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Sir William Wallace: What We Do – and Don’t – Know¹

Fiona Watson

The William Wallace we know today is a man of steel, fashioned from a dearth of hard facts and copious quantities of Scotch mist. His reputation, outlined in detail by Blind Hary in the fifteenth century and provided with an international stamp of approval thanks to his celluloid depiction in 1995, puts him squarely in the league of super-folk heroes. But unlike those other medieval champions, Robin Hood and William Tell, Wallace was most definitely flesh and blood. And his reputation derives as much from his martyrdom – the first but not the last in these bitter Anglo-Scottish wars – as by the extraordinary things he did to incur the wrath of Edward Plantagenet.

The lack of verifiable evidence, or even relatively certain supposition, for the life and deeds of the man is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing for those who wish to use Wallace as an emblem for a cause since he is a sufficiently blank canvas to tolerate being commandeered even by contradictory ideologies, including both nationalism and unionism. Blind Hary knew exactly what he was doing when he picked the victor of the battle of Stirling Bridge as the epitome of unequivocal anti-English sentiment. Although Wallace’s comparatively obscure origins, his credible claim to be a man of the people,² was also part of the attraction, the lack of a well-rounded life story makes it far easier to portray him in black and white.

This lack of information is obviously a curse for those interested in the frustrating business of uncovering the ‘truth’ about the historical William Wallace. On the one hand, there is likely to be little more hard evidence to find (although the ‘rediscovery’ of the Lübeck seal does remind us that small miracles are possible). On the other hand, Hary’s story has muddied the waters so deeply that even unambiguous facts stand little chance if they contradict commonly held beliefs about the man. We know now that Hary got the name of his hero’s father (and his brother) completely wrong – he was not Sir Malcolm Wallace, but plain Alan Wallace – yet we are still prepared to give the poet credence on many other points that are either unlikely or totally unsubstantiated. This may well do Sir William an injustice.

It may do our folk-history an injustice too. It is perhaps going too far to suggest that Hary completely made up large parts of his story, but it would be helpful if we could at least admit the possibility that he fictionalised some of it. What is perhaps more important, however, is the likelihood that he engaged upon a systematic reworking of the widespread oral traditions that had sprung out of the war, attributing them solely to Wallace.³ In other words, Wallace became Everyman (and woman), a participant in any and every adventure celebrated in story and song all over the country from the half-century or so of protracted warfare between Scotland and England. His cry for freedom has now reverberated convincingly around the world, but it was echoed by thousands of other Scots men and women in his own time. Their stories, too, surely have the right, where possible, to be given proper historical scrutiny. And Sir William himself, whose formative influences and personal motivation will most likely always be hidden from us, is no less of a man, or even a hero, if we let the facts occasionally speak for themselves.

My purpose here is to examine what we currently do know, with reasonable certainty, about Sir William Wallace and to highlight the areas that remain obscure. His early life is a mystery, although, as Professor Duncan shows, we are on a rather firmer footing these days as far as his immediate family is concerned. Sir William’s father’s name was Alan, and he had not received the honour of knighthood, presumably because he was not sufficiently wealthy. If Alan was still alive in 1296, the evidence so far suggests he may have been a tenant in Ayrshire, an area that, according to Hary, was certainly familiar to young William.⁴ We do not know, and may never know for certain, however, that this was Wallace’s father. Other members of the wider Wallace family, most particularly the Wallaces of Riccarton who went on to acquire the Ayrshire estate of Craigie and the Renfrewshire estate of Elderslie, provided a network of kin and acquaintance with the very highest in the land. The Stewarts, through whose service the Wallaces came to Scotland in the twelfth century, were certainly known to maintain strong links with the higher echelons of the family whose lords they were.

This does not imply that William Wallace lived his early life in the company of great men. As a younger son of a minor member of the gentry class, he was presumably subject to the same uncertainty over his future as many others in a time of population pressure. He would have had to earn his own way in the world, traditionally either through the Church or as a professional soldier. He chose to do so as an archer, but in the forests and on the moors of southern Scotland rather than in any army. That he was proud of his occupation is graphically illustrated by the fact that he used the bow as his emblem on his seal. There is perhaps evidence that, like that other great folk hero, Robin Hood, who also frequented the depths of a labyrinthine forest, William Wallace lived on the margins of society and the law. If he is indeed the same man described as a ‘thief’ by an English army court in 1296 in the company of an Englishman, Matthew of York, then William was already an outlaw even before he became involved in politics.⁵ We will doubtless never know for sure that this was the future Guardian. Before we get too squeamish at the thought of the great patriotic hero being indicted for common theft (in absentia), however, it is surely believable in the context of his later life that he did not necessarily fit into the conventional order of medieval society.

