Short History Of... - William Wallace

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Despised by the English, mistrusted by the Scottish nobles, and revered by his countrymen: William Wallace is synonymous with the battle for Scottish freedom. But scratch away at the legend, and even the most basic details are disputed. Where he was born, who he married, and what he did after his famous battle at Stirling Bridge. Thanks to the brutal nature of his death, he doesn’t even have a grave. What can we really know about the man immortalised by the poets? Was he anything like the warrior depicted in ‘Braveheart’? And what does his legacy tell us about the people of Scotland who idolize him to this day? This is a Short History of William Wallace. Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Graeme Morton, Professor of Modern History and Director of the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee, and author of William Wallace: Man and Myth. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the winter of 1297. A man marches through a Scottish forest. It's bitterly cold. Frozen branches of heather and bracken snap beneath his boots, as if he's walking on glass. But the man doesn't feel the chill. He feels invincible. He feels like a king.

His name is William Wallace, and today he will become, well, not king, but the closest that Scotland has to one, born of its own soil. He strides fast, as he always does, at a pace that leaves the other men behind. just as he always does, at a pace that leaves the other men behind. He knows every glen, every stream, every hollow where an outlaw can hide in this vast Caledonian forest. His survival thus far has depended on it. Now he stops beside an ancient pine that marks a bend in the path. The smell of sap puts him in mind of his wife,

the way she would set a wick in a pine root to scent their bedchamber. He wishes her memory away. Tonight should be about the future, not the past. And yet, would he give it all up to see her alive? No, he would not. She died not for him, but for the cause. Scotland ruled by Scots. If only the Scottish nobles had half her conviction.

They melt at the sight of English swords, like one of her tallow candles. Behind him, someone stumbles, swearing. Wallace scoffs. His entourage have caught up at last, the so-called nobles. They lack his speed and stealth, the wily ways of an outcast. But he's heard their mutterings, their sniping, that he is too low-born to rule. But who went into battle and got the job done? Only William Wallace. Already there are songs of his exploits in the taverns.

Finally, they arrive at the kirk of the forest. Inside, the chapel is lit with flames that make the shadows skirmish across the walls. Wallace takes a knee, the only time he will do so. The Earl lifts a sword. He speaks the words. Sir William Wallace Stans. Once he came to this forest a fugitive and emerged a fighter. Today he arises a knight

and the sole guardian of Scotland. In this episode of Short History Of we're in Scotland in the late 13th century. This is a land in crisis. When the Scottish king dies and leaves the power vacuum, the English move in. King Edward I of England is a brutal overlord. He'll become known as the Hammer of the Scots. While some curry favour with Edward in return for land and power, others grow defiant. One man will not submit to the tyrant, and his name is William Wallace. His story reads like a myth. He's an outlaw, a freedom fighter.

We don't know when or where he was born. He has no grave. We don't even know if he had descendants. In some ways, he's like other mysterious figures of legend, such as Robin Hood or King Arthur. And, just like them, his story is still being told. In poetry, art, and song. Even in film. Some 700 years after his short life, the blockbuster movie Braveheart makes Wallace a household name across the world. It fixes in the public mind an enduring image of a destined but doomed warrior.

Yet William Wallace was not a myth, but a real man. He would come to be such a thorn in the side of King Edward that his name appears in his royal records. That's how we know Wallace existed. Ironically, much of what we know about his life comes from his death. So how did a minor noble become a national hero? Who was Wallace the man? And does he even merit his legendary status? After all, as we shall see, his spectacular rise was followed by an unceremonious fall.

I'm Paul McGann and this is a short history of William Wallace. is a short history of William Wallace. Wallace may grow up to be noble of heart, but he's not noble of name. While his family have a degree of wealth, they are of low status. The 1290s is not a time of great social mobility. Rank and bloodline are supremely important. It's advisable to know your place, although Wallace will never accept that.

Still as the son of a minor landowner, young William has the opportunity to learn skills that will be crucial for his future career as a revolutionary, such as languages, oratory and fighting. So what do we know about his origins? Graham Morton is a professor of modern history and director of the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee. He's also author of the book William Wallace, A National Tale. And only recently have historians tried to come to a conclusion who his father was.

