William Wallace: The Real Story Of The 13th-Century Freedom Fighter | Heroes Of Scotland | Chronicle

Sir William Wallace, Patriot, the national hero of Scotland. He had fought valiantly for the freedom of his country, but he now found himself on trial for his life. The charge? High treason. Speak! I never swore fealty to Edward. You bring me here for an act of judicial murder! Fired with a spirit of independence. Knowing what he did, he did not just bondsmen in service to some. You do not! But a free man! Marching and fighting and dying for their own sakes! Their homes, their nation! The men who follow William Wallace choose to do so! Edward's men fight well, but they take up arms upon instruction to fight for a prize most craved by their master! We are not soldiers! Yet we fight for a prize far greater than any crown or pretty bobble that Edward might dream of. We fight for freedom! Politicians and polemicists have argued that Wallace's story and the story of Scotland's struggle for independence are one and the same. If so, then both tales can be said to commence on a windswept cliff path some ten years before William Wallace emerges as a principal player in the history of Scotland. When Alexander, your king, was deed that Scotland laid in loch and lee away with sons of ale and breed of wine and wax, of gaming and glee. On the night of the 19th of March, 1286 Alexander III, the last of Scotland's Celtic kings rode from Edinburgh to join his wife at Kinghorn, Fife. His horse stumbling, the great man was thrown falling to his death over the steep cliff face. His body was found on the rocks the following morning. Scotland had prospered during Alexander's mostly peaceful reign. His line, that of Malcolm Canmore and St Margaret was less fortunate. His only surviving heir, Margaret, the maid of Norway three years old at the time of her succession died without ever setting foot on Scottish soil. With the passing of the House of Canmore it was not long before the Scots nobles began squabbling over the crown. All in all, there were 13 competitors for the Scots throne. Fearing civil war, the guardians of Scotland invited Edward I of England to preside over an inquiry as to which of the Scots nobles had the strongest claim. He chose John Balliol, son-in-law to Edward de Warren Earl of Surrey, one of his most trusted generals. In return for his support, the English king demanded allegiance and custody of the most important Scottish castles. Many such concessions were granted. Enthroned at Scone on St Andrew's Day 1292 Balliol soon found his southern neighbours' continual demands and interventions intolerable. When the English king demanded the service of Scots troops to help wage war in France the community of the realm compelled Balliol to abrogate his allegiance to Edward advocating, in turn, a renewal of the Auld Alliance with France. Edward's response was swift and severe. He commanded that Surrey lead an army of invasion against his royal son-in-law. At that time Scotland had two armies a feudal force of landowners obliged to provide a knight and a handful of followers for any conflict and the army proper consisting of any adult males with the strength to take up arms. Neither had taken the field since Alexander's victory at the Battle of Largs some 30 years past. The English, on the other hand, had just successfully conquered Wales. It was to prove a great mismatch. The feudal army was routed at Dunbar and John Balliol was forced to flee. In July 1296 he surrendered to Edward's forces at Strecathro and, stripped of his royal insignia, was imprisoned within the Tower of London. Imposing direct rule and taxation Edward now claimed outright overlordship over Scotland demanding that each Scots noble and landowner swear an oath of allegiance to the English crown. Each in turn was required to add his name to a declaration acknowledging his right to rule. A document guaranteeing obedience to Edward and to Surrey, the newly proclaimed Governor of Scotland. It was to become known to later generations by the scornful title, The Ragman's Roll. Those that refused to sign found their lands, titles and even their lives forfeit. One such man was William Wallace. Born in 1270, the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, Renfrewshire, William did not emerge from obscurity until the age of 27. For many of the details of his early life we are dependent on the work of Henry, or Blind Harry, the minstrel. Although Harry wrote his great ballad nearly two centuries after the death of Wallace, he claimed as his authority a contemporary Latin work by John Blair. Sadly, this account has not survived the passing of ages. Blind Harry, therefore, is the best source we have concerning the life of William Wallace. Blind Harry's epic poem, The Wallace, associates the young William's early years with Dundee and Ayrshire. He is said to have trained for the priesthood in Dundee, but as the poem is not a primary source, we do need to treat it with some caution. Some facts are more certain. In May 1297, leading