So, we do not know for sure what Wallace was doing in 1296, when war finally broke out between Scotland and England, but we do know that he soon took great offence at English impositions upon the Scots from August 1296.⁶ He was not alone. After an initial shell-shocked acquiescence in new English forms of government, which included unprecedented degrees of taxation, Scotland proved contumacious. By early summer 1297 Edward’s officials were finding it extremely difficult to fulfil their duties, up to and including extracting sufficient revenue to pay their own wages.

The chronicler Walter of Guisborough asserts that the Scots began their ‘perfidious rebellion’ some time in May 1297 and William Wallace is assumed to have been its leader. The western border county of Cumberland, however, was already on red alert against ‘the coming of the Scots’ in April.⁷ Presumably this expected attack followed the infamous incident at Lanark, where Wallace killed the sheriff, Sir William Heselrig, romantically described by Hary as an act of revenge for the murder of Wallace’s wife. He then raised the men of Clydesdale, including the renowned noble hooligan Sir William Douglas.⁸

But there is a pattern to what Wallace did in those early days that suggests a greater degree of deliberation behind his rebellious activities. Just because the people of Cumberland were expecting him does not prove that he actually went south. What he certainly did do, and this may have been soon after the attack on the sheriff of Lanark, was to head northeast, targeting the English justiciar, William of Ormesby, who was holding a court at Scone. Ormesby was forced to flee precipitously, leaving his baggage behind.

It is surely no coincidence that Wallace attacked two members of the English administration in reasonably quick succession. Heselrig and Ormesby may just have been unlucky. It is not infeasible that Wallace happened to be in the Lanark area when he decided to make an example of the local Edwardian law officer. Equally, he may have heard about Ormesby’s court, which was supposedly taking homage and fealty from local people, and decided to take a step up from sheriff to justiciar. But this implies that he was already plugged into a very effective network of communication since Scone is over seventy miles away from Lanark. Intriguingly, it is worth noting that the robbery of which this William Wallace may, or may not, have been the perpetrator took place in Perth, just down the road from Scone. It is just possible, but not yet proven, that Ormesby might have been one of the justices before whom the 1296 theft case was heard. Was it revenge in both cases? We will doubtless never know but it is an intriguing coincidence none the less.

Wallace certainly seems to have ended up in Perth soon after his disruption of Ormesby’s court since Guisborough notes that he was visited there by a number of messengers who arrived ‘in very great haste on behalf of certain magnates of the kingdom of Scotland’.⁹ Despite the chronicler’s unhelpful vagueness, we can presume that these magnates were members of the Bruce ‘party’ rather than the Comyn ‘party’ who had backed King John Balliol. The Bruces and their supporters, who had acquiesced in Edward’s invasion in the hope of gaining the Scottish Crown in place of Balliol, were currently at liberty, unlike the Comyns. We know that they launched an attack on English forces in late May and thus the arrival of messengers in Perth may provide evidence of collusion between their activities and Wallace. William, however, did not join their planned uprising, although Douglas now left his company to do just that.

According to Guisborough, Wallace set about killing many Englishmen north of the Forth before coming south to the safety of Selkirk Forest, besieging a number of castles on the way. There were quite a few royal castles reasonably close to Perth, including Forfar, Clunie and Kinclaven, as well as the major royal castles of the southeast, which he certainly besieged later in 1297.¹⁰ He also inspired others to take action: Macduff of Fife was said to have joined Wallace’s rebellion and may have been responsible for the recapture of Cupar Castle, which we know was in Scottish hands before the summer of 1298.¹¹

But we should be wary of ascribing all castles captured at that time to Wallace, however active and effective he was in expelling English officials from their posts in certain parts of the country. Another rebellion was about to break out in southwest Scotland, under the leadership of the staunchly patriotic Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Wishart, the young Bruce, Earl of Carrick (the future king), and James the Steward. The ostensible justification for the uprising was the widespread rumour of imminent demands for military service for Edward’s continental campaign and the mandatory acquisition by the Crown of wool and hides to be sold to pay for the same venture. These levies, which were causing great annoyance in England, absolutely outraged the ‘middling sort’ in Scotland, who were quite unused to them.