So Alan Wallace is the latest person to be named as his father and coming out of Ayrshire. And he's there as the second son of a minor knight. His early life is seen as an archer. So working the longbow was seen as his career move. And this is one of the main narratives of Wallace's career as very much as a hired soldier who worked his way up through the ranks. We know that he came from a small landed family. Again, there's some debate on

which is the actual village from which he's from in Ayrshire. But it's very much a West Coast experience before growing up, as I say, involving himself as an archer. His education is seen as being quite broad. We have links here with Dundee to Wallace and the stained glass in the town council buildings reflect the life of Wallace and his education in these parts. His whole career, both as a young man, but also as his military career is based around particularly the west coast of Scotland, but also central Scotland as well. And so yes, he is seen as someone who is both educated, but also someone who, while being off the people, was never a complete commander. But it was never a complete rags to riches story, never a story of someone who was completely powerless without

connection, who then rose up to become guardian and leader of the nation. William is a mere boy when the series of tumultuous events that will shape his future begin. One stormy night in 1286, the Scottish king, Alexander III, is rushing home to be with his new young queen. He falls from his horse and breaks his neck. The dead king does leave an heir,

a granddaughter called Margaret. But there are two problems. Margaret lives in Norway, and she's only three years old. A council of nobles is appointed to rule on her behalf. Over the border in England, King Edward, also known by the nickname Longshanks, spies an opportunity. He tries to marry Margaret, known as the Maid of Norway, to his son.

The girl is dispatched to London, but she doesn't survive the sea crossing. Young Margaret, sole heir of the Scottish throne, dies on the island of Orkney in 1290. So now, King Edward appoints a guardian to rule Scotland, a man named John Balliol. But he turns out to be a disobedient puppet. Betrayed, Edward takes matters into his own hands. In 1296, he sends troops to Scotland. They sack the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, killing 7,000 people. The slaughter only stops when the clergy calls for mercy.

Even then, the king's men march on to vanquish other towns. Edward forces the Scottish nobles to pledge allegiance to him by signing a document known as the Ragman Roll. Now held in the National Archive at Kew, London, it shows the signatures and seals of some 1900 men, all of whom made the pragmatic decision to submit to the English King. However, there is one conspicuous absence from this list. Now around 20 years of age, William Wallace refuses to sign the Ragman role. He is one of the only Scotsmen of rank who stands his ground. Essentially, this makes him a rebel, an outlaw.

He remains a fugitive, often on the run in the Caledonian forest for much of his short life. Like other figures of myth and legend, Wallace has charisma. Like other figures of myth and legend, Wallace has charisma. Despite the obvious dangers of opposing the English king and living the life of a brigand in the forests, other true believers flock to Wallace's side. Why? What does this young man offer to people whose lives are already hard? In 13th century Scotland, the majority live off the land, surviving the elements and the seasons as best they can. Fighting means injury and probably death, and the English have shown time and again that they are vengeful, brutal. They hammer the Scots. Wallace is never

known as Braveheart in his time, but he is known to be pure of heart, a man of the faith, believing in God and Scotland. And that is what turns the man into a myth. Well, he's often seen as someone who did this for the higher values of God and the higher values of the nation. So the various accounts written on this time, maybe not contemporary accounts, because some of the best contemporary accounts of Wallace's actions are written by his enemies, so they have a very different view. But often it's presented as Wallace acting, say, for the higher principle of the nation. In one account, he's inspired to

fight by seeing a cloud formation coming out in terms of a salt tire, and that inspires him to go off and fight. So he, and certainly in the poetry that gets developed in the 17th and particularly the 18th century, he's seen as the person fighting for the nation. Like many of the facts of Wallace's life,

the details of his marriage have been blurred by time. But we do know that by the time Edward demands his signature of allegiance, Wallace has a wife. In some accounts, she is called Marian Braithfoot. Whoever she was, the figure of Wallace's wife is seen as the motivation for one of his most audacious exploits. It's May 1297. A man called William Hesselrig is the sheriff of Lanark, one of the puppets of the English king.