a small band of men, Wallace burned Lanark and killed the English sheriff, Hazelbury. According to legend, he did so either to avenge the death of his wife or the wife of one of his comrades. Now with the price on his head, Wallace retreated to the comparative safety of the Ettrick Forest. There, to plan a guerrilla campaign against Surrey's officers and those loyal to Sir Hugo de Cressingham, Edward's treasurer in Scotland. News of his revolt spread quickly. And we came to him, fired with the spirit of independence, sure in the knowledge that what we did, we did not as bondsmen in service to some feudal maester, but as free men, marching and fighting and dying for ourselves, our families. History Hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans. Enjoy our rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations of the medieval period. History Hit's medieval offering features leading historians such as Dan Jones, Eleanor Janega and Kat Jarman. Not only that, but we have a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period of history through our network of podcasts. Sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code CHRONICLE at checkout. Our nation. I followed the Wallace aye, but no as a vassal. I followed proud William because I chose to do so. We must have made a pretty sight. A ragbag army of half-starved farmers, tanners, hammermen and the like. Hardly a soldier among us. Governor Surrey's men laughed when we first took arms against them. How could so feeble a force pose any threat to the might of the overlord? They didnae laugh long. Edward Longshank's men were good soldiers, aye, but they fought only because they were told to fight. Aye, smart greed of an only crowner, pretty bauble of the English. We fought for our freedom. Cheered by his example, more and more ordinary men put down the tools of their trades and joined the resistance. This was conflict through choice rather than feudal obligation, fought by a people's army. As Wallace fought in the south, so did Andrew de Moray in the north. Like Wallace, Moray had refused to sign the rankman's role and suffered the consequences of the rebellion. Their victories were few and fought with their dearest blood. But against all expectations, the rebels endured, a thorn in the side of the English king. Surrey determined to put an end to the rebels once and for all. In August 1297, the English army set out from Berwick, led by Sir Richard Lundy, Sir Hugo de Cressingham, and, at their head, Governor Surrey himself, 10,000 foot soldiers, 500 cavalry. Surrey was sure that he could easily brush aside any resistance he might chance upon. On 10 September, the English army set up camp on the south bank of the River Forth. The rebels, outnumbered five to one, readied themselves atop Stirling's Abbey Craig, under the joint command of Wallace and de Moray. This posed something of a problem. To the west of Stirling, the Forth was bounded by peat bogs, and to the east, the waters flowed too wide and too fast to be crossed without boats. There was, of course, a ford some miles downstream, but de Cressingham, reluctant to waste further time, and the king's coin, and confident of success, insisted that the English force would cross via the Stirling Bridge, a rickety wooden structure so narrow that only two horsemen could cross abreast of one another. A fatal error. As dawn broke the next morning, we took our positions on the rock, watching as the English cavalry began their slow march across the narrow walkway. Suddenly they stopped dead in their tracks, turned slowly about, and set off back the way they came. The Earl o' Surrey, it seems, had overslept and sent word that the battle was not to start without him. In time they resumed their crossing, with de Cressingham now riding at their head. We watched and waited as the first horsemen began to alight on the north bank. Many of us pleaded with our leaders to give the order to advance, to let us fall upon the enemy before we were outnumbered. Wallace stood his ground. Be patient, he said, or all may be lost. More came, spreading out below us, glinting in the sunlight. Only when the enemy was split in two by the river was the command given to attack, and only then did we see why proud William had urged us to bide our time. For other arms in great numbers, the English were trapped. With us bearing down on them from above, and the bog pinning them in on either side, they had nowhere to go but back the way they came, across the bridge. Many turned on their heels, driving headlong into the still advancing forces of Lundy and Surrey. More and more piled onto the wooden walkway, the bridge growing in under their great weight. Suddenly its supports gave way, plunging its burden into the waters of the Forth. Those English knights who had remained upon the north bank were forced into the bog or slaughtered where they stood. Surrey was forced to watch from the other side. It is said that decrescing him, whose taxes had stripped the shirts from the backs of many a poor Scot, was