As leaders of a section of the Scottish nobility, albeit disassociated from the Scottish king, Wishart, Carrick and the Steward intended to convey their right to represent the Scottish people and their grievances. Or at least that’s what they told Edward I once the rebellion had fizzled out. But they did achieve a degree of success in disrupting the English administration, including the recapture of castles in the southwest.¹² The rebellion came to an end at Irvine on 7 July 1297 after a month of negotiations. According to Guisborough, however, these Scottish nobles, who also demanded a return to the ancient laws and customs of their land, ‘took so long in discussing concessions with frivolous points, so that Wallace could gather more people to him’.¹³ Although it is hard to imagine Wallace taking orders from these noblemen, it discredits no one to suggest that the communication that we are fairly sure took place between them at Perth was not necessarily a one-off event. The eyes of the English administration were on the aristocrats. In the meantime, the humble Wallace could start to plan a more serious military challenge to Edward’s regime from the safety of Selkirk Forest.

There must also have been communication between Wallace and another uprising taking place at the same time, this time in the north. In late May 1297, the young Andrew Murray, who had escaped from an English prison, gathered a force together at his castle of Avoch on the Black Isle. On 26 May they succeeded in capturing a contingent led by a deputy of the English constable of Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, following which the Scots proceeded to besiege the castle. In a tacit acknowledgement of English difficulties in holding the north particularly, Edward ordered the release of a number of Scottish nobles, including the two most important members of the Comyn family. They seem to have been charged expressly with putting down any insurgency in the area, where they were major landowners. Whether or not they were sincere in their attempts to do so, Urquhart earned only a temporary release, falling to Murray and his men at some point in the summer. By the time of, or shortly after, Murray’s victory with Wallace at Stirling Bridge, all the English-held castles in northern Scotland, including Urquhart, Inverness, Banff, Elgin and Aberdeen, had been recaptured.¹⁴

With the capitulation at Irvine in July, most of the senior members of the English administration believed that the Scots had given up their rebellious ways. The apparent exception was the Treasurer, Hugh Cressingham, who was well aware of the gathering of men in Selkirk Forest and the difficulties faced by English officials elsewhere. But the king’s lieutenant in Scotland, the Earl of Surrey, was far from committed to his duty, and Cressingham was forced to wait anxiously in Berwick as events unfolded beyond his control.

At some point during the summer, Wallace and his men emerged from Selkirk Forest, and he recommenced his attacks on English-held strongholds. He supposedly besieged the royal castle of Dundee immediately before the battle of Stirling Bridge. This is perhaps corroborated by a burgess of the town, one William Doddingstone, who later sought recompense from Edward I for twelve sacks of wool stolen by Wallace ‘by force of arms during the war’.¹⁵ On hearing that Cressingham had finally managed to assemble a fresh army from England to combat the very definite continuing unrest, Wallace then allegedly left Dundee, ordering the burgesses to ‘kepe that castle rycht straitly’.¹⁶

Wallace must certainly have moved north of the Forth, at the very least, in order to rendezvous with Murray. We have no idea where or when exactly the two armies met up, although Perth seems most likely if Murray was coming down from the Inverness area. We also have absolutely no notion how many men they each brought with them, although we can perhaps surmise that these were small but reasonably well-disciplined forces, given how effective they proved to be and not just at Stirling. It should also be noted that neither man had the authority to call out a ‘Scottish’ army on behalf of King John. We are on slightly surer ground with the English contingent, led by Surrey. There is no evidence that his army was much larger than the force numbering 300 horse and 10,000 men mustered by Cressingham earlier in the summer.¹⁷ We assume that this was considerably more than the Scots had to offer.

That the two armies would meet at Stirling was only common sense, since the bridge across the Forth there was the main north-south route. Wallace and Murray led their men southwest from Perth, coming past Sheriffmuir in the Ochil Hills before descending towards the Carse of Stirling. The English were on the southern bank, their commander, Surrey, enjoying the hospitality on offer at the castle. Surrey’s arrogance, hastened on by Cressingham, in letting the cavalry cross the narrow bridge to a carefully judged ambush on the far bank provided the backdrop to another victory for David over Goliath. The date was 11 September 1297. Although the English commander could have complained that the rules of war permitted the opposing army to line up for battle in safety, a moment’s reflection would have suggested that there was more than one set of rules in this war.

The news of the English army’s inconceivable defeat at the hands of the Scots reached London by 26 September 1297, two weeks later. Surrey was immediately