Hesselrig is holding court in the town, surrounded by English soldiers. Wallace and his men stage a raid, presumably with the intention of killing Hesselrig. But somehow it goes wrong. A woman, possibly Marian Braithwaite, helps Wallace to escape from the guards who give chase. For her trouble, Hesselrig tracks her down and murders her. Later that same night, Wallace creeps back to Lanark. Maybe he wants to complete his mission, or maybe he wants to avenge the death of his

wife. Whatever his motivation, he sneaks past the guards to Hesselrig's bedchamber. While the sheriff rests, Wallace attacks, slaughtering him in his sleep. Chronicles say that Wallace dismembers the man's body, a fact that supports the argument that what becomes known as the action at Lanark was a crime of passion. Or is it just a young man getting hot and angry over the death of his wife or mistress? There's various stories of her murder, some suggesting she was pregnant at the time when the sword penetrated her stomach, killing the child and the mother at the same time. But I think also the daring of the attack. So it's seen as a very heroic operation of going

into a stronghold, carrying out effectively an assassination and then escaping successfully. So I think it is one of those stories that then gets resonated around, passed around. And I think that's an important part of it and explains both his rise to success, but also how the myth then develops in later times. This bloodthirsty night in May 1297 is the first time that William Wallace bursts into the history books.

Some fifty years later, an English knight called Sir Thomas Grey is captured by the Scots and imprisoned at Edinburgh Castle. Grey uses his time in captivity to write the Scala Chronica, a history of Britain. The Scala Chronica, A History of Britain. In the chronicle, Sir Thomas Gray writes that his own father, also called Thomas Gray, had been present at the gathering in Lanark. He was there on the fateful night that Wallace carried out his raid and killed the sheriff. If the Scala Chronica is to be believed, Wallace injured the elder Thomas Gray, but the man survived to pass on an eyewitness account to his son. The Scarlet Chronicle is one of the few

contemporary documents that mention Wallace by name, and even that was written over fifty years after the event. A century after that, one of the best-known interpretations of Wallace's life emerges in the form of an epic poem, performed by a wandering minstrel known as Blind Harry. In one line, Blind Harry refers to Wallace as more than a mortal. He tells his story in grand Homeric style. It could be the tale of Achilles or Troy or David versus Goliath. In modern terms, Wallace is a superhero. Originally performed around 1477, Blind Harry's epic poem would have been recited by memory, but it's later deemed important and popular enough to be

published in a book called The Acts and Deeds of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion Sir William Wallace, or simply The Wallace for short. Scotland's beloved poet Robert Burns cites Blind Harry's poem as the greatest influence on his own sense of national pride. The story of Wallace, says Robbie Burns, poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest.

In the 500 years since Blind Harry spun his tale of Daring Do, the written version of The Wallace has never been out of print. It's the second best-selling book of all time in Scotland, beaten only by the Bible. Professor Graham Morton says that Blind Harry continues to shape our vision of William Wallace, even down to the great man's physique. Blind Harry gives a wonderful description of Wallace, a physical description of this very large man with large coarse features, long limbs, large hands. And that gets carried on into the poetry of the 18th and early 19th century, where we get descriptions of Wallace killing five

Englishmen before breakfast, five before lunch, and five before he then had his supper. And part of that is about the heroic superhuman strength then had his supper. And part of that is about the heroic superhuman strength of this particular individual. And it was also used to explain how he could possibly have risen up given the lack of links into the nobility at the start, that only a superhuman of superhuman strength could have had such success and risen up to lead Scotland in the way that he did. So yeah, we don't have any pictures of him. We don't have any contemporary artwork. We have some description of him by his enemies,

contemporary description that is, but otherwise that trope of his physical size and the power of his physical attributes is linked in primarily to Harry and the way that he described it. Let's leave Blind Harry and Robbie Burns to their romantic notions and get back to the reality of war in 1297.

