of these things is true. Quickly, let me set the record straight and then I'll give you a history of Wallace.
1. Wallace is a scrawny, dirty little child who lives in a hovel.
Regrettably, the image of the Scots as poor ignorant peasants is the image the English have been portraying of the Scottish for many years. Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines oats as "A grain fed in Scotland to people and in England to horses," which was his way of putting down the Scots.
Actually, the Scotland of Wallace's period was quite wealthy. There had been a century of peace and numerous large cathedrals and palaces had been built. Wallace was the younger son of a landed Scottish knight, which means he owned property. Wallace was not a peasant at all.
Plus, it's doubtful that Wallace was ever "scrawny" like the kid in the movie. When full grown, he stood 6 feet 7 inches tall and powerfully built. As a child, he must have been a very big child indeed.
2. Wallace becomes a rebel when the English try to rape and then kill his wife.
Actually, by the time he was married, he was already a rebel against the English. One time when he went to visit her, he was attacked by an English patrol. He ran to her home and tried to hide but the soldiers discovered him there and he escaped out the back door. In retaliation, the home was burned and his wife was killed. It didn't make Wallace a rebel but it made him and even more fierce enemy of the English.
3. Wallace won the battle of Stirling Castle by using long spears against the English knights.
The battle of Stirling Castle was won by English stupidity instead. The Scots were encamped on one side of a river, with a single bridge between them and the armored knights. Wallace had no horsemen at all and was outnumbered. The English attacked by marching two by two over the bridge. Wallace simply let half get across and then sent men to cut the wooden bridge down under the rest. The fight was on a marshy field and the knights didn't have a chance.
4. Wallace had an affair with Isabella, Henry II's queen, and fathers the future Henry III
. First of all, Wallace was executed in 1305, three years before Isabella and Henry II were married. Edward III was born in 1312, seven years after Wallace's death. In fact, Isabella was only 13 years old when Wallace died. The sweet little woman depicted in the movie is quite unlike the actual Isabella, called the "She- wolf of France," who personally murdered her husband with a hot poker so it would leave no marks on the body.
5. Robert the Bruce's father has leprosy and forces the younger man to betray Wallace.
Robert the Bruce himself had a skin disease, probably psoriasis but thought at the time to be leprosy. His father was long dead by the time of the story. The Bruce couldn't have "betrayed" Wallace because he and Wallace actually were fighting on opposite sides much of the time, since Wallace supported John Balliol as king of Scotland instead of Bruce.
When William Wallace was born (probably around 1272, the second son of a knight named Sir Malcolm Wallace), Alexander III, King of Scotland, was still on the throne. Scotland had enjoyed peace for 100 years and looked forward to peace for a long time to come. Alexander III's wife, Margaret, had provided three children, Alexander, David and Margaret, so the throne seemed secure.
However, the queen died in 1275. Their second son David died in 1281. Alexander, the heir, died in 1284 and Margaret, who had been married to Eric II, the young king of Norway, died in 1286. Suddenly, Alexander realized he had no heir and if he died without an heir, the country could be thrown into civil war.
Alexander married Yolande, daughter of the Count of Dreux, in 1284. Two years later, after a long bout of drinking, he decided to ride from Edinburgh to his home in Kinghorn 20 miles north. It was dark and the high winds knocked him from his horse and he fell down a cliff and died. Yolande announced she was pregnant with Alexander's child, but soon it became apparent she wasn't pregnant.
The throne was up for grabs. Down in England, King Edward I, called Longshanks, offered to mediate the dispute. Alexander had been his brother-in-law and the Scots thought Edward to be a friend of Scotland.
As it turned out, there was another heir to the throne. In Norway lived Alexander's grand-daughter, also named Margaret, who was only three years old. Her father, Eric II, was only about 16 years old. Edward ruled that she was the new queen of Scotland and that she should be enthroned and betrothed to his six-year- old son, the future Edward II.
Everyone agreed that Margaret, the "Maid of Norway," would be queen. A group of guardians was established to rule Scotland for her. Among them were John Comyn and Robert Bruce, called Robert the Competitor.
Now, Edward sent a ship to Norway to fetch the new queen back. He loaded the ship with 28 pounds of gingerbread and with sweetmeats and rich fruit. Eric II, however, decided to send Margaret to Scotland on his own ship, by way of the islands of Orkney and Shetland (then under Norse rule). The stormy seas and the long journey were too much for the small girl and she died before they ever reached land.
The "Maid of Norway" or "Damsel of Scotland" never set foot on Scottish soil.