one of the first to fall. Wallace, with ironic savagery, had the skin flayed from his body and had it decorate the baldric of his sword. English losses were enormous, their host retreating southwards. Scottish losses were few, although de Moray was fatally wounded, dying some two months after the battle. Now hailed as the people's champion, Wallace went on to reclaim Berwick and raid the territories of Northumberland. In March of 1298, he was made Guardian of the Realm in the name of the deposed King John Balliol. He attempted to muster military and financial support from the continent, particularly from Rome and the German cities of the Hanseatic League, asking their assistance in the liberation of Scotland, but none came. And time was running out for Wallace. Edward made plans to reoccupy his troublesome northern lands and establish himself, once and for all, as the Hammer of the Scots. In the spring of 1298, Edward himself led his army northwards to meet with Wallace's host at Falkirk on the 11th of July. The small cavalry force available to him, under the command of Sir John Comyn, proved ineffective, and the Scots spearsmen were forced to bear the brunt of the conflict. Their packed ranks made an easy target for the English longbow, and the Scots army dispersed under a hail of arrows as fierce as that which would later be loosed at Agincourt. Defeated, his country again overrun by Edward's forces, Wallace resigned his position as Guardian and, early in 1299, fled for France. By doing so, he hoped to enlist support for his cause in Scotland, but it was to no avail. With Wallace gone, in the years which followed, more and more of the Scots nobles seemed prepared to accept the authority of the English overlord. Former rebels, such as John Comyn, negotiated good terms with England and served on Edward's Scottish council, appointed to manage the land, not the kingdom. So Wallace's decision to return to his homeland in 1303 was a risky venture from the start. For many months, he lived the life of a fugitive, attempting to rekindle support for the rebellion, until, in 1305, he was finally betrayed and captured by Sir John de Menteith, Sheriff of Dumbarton at Robroyston. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this was the work of Robert the Bruce. Menteith, a Scot, had originally opposed Edward, but, after imprisonment in 1296, threw in his lot with the invader and was appointed Keeper of Dumbarton Castle and Earl of Lennox. Dispatched as a prisoner to London, Sir William Wallace was detained at Westminster Hall. There, to be tried on a charge of high treason. Sir William Wallace of Eldersley, you stand here accused of the most heinous crime of treason against the realm of His Most Gracious Majesty King Edward. How do you plead? Still plead, man. Speak! I never swore fealty to Edward. You bring me here for an act of judicial murder! Judicial murder! And they came to me, fired with a spirit of independence, knowing what they did. They did not, as bondsmen in service to some feudal lord, but as free men, marching and fighting and dying for their own sakes, their homes, their nation! The men who follow William Wallace choose to do so because men fight well. They take up arms upon instruction to fight for a prize most craved by their master. We are not soldiers, yet we fight for a prize far greater than any crown or pretty bobble that Edward might dream of. We fight for freedom! Alas, Scotland, to whom shall thou complain? Alas, fra pain, what shall thee now restrain? Alas, thy help is fastly brought to ground. Thy best chieftain in brave bands is bound. Throughout the proceedings, he refused to acknowledge the authority of the court or of the English law or the right of the English to rule in Scotland. How, then, could he, a patriot, be guilty of treasonous acts against an invader? Ye cry me traitor! On what account, sir? I am nothing more or less than an honest Scot. What is my crime? That I will not submit myself to the domination of Edward Longshanks, of Edward's ministers, of Edward's law? Can it be accounted treason for an honest man to tuck up arms against an invader, one who would strive to deprive him of his land and his liberty? Those things, above all others, which no honest man will lose but with his life. Thou hast now lost thy guide of life. Alas! Alas, I'll defend thee and thy wreck, thy gracious guide, thy greatest governor. Alas, our nearest coming is fatal hour. On the 23rd of August, 1305, William Wallace of Elderslie was publicly hanged, drawn and quartered. His limbs sent for display to Newcastle, Berwick, Perth and Stirling as an example to other presumptuous rebels. Why shall thee defend? Why shall thee now make free? Alas! In war, why shall thy helper be? And an example was served, though not, ironically enough, in the way intended by Edward Longshanks. Although Wallace has been superseded in the eyes of posterity by the more successful Robert Bruce, grandson of the competitor of the same name, there seems no doubt that he was an inspiration to the