A few months after Wallace kills the English sheriff at Lanark, King Edward's men retaliate. The king himself is in France on another battlefield. He picks many fights, does Edward Longshanks. In his place at the head of the English army in Scotland, is a seasoned soldier called Earl de Warren. The two sides, Wallace and de Warren, face off across the River Forth, near a town called Stirling. The site will come to be hallowed ground for the Scots. But to the two soldiers on that morning, Stirling Bridge is merely a strategic site.

Well, the best way to look at it is look at the medieval maps of the period and you'll see just how central Stirling was as the gateway to the Highlands. So it's a way of getting through the lowlands, controlling that pathway, that superhighway into the Highlands would then allow a much wider and more pervasive control over the rest of Scotland. It really was taking the heart of Scotland. Stirling Castle is there for good reason. And controlling that castle, controlling that route

into the rest of lowland and up through Highlands Scotland was strategically very important. Bright and early, William Wallace stands atop a rocky outcrop overlooking the River Forth. It's a cool September day in 1297. Wallace has the high ground. His men are not professional soldiers, but they're hardly peasants with pitchforks. Wallace has been staging successful raids and uprisings for months.

His men know how to fight. Perhaps more importantly, they're fuelled by conviction and faith and are riding a wave of success. But today is different. Today they face the full might of the English army. As they look down on the battlefield, what do those men see? Two armies very different in size. You're going to look down fundamentally at a river and a very meandering, winding river, and that's an important part. You've also got an English army that's got a lot of sphere men, it's got a lot of horse that's there, artillery that's there. And I think what you're going to see is just a complete mismatch in size.

And then you're looking at an event that is one where the terrain becomes very much to the fore. So we're looking to try and explain the success. Are we looking to look at tactics or are we going to look at terrain? And our historians tend to come down on, well, let's look at the terrain. Let's look at the way the battle panned out, rather than the actual tactics.

Although, as we'll see, the tactics associated with when the attack was launched on the English army was crucial. Let's consider the tactics and terrain. Perhaps the leader of the English army, Elder Warren, should have done the same. Perhaps the leader of the English army, Earl de Warren, should have done the same. Here the wide expanse of the river forth can be crossed by a narrow wooden bridge. Earl de Warren's greatest asset is his cavalry. They've never been beaten in battle. But only two horses can pass over this bridge at a time,

marching side by side. Accounts suggest that one English knight offers his superior a strategy. If they ride two miles up river and cross at a ford they could double back behind Wallace and surprise him. But Elder Warren tells him to stand down. It's not worth tiring the horses

for the sake of this motley army of Scottish ruffians. It will be all over by lunchtime. It's also said that a battalion of cavalry ride across the bridge, two by two, taking an age to get everyone into position on the other side, only to ride back again because Earl de Warren has overslept. With their commander tucked up in his tent, there is no one to give the order to charge. Whatever the truth of the events of that day, it's clear that on September 11, 1297,

the English seriously and fatally underestimate William Wallace. It's difficult to think about what's going through their mind at that time. I tend to see a sense of arrogance coming through. There's a sense that we have such overwhelming forces here. We have the organisation, we have the strength and weapons, of course. And this is some brigand, I think very much seen as a nuisance. This is not some serious military strategist or some serious leader. This is a man with a ragtag army. We know it's not quite the case, but I suspect

that was going through their minds and perhaps just unaware of how vulnerable they would be, or just really just ignoring that and just going for it. A sense of bravado, I think, would come to the fore. Wallace proves to be more than a nuisance at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. As the English cavalry finally cross the river, they find themselves mired in marshy land. They cannot get into position. They cannot charge. Hemmed in by the river, they're sitting ducks. Wallace doesn't hesitate. His men stream down the hill with their long pikes and slaughter the horses and soldiers in the mud.

their long pikes and slaughter the horses and soldiers in the mud. It is indeed all over by lunchtime, just not in the way de Warren intended. After watching his professional cavalry decimated by this crew of upstarts, Earl de Warren turns tail and flees. Wallace has won a famous victory. But he now has a choice. He could take the moral high ground and prove himself a magnanimous leader. But, according to the Chronicles, he opts for a different path. One that sounds to our modern sensibilities like an atrocity. First, Wallace slaughters some of the English prisoners of war.

