William Wallace
The man who beat England's army at Stirling Bridge was a minor landowner's son, and his name may simply mean 'the Welshman'. Then he was hunted, tried and dismembered.
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Quick Facts
- Known for
- Leading Scottish resistance to Edward I and winning the Battle of Stirling Bridge
- Born
- Probably in the 1270s, traditionally at Elderslie in Renfrewshire
- Greatest victory
- Stirling Bridge, 11 September 1297, won jointly with Andrew Murray
- Biggest defeat
- Falkirk, 22 July 1298
- Title held
- Guardian of Scotland, from late 1297 until his resignation after the Battle of Falkirk in 1298
- Captured
- 5 August 1305, near Glasgow
- Executed
- 23 August 1305, Smithfield, London
- Where to see his mark
- National Wallace Monument, Stirling; Wallace statue at Edinburgh Castle gatehouse; memorial plaque at Smithfield
A surname that means 'Welshman'
Wallace is a name with a twist. It comes from an old word for a Briton or Welsh speaker, and it was used for the Britons of the old kingdom of Strathclyde. So Scotland's most famous patriot carried a name that pointed to the Britons of south-west Scotland. He was no great magnate. His surviving seal names him as the son of Alan Wallace, while the traditional account gives his father as Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, near Paisley. Either way, the family was of modest rank. That matters, because the nobles who normally led Scotland's wars were mostly busy hedging their bets with Edward I of England. Wallace had less to lose, and he acted. In May 1297 he is said to have killed William Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark. It was the spark that turned scattered resentment into a rising.
The battle won with a partner nobody remembers
Wallace did not win Stirling Bridge alone. He fought alongside Andrew Murray, who had raised the north of Scotland against the English. Their armies joined and met the Earl of Surrey's much larger force at the narrow wooden bridge over the Forth on 11 September 1297. The English had to cross a few men at a time. The Scots waited until enough had passed over, then struck and cut the army in two. Hugh de Cressingham, Edward's hated treasurer in Scotland, was killed. English chroniclers later claimed his skin was cut into strips as trophies. Murray died of wounds before the year was out, which is partly why Wallace's name came to carry the whole story. Yet in October 1297 a letter went out to the German trading towns of Lübeck and Hamburg in both their names, telling merchants that Scottish ports were open for business again. It is a rare glimpse of Wallace as a ruler rather than a warrior.
From victor to fugitive
Wallace followed Stirling Bridge by raiding deep into northern England, then was knighted and named Guardian of Scotland, ruling in the name of the exiled King John Balliol. Edward I answered in person. At Falkirk on 22 July 1298 the Scots stood in tight rings of spearmen called schiltrons. English archers and cavalry broke them. Wallace's reputation as an unbeatable commander ended that afternoon. He resigned the guardianship, and the leadership passed to men from the great noble families, among them Robert Bruce and John Comyn. Wallace is thought to have travelled abroad seeking support for Scotland, though the details are thin. He then spent years as an outlaw with a price on his head.
Captured near Glasgow, tried in London
On 5 August 1305 Wallace was seized near Glasgow, traditionally at Robroyston, and handed to the English. He was taken south to London and tried at Westminster Hall on 23 August. He was charged as a traitor. His reported defence was that he could not be one, since he had never sworn loyalty to Edward. It did not save him. He was dragged through the city to Smithfield, hanged, drawn and quartered. His head was displayed on London Bridge, and his limbs were sent to be shown in towns including Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth. Edward meant it as a warning. It did the opposite, and within a year Robert Bruce had himself crowned King of Scots.
How a poem and a film made the legend
Much of what people think they know comes from Blind Harry's long poem The Wallace, written in the 1470s, nearly two centuries after his death. It gave Wallace feats that no chronicle records and made him a folk hero. The 1995 film Braveheart, with Mel Gibson, gave him a new global audience. It also put him in a kilt-like world of blue face paint and invented romances, and it left out the bridge at Stirling Bridge entirely. The real man is arguably more interesting: a commoner-ish knight who held a kingdom's defence together when its aristocracy would not.
Where his mark remains
The most striking tribute is the National Wallace Monument, a Victorian tower finished in 1869 on the Abbey Craig above Stirling, with a view across the ground of his great victory. Inside is a sword long associated with him. Edinburgh Castle's gatehouse has a statue of Wallace, installed in 1929. The gatehouse itself dates from the 1880s. In the Borders, a huge sandstone figure of him looks out near Dryburgh. In London, a memorial plaque at Smithfield, on the wall of St Bartholomew's Hospital, marks the place where he died. And every time Scots argue over who ought to run Scotland, his name is likely to come up.
Notable people
- Andrew Murray
- Edward I
- Robert the Bruce
- John Balliol
- John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey
- Hugh de Cressingham
- Blind Harry
- Mel Gibson
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