latter, nor that his judicial murder provided the cause of Scottish independence with the heroic martyr it so needed to galvanise popular support. His spirit endured in the sonorous wording of the Declaration of Arbroath, sealed by the Scots Mobility nearly 15 years after Wallace's execution. As long as there shall be a hundred of us remain alive, never consent to subject ourselves to the domination of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honour. It is liberty alone that we fight and contend, which no honest man will lose of his life. It is a peculiar irony that one of the principal signatories to this document should be Sir John de Menteith, Earl of Lennox, the man to deliver Wallace into the hands of his executioners. The throne of Scotland is empty, Bruce. There are many claimants. Mine is the strongest. Patience, Bruce. I have no desire for the throne. See, the stone of destiny, Scotland's destiny, in your hands and yours, Wallace. Scots were he we Wallace fled. Scots one Bruce has often led. Welcome to your gory bed, haughty victory. Now's the day and now's the hour. See the front, oh battle hour. See approach proud Edward's bow. Chains and slavery. Wa wa traitor knave, wa can fill a coward's grave. Wa see Baces be a slave, let him turn and flee. For Scotland's king and law, freedom's sword will strongly draw. Freemen stand or freemen fall, let him on we meet. In servile chains we will drain our dearest veins, but they shall be free. Lay the proud usurpers low. Tyrants fall in every foe. Liberty's in every blow. Let us do our deed. Scots were he we Wallace fled. Scots one Bruce has often led. Welcome to your gory bed, haughty victory. Now's the day and now's the hour. See the front, oh battle hour. See approach proud Edward's bow. Chains and slavery. The thing about taking a role like this is that it carries quite a heavy responsibility. And for an actor it's not just another job. Particularly if you have a feel for this sort of thing, which I do. Empathy, if you will. I don't see myself as a freedom fighter by any means. But when it's your national hero, it's quite easily, quite easy to become emotionally involved in a piece like this. You have to give it gravitas, it's not just another foodery wee acting job. You have to bring as much integrity to a piece as this. I've spent a long time working on this. And I want it to work. Not just for myself. But wherever this programme goes, hopefully all over the world. It will have done justice to the memory of William Wallace. I bought this shield, the Bruce shield from the film The Bruce. And it's been a great experience playing. But in the film, as an extra, I've done a walk with the 1745 Jacobites. Which was all for charity as well. But Wallace, he's the man for me, the hero of Scotland. I beat you Edward. It was victory. I drove your forces back to where they came from. I was a hero to my people. The flowing currents of the River Forth gradually washed away the blood and the stench of your countrymen. But I had made my mark. I was appointed Guardian of Scotland. And my power increased. It grew as the unquenchable desire amongst my people grew. The desire to be free, the desire to be free. To sweep aside your iron unjust rule. To free Scotland from tyranny. And it will continue to grow. That was, it's from a piece called Wallace's Heel. It's just a short extract from a fairly lengthy monologue. Based around, fictitiously obviously, about Wallace's time in prison. It's been played in a few places. At Eyre, Dundee, at Street Theatre really. I find that does reach an awful lot of people from all over the world. And it's a piece which a lot of people can relate to. People from all over the world can relate to Wallace as the man that he was. And everybody has it. When the piece is performed you do get some fairly emotional responses from some people. It hasn't been unknown for some to actually have the tear in the eye sort of thing. It's a very, very good piece to play. It's quite emotional, as I said. It's powerful. You really get into it once it really gets started. It's the thing about Wallace himself. Wallace, the man, it's all he was. He was a man. He wasn't going out to try and be this huge king. He wasn't looking for personal power. He was looking for Scotland. He was wanting Scotland to be free. He was wanting himself to be free. I think a lot of people can equate with that, especially nowadays. There are so many power struggles going on. People can look at this piece and look at what's going on. They can really identify with it, I think. People all over the world have their own heroes. It's the same in every society. There is always somebody. In England, Robin Hood is this big, not so much a working-class hero, but he's the person's hero, the ordinary man-in-the-street hero. In Scotland, there are a few people who are looked upon like that. Robert the Bruce is looked upon like that. Robert Burns is looked upon like that. Myself, at the end of the day, there is only really one big man in Scotland. For me, it has to be