Most damning, though, is what now happens to Sir Hugh de Cressingham. He is treasurer to the English administration, and apparently the knight who ordered the full-scale attack across the bridge. For this folly he pays with his life. Wallace's treatment of de Cressingham will come back to haunt him. Reports say that the remains of de Cressingham are mutilated to the extent that Wallace tears a strip of the man's skin from head to heel and makes it into a belt for his sword.

Perhaps this is propaganda to a degree, but there is little doubt that Wallace has no time for gallantry. There's different accounts whether that skin is then used to turn into part of a saddle or is turned into a money bag. But also chasing soldiers down, effectively Wallace lying about offering free passage to these soldiers if they came peacefully and then killing them. So one of the most fulsome accounts of Wallace's life comes from the Lanarkost Chronicle, which is near Durham. And there's a strong sense

from that chronicle about how poor was Wallace's behaviour after Stirling in the way that he chased down his defeated enemy and looked to put who he could to the slaughter. So they do give account not of a heroic figure, but of a very revengeful figure that happened there. And again, that's something that leads to a hardening sense within England that this is a man that has to be defeated. I think that break is something that Wallace was castigated for and part explains also the way he was so harshly treated at the time of his execution.

When Braveheart, the famous movie adaptation of Wallace's life, is produced in 1995, the depiction of the Battle of Stirling Bridge bears little relation to the truth of what we know about that day. For a start, the producers do away with the crucial river crossing. The Battle of Stirling Bridge becomes the Battle of Stirling Field. It's said that it was too dangerous to film scenes with horses on a wooden bridge. Instead, according to historians,

the filmmakers seem to have recreated a battle that resembles the victory of Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, which took place a decade later. That's not the only historical inaccuracy in the film. The name Braveheart is also taken from Robert the Bruce. Wallace was never called Braveheart, but Bruce was. He's given the name when his heart is taken on a tour of the Holy Land after his death. From Wallace's time to our own though, what matters is the symbolism. For many Scots, whether politically minded or not, in favour of Scottish independence or not, his is a story of freedom, of triumph over tyranny. If we look at Braveheart itself,

it's interesting that membership of the SNP rocketed on the back of Braveheart. It was very successful in recruiting for the SNP. Alex Salmond used the images from Braveheart and talked in terms of Braveheart, talked in terms of freedom and used the rhetoric to promote the cause of independence. But then so did the Scottish Tories. Scottish Tories organised the screening, the opening night of Braveheart and looked to make political capital of it as well. So all political sides at the time of Braveheart and earlier tried to make political capital out of Wallace and also out of Bruce as well. So all political sides at the time of Braveheart and earlier have tried to make political

capital out of Wallace and also out of Bruce as well. There's been a sense that Braveheart represents a particular kind of nationalism, a romantic or boisterous nationalism. We see it at football matches where people are painting their face blue. We see people dressing up as if they were Mel Gibson. We see statues that use Mel Gibson's face, one in particular that sat outside the National Wallace Monument for many, many years. The likeness of Wallace is the likeness of Mel Gibson and has freedom on the base. But interestingly, the youth of Stirling were occasionally known to chip bits off and this wonderful statue then had to be put in a cage to protect it. Freedom,

but in a cage. Any fan of action movies like Braveheart will know that after a rise to greatness, there must inevitably be a fall. It's an essential part of the hero's journey. But Wallace's real life story now plays out like a tragedy. But Wallace's real-life story now plays out like a tragedy. He wins a resounding success at Stirling Bridge. But only months later, in 1298, King Edward is ready to wield his hammer again. He returns from France. He marches to Scotland with the largest army ever to go north.

The two sides meet, this time in Falkirk. Wallace is outnumbered. The other Scottish nobles refuse to join the fray, perhaps because they won't be led by a man of lower status. Even Robert the Bruce, who will go on to finish what Wallace started and become King of Scotland, abandons Wallace to his fate. It's not much of a battle. This time it's Sir William Wallace who must flee, running for his life back to the Caledonian forest. Stripped of his knighthood and his guardianship, he's reduced to being an outlaw and a ruffian once more.