Now, things were really getting thorny in Scotland. Thirteen different people claimed the throne, two of them major players. These were John Balliol and Robert Bruce, both of Norman lineage. They claimed descent from David, brother of King William of Scotland. Balliol was grandson of David's oldest daughter and Bruce was son of David's second daughter.
Edward left for Scotland to decide among the claimants. On the voyage north, his wife Eleanor died suddenly from a fever. Edward returned to England to bury her. People said she had always been a moderating influence on Edward, keeping his cruel streak under control. Now, without this control, he seemed to change personalities.
When Longshanks left for Scotland the second time, he too a large contingent of nobles with him, and ordered his army to march quietly for the Scottish border. In Scotland, he insisted that every claimant to the throne must swear loyalty to him as their feudal lord. The Scots asked for time to consider the matter and he granted them three weeks. By the time the deadline was reached, Edward's army was poised to strike into Scotland. The claimants all swore allegiance to him.
He then chose John de Balliol to be king of Scotland, mainly because Balliol was a weak-willed individual and Edward felt certain he could control him. Robert the Bruce refused to recognize Balliol and assigned his rights to the throne to his son, another Robert Bruce, who in turn assigned his rights to his son, also Robert Bruce. Over the next few years, Edward worked to destroy John I of Scotland and to exercise more and more control over Scotland, posting troops there and taking over major castles throughout the country.
When all this took place, William Wallace was around 14 years old. William, second of three sons, was born in Elerslie. He was a large man, standing six feet 7 inches tall and very strong. In 1286, his father, Malcolm Wallace, took part in an action of revolt against English rule that never really too place. William might have gone along as page to his father.
Around this time, William was sent to live with an uncle, a younger brother of his father, who was a priest at Cambuskenneth Abbey in Stirlingshire. Here, he studied Latin and French and was noted as an accomplished scholar. Here also he came to cherish the classical idea of liberty above all else. He was headed for the priesthood and the life of a classicist when fate took a part in his life.
His father, Malcolm Wallace, was in a group of Scotsmen who were ambushed at Loudoun Hill in Irvine. Malcolm was killed by an Englishman named Fenwick. The 19-year-old Wallace prepared to leave the church and return home. A few months later he got an opportunity to strike back.
The castle at Dundee was ruled by an Englishman (Brian Fitz-Alan of Bedale) and under the control of an English constable named Selby, who was noted for the number of Scotsmen he had killed. Selby's son, about William's age, and a band of his friends began taunting William one December day in 1291.
They were obviously trying to pick a fight (armed with swords against William's dirk), so Wallace obliged. He stabbed the younger Selby to death. A crowd of Scots gathered round and Selby's friends couldn't draw their swords. Wallace killed or wounded most of them and then fled to his uncle's home. The housekeeper dressed him in a cloak and set him at a spinning- wheel, so when the English soldiers came by to look for him, they saw only two elderly women.
William Wallace became a hunted man. For the next few years, he led a form of guerilla warfare against the English. He operated from many places, but primarily from the Leglen Wood on the banks of the River Ayr.
In 1297, he was secretly married to Marrian Braidfoot at the church of St. Kentigern in Lanark. One day, on the way to see her, he was ambushed by an English patrol. He fled to Marrian's home and then left out the back door as they broke in through the front. In retaliation, the Sheriff of Lanark, Sir William de Hezelrig, ordered the house burned down and its occupants slain.
William Wallace gathered his followers together and they attacked the English fort, killing the garrison and its leader, the sheriff. This was the first time, one of the English noblemen had been killed by the Scots and it drew the attention of the masses, who quickly joined Wallace's forces.
This was the time that Edward Longshanks had forced John Balliol off the throne of Scotland and taken direct control of the nation. Another Scotsman, Andrew Murray, had also began fighting the English in the Highlands, in support of John Balliol. Murray and Wallace joined forces.
Another new recruit was Sir William Douglas, who had commanded the Castle at Berwick. Edward Longshanks sent the young Robert Bruce to quell the rebellion but he decided to join it. Now Edward dispatched an English army. Wallace and Murray were ready to fight but the Scottish lords decided to negotiate, so Wallace and Murray withdrew.
The problem was that the Scots were still divided. Wallace and his people felt they were supporting John Balliol, King of Scotland. Bruce wanted to be king himself (which he would one day become). And Douglas just wanted to get the English out.
