Sir William Wallace - Scottish Freedom Fighter
Born between 1260 and 1278
Murdered
- 23 August 1305
Tradition has long believed that William Wallace was
born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, although contemporary research would indicate
that he may well have been born at Ellerslie, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. The son
of Sir Malcolm Wallace and Margaret Craufurd he was a popular figure who led
guerilla fighters against the forces of English occupation, and had his greatest
victory on 11 September 1297 at Stirling Bridge. Much has been said and written
about Sir William Wallace and the release in 1995 of the film
Braveheart. Some of the comment concerning the historical accuracy of the
film is true, some of it hysterical rhetoric.
What is not in doubt is
that Wallace lived in a Scotland which was being subjected to a brutal
occupation by the forces of the English King Edward I. Wallace would not succumb
to this English rule and he fought for his country's freedom serving as
one of the Guardians of Scotland. Wallace was the catalyst that
sparked the revolution. He was betrayed by Menteith to the English, taken to
London and accused of treason. At his mock trial he refuted the allegation,
stating that he had never sworn loyalty to Edward, so how could he be guilty of
treason ? He was dragged through the streets of London, hanged, castrated, and
still alive at this stage, disembowelled. Finally he was decapitated and his
body cut into quarters. His head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge, his
four parts displayed around the country at Newcastle, Berwick, Perth and
Stirling.
Nine years after his barbaric murder, at the Battle of
Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots, led by King Robert the Bruce, defeated the
English army of Edward II, and so secured that Independence which had made
Wallace a martyr.
Wallace's spirit and vision of an Independent and free
nation live on in modern Scotland today.
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