Atlas Falkirk is interesting for the defeat of Wallace. So we're looking at someone who's successful effectively in a very short period, 1296, 1297, the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the guardianship. We have a very short window where Wallace is in control, has been successful. Revenge from Edward Longshanks

coming at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, a new engagement, a new motivation to try and defeat Wallace. And it's interesting in particular because it is the defeat of Wallace, but it's also interesting for the lack of support of the wider aristocracy to support Scotland. He was used, did their dirty work, but when the time came they refused to put their own lives on their line for him. So again, in a period where we think where blood is so

important, particularly on the willingness to lose one's own life, then certainly Scotland's elites were not prepared to die in the cause of Wallace. And I think Falkirk is important for showing that. There are all sorts of stories of what happens to Wallace after the Battle of Falkirk is important for showing that. There are all sorts of stories of what happens to Wallace after the Battle of Falkirk. He may have gone abroad. He may have met the King of France and the Pope in Rome. Or he may simply have kept his head down, roaming the Scottish countryside.

Ah, the wilderness years. There's some great stories about what he gets up to, whether he goes off to meet the King of France, whether he becomes a pirate in the English Channel. Almost certainly he did disappear off to France, only to come back and then literally live the life of an outlaw, living in Torwood Forest, hiding out, effectively a ruffian on the run, and involving himself in guerrilla skirmishes whenever he could. But this was a man who, after the defeat at the Battle of Falkirk, had lost the kind of institutional support that he had and really was in fear of his life. Spies were looking out for him and there was certainly a reward upon his head to capture this outlaw. So yes, I think we can see him as, while living in the wilderness, I don't think we can see him as one completely isolated from the main power negotiations and political machinations that

were going on in this period. We know about 1302, 1303, he's coming back. There's a negotiated peace with Edward, but that falls short, that doesn't happen. And, you know, he is really someone who's holding up any kind of peace agreement between Scotland and England because from the English point of view, of course, until this man is captured, then he's seen as that really serious instability in any attempts to broker peace between England and Scotland in the early 1300s.

Even in his absence, Wallace is a thorn in the side of the English king. With a bounty on his head, it's not long before someone gives him up. This dubious honour goes to a knight called Sir John de Monteith, whose treachery leads to the capture of Wallace near Glasgow in 1305. He's taken by English soldiers to London. De Monteith is richly rewarded by King Edward for betraying Wallace. After years of effort by King Edward to diminish the power of the Scottish nuisance, it's one of Scotland's own nobles who puts Wallace firmly in his place.

Imagine you're a visitor to London in 1305. It's August. The crowded streets stink in the heat. You're here to peddle your wares at Smithfield's Bartholomew Fair. Laden with cloth to sell at the market, you rest a moment to take in the spectacle. A woman on stilts balances a baby on her head. Another performs a handstand on the tips of two swords. A monk juggles for coins beside a pig on spit. But your attention drifts to the crowd gathering around the gallows.

An execution on a holy day? The church frowns on that. Something is afoot. You gather your load of cloth and you go to watch. Everyone is shouting a name you recognize. Wallace. Wallace. The Scot.

A man is dumped onto the scaffold. He's alive but cannot stand. Naked, black and red from head to toe, his injuries make you look away. Behind you someone explains the condemned man's condition. He's been dragged behind a horse from Westminster, and Westminster is six miles away. and Westminster is six miles away. The braying of the crowd reaches a pitch. The Scot is hoisted aloft, the noose tightening. But it's not over yet.

Still breathing, he's cut down and laid on a bench. Wallace struggles, but they hold him tight. The executioner raises a wicked-looking knife, and you cover your eyes. The crowd groans, and you make the mistake of looking. The Executioner holds aloft a bloody mass. You shoulder your load, and you hurry away. But you cannot escape the sound of the axe as it ends Wallace's ordeal. But you cannot escape the sound of the axe as it ends Wallace's ordeal. Later, at the inn, the execution of William Wallace is the only topic of interest.