With the surrender of the Scottish nobles, Wallace and Murray had to fight the English alone. Within a few months, they had captured Inverness, Elgin, Nabff, Aberdeen, Irvine, Fife and Dundee. In fact, they now controlled all of Scotland north of the Firth of Forth.
The river and firth of Forth almost divide Scotland in half, stretching from east to west almost to the other coast. The Earl of Surray, Viceroy of Scotland, amassed a large army, including a great many armored knights, and marched for Stirling, where there was a bridge over the Forth. Wallace and Murray, with mainly foot soldiers moved to face the English there.
At Stirling, the Forth makes a loop. A bridge crossed the river at a rocky point called Abbey Craig. On either side was swampland, practically surrounded by the Forth. The Scots camped on the rock and the English took the south side. Surray was confident of victory because he knew no army of foot soldiers had ever been able to defeat heavy cavalry.
Two Scottish nobles, James Stewart and the Earl of Lennox, were in the area but didn't want to join the battle for fear of being wiped out by the English. They tried to negotiate a truce but Wallace refused.
The next morning, September 11, 1297, the English attacked. The only way was across the bridge, so they charged over the bridge, two by two. Wallace's forces waited until about half the cavalry were across and then attacked. One detachment cut down the wooden bridge and effectively cut off most of the English from attacking. The rest of the army was destroyed.
Surray, seeing the loss, turned and fled for safety. At this point, the Scottish barons chose to attack the English as well.
Murray was mortally wounded, however, so Wallace had to carry on alone.
In March of 1298, Wallace was knighted at Selkirk Abbey in Tor Wood (some people think by Robert the Bruce) and appointed Guardian of Scotland. He now consolidated Scottish control of Scotland, but Edward Longshanks led another large army to Scotland.
Wallace used a tactic known as shiltrons, in which his soldiers formed squares with spears pointing out on all sides. He hope this would help him fight the heavy cavalry of the English.
He met Edward's army at Falkirk in June. The English army had 2500 heavy cavalry and 12,000 foot soldiers, far outnumbering the Scottish forces. Edward also had longbowmen and the Scots only had short bows. Edward divided his cavalry into four units and outflanked the Scots. When the shiltrons held back the cavalry, Edward simply brought in longbowmen who decimated the Scotch ranks.
Wallace barely escaped with his life, and soon afterward resigned as Guardian. The English could not, however, conquer Scotland.
For the next seven years, Wallace again operated as a guerilla fighter from the Scottish forests, keeping out of sight from the English. He also traveled to Rome and to France to enlist support against the English. He almost succeeded. Philip of France was at one point ready to intervene on behalf of John Balliol. To prevent that, Robert the Bruce made peace with Edward, which left Scotland again open to invasion.
The French king now faced rebellion in his own land, so he also made peace with Edward, and pledged his daughter, Isabella, to Edward's young son, the future Edward II.
Edward now invaded Scotland again, this time, with the Scottish nobles divided, he conquered the country easily. One of the terms of surrender was that Wallace be turned over to him. On August 3, 1305, Wallace was tricked into attending a meeting at the home of Robert Rae, a servant of Sir John Mentieth. He was captured by the Scots and turned over to the English.
He was taken to London and tried for treason, a charge he insisted was impossible because he had never sworn allegiance to the English king. He was convicted anyway, and cruelly executed on the same day, August 22, 1305. His last words were supposed to have been the motto of his family, Pro Libertate -- for freedom.
Soon after Wallace's death, Robert the Bruce again broke with Edward I and led a revolt against the English. The success of this revolt was only brought about by the death of Edward I two years later. The new Edward II was not at all interested in Scotland and more interested in partying. Robert the Bruce was named Robert I, king of Scotland.
Wallace is remembered as the one person in the period who stayed loyal to the idea of Scottish independence. He never wavered and never sold out to the English. Without his efforts, Scottish independence might never have been won.
Throughout his life, he was marked by a fervent desire for freedom, both for himself and for his people. Although every other leader of the period succumbed to the twin temptations of greed and lust for power, William Wallace never did so. He accepted the title of Guardian only because he was the only one with an army large enough to defend Scotland. And he resigned the title when he no longer felt he could effectively do so.
Although he had been born the younger son of a knight, and was later knighted after Stirling Bridge, Wallace is always remembered by the Scots as a commoner. He never lived in a palace and never vaunted his title. As far as we know, he lived simply, like the people who fought with him and any money that came to him he gave to his soldiers.
His motto is one that could be meaningful to us today: Pro Libertate -- For Freedom!
Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won.
Then never live within the bond of slavery, my son.
Blessed Be!