William Wallace. The Wallace story is one where there is not a great deal of hard information on William Wallace. Most of the information that we do know about him comes from Blind Harry's history, which was written in the 15th century. It was written at a time when the popular culture was moving against the nobles and in favour of the peasants, and the idea that Wallace had led a peasant revolt. Not strictly true, of course. Blind Harry told us that Wallace was a fearless youth with a fair face, light brown hair, a bold eye and a strong arm. Of course, that's entirely subjective, whether that has anything to do with the way Wallace may have looked. He certainly quotes Wallace as saying, In other words, the Blind Harry's Wallace was very much a selfless patriot. Of course, it was a time, a remote time, when patriotism was something that was not generally ascribed to anybody except great nobles and kings. It was the kind of idea of a common person, a peasant's leader, and a national patriot that Wallace has portrayed. Of course, this now, for us, in a time when patriotism means so much else and such a modern confusion of loyalties, this is a great mystique and something we can look back on and think that, yes, Wallace was a patriot in a time before patriotism almost. William Wallace was first heard of in the early summer of 1297 when he was involved in an incident which resulted in the slaying of an English soldier and then went on to kill the Sheriff of Lanark. This is an incident that's confused with other incidents of a very similar nature. He was reputed to have studied at a seminary in Dundee and to have been involved in a fracas with the son of the English overlord Selby and to have slain him in an almost exactly identical type situation. Then, of course, there's the fishing trip near Ayre where he was involved in a dispute with English soldiers. Again, an insult was registered. A fight resulted in the death of an English soldier. So three very similar incidents all seem to have happened in the same summer of 1297. In 1298, a year later, there was the Battle of Falkirk where Wallace had to go into hiding and that was the end of his brief time on the national stage. Just over a year. Then nothing more was heard of him until 1305 when he was executed at Tyburn. So basically he's a hero who had a very brief time on the national stage at a time when there was also other heroes such as Andrew de Moray and even young Robert the Bruce himself. Unlike them, he had perhaps the virtue of dying early and dying in such a horrible manner. Andrew de Moray, of course, died shortly after the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Otherwise he might have acquired the national status that Wallace has. And Robert the Bruce, of course, was seen to be more fighting for his own crown and dynastic ambitions and so was perhaps more sullied as a national hero. Most of the information on William Wallace does come from Blind Harry's epic poem, The Wallace, which was written in the 15th century. Now this was clearly an attempt to cast Wallace as a secular saint. It's a martyr, as a popular peasant's leader who became a martyr. Now this is, he in fact described Wallace as a fearless youth with a fair face, bright brown hair, bold eye and a strong arm. Now whether that builds any relation at all to the real Wallace is very difficult to tell. But it shows you the lack of information, genuine information that exists on Wallace. And therefore that in itself creates a mystique from which he can emerge clearly as a stereotyped national liberator figure. Of course in Wales, just a few years before Wallace, there had been a popular leader there, the well-known App Griffith. The Wallace story, of course, also being brief, has the merit of being almost like a fable. It has everything in it. It has the selfless patriotism of Wallace himself, who was fighting for no very clear personal ambitions of his own, purely out of national pride and desire to reinstall Scotland as an independent nation from Edward I. He also has the tragedy of having been betrayed by one of his own kind, Sir John Munteith, when the loaf on the table was turned round the other way, was turned upside down to indicate that the servant had successfully managed to steal Wallace's sword as he lay asleep in a cave nearby. And then there's the bloodthirsty end as a traitor, which has so provoked future waves of nationalist resentment, the fact that he could be described as a traitor, when he had never taken homage in any sort to Edward I, unlike King John Balliol and Robert the Bruce, and many of the nobles who subsequently led the second phase of the War of Independence, who in fact did pay homage to Edward I. So he has a clear, unsullied image as a national patriot, and as someone who was striving to free his country without any personal thoughts of reward or whatever for himself. In my own way, taking part in this programme produces the sense that, you know, you feel as if you're there and you're fighting for the freedom all over again.