Perhaps you think, this is why they did it on a holy day, at the Bartholomew Fair. Everyone knows the pretender is dead. Your dinner is spoiled by loud descriptions of how he was disemboweled, castrated, beheaded. His quartered body is now on its way to the four corners of Scotland to show any other traitors who is king of this island. King Edward spends 61 shillings and 10 pence on the king of this island. King Edward spends 61 shillings and 10 pence on the execution of William Wallace.

It's a huge amount, demonstrating how the Scottish rebel was important enough to warrant a spectacle, a show of strength. The details are recorded in the Exchequer roll for 1305, which lists all the king's finances and justifies his expenses. Wallace is described as a robber, rebel, traitor, who falsely sought to call himself King of Scotland. The grand and gory scale of the man's death, reveals the enduring power of his myth.

Clearly it's designed to strike fear, and that would certainly have happened. And for many Scots, they would have realised that their enemy was not showing quarter. They were not showing any signs of peace or any signs of reconciliation. So definitely for many, it would have signalled fear, but also, of course, it would lead to anger,

and of course it would have led to a hardening of resolve. And this is often where we see Wallace in death of laying the pathwork for Bruce to then finish the job at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1314. So for Bruce, according to many accounts, later historians, but also popular accounts for Bruce, it was the death of Wallace that then paved the way for his own resolve to be hardened and for his own actions to then inspire the Scots to that victory. And for us as later historians, we find it explains why we don't have any artefacts. We don't have a burial ground. We don't have the remains of Wallace. So with no remains to commemorate, there's no shrine that was established to Wallace as a result. The body was completely decimated, it was gone, it was left to the seagulls.

Years later, Wallace's countrywoman, Mary, Queen of Scots, will also be brutally executed by an English monarch. Shortly before her death in 1587, she's said to have commissioned an embroidery. It bears the words, « En ma fin, j'ai mon commencement » or « In my end is my beginning ». The same could be said of Wallace. Wallace died horribly, and he died young but his myth

lives on in national pride and poetry. In 1720 Alexander Pope writes that the Scots will fight for Wallace as for God. William Wordsworth in 1814 says Wallace left his name like a wild flower all over his dear country left the deeds of Wallace like a family of ghosts to people the steep rocks and riverbanks and natural sanctuaries with a local soul of independence and stern liberty but it's that epic poem of Blind Harry from 1477, The Wallace, that proves to be his most enduring eulogy. The movie Braveheart is directly lifted from Harry's portrayal. The Wallace also inspired Scotland's greatest poet, Robbie Byrne, to create his famous poem, Scots Wahey, in 1793.

his famous poem, Scott's Wahey, in 1793. Written in the form of a song, it serves for centuries as an unofficial national anthem of Scotland and remains popular in different forms into the present day. As well as leaving his name like wild flowers across the country, there are also innumerable monuments to Wallace. During the 19th century, when Wallace mania returns in force, a new statue is erected every decade. The exploits of William Wallace spanned a mere handful of years. But his biography is not his bequest. The idea of Wallace proves to be bigger and more enduring to a sense of Scottish identity than the sum of his exploit.

I think there's a strong sense of the underdog. It's a strong sense that he was fighting for the Scottish people because when we look back at this period, we call it the Wars of Independence. Yet what was the Scottish nation at this time? Where was democracy? Who was involved in the decision-making? All that was absent. So if you look down the generations, there's always been a sense of looking for the underdog,

looking for the person that's doing it for the people rather than for their own self-interest. As is so often the case with Wallace, it's the way that the stories have gained arms and legs and the way that these events have been used to present to some a hero, to others the most evil man, the most dangerous man in this period. But it's the success that he achieved, the kind of figure that he was,'s why in Scotland he becomes such a folk hero and is so important to Scotland's national history. Next time on Short History Of,

we'll bring you a short history of the pyramids. The interior, the understructure, the substructure of these pyramids are extraordinary. These are the ones that, in fact, are the Hollywood pyramids. They've got secret hidden entrances. They've got traps to stop people from robbing them. And you have the substructure that is far more complicated, which is evoking this perilous journey to the afterlife.

That's next time on Short History Of. Follow us on Twitter for updates. Tweet us with suggestions for Short History Of. Follow us on Twitter for updates. Tweet us with suggestions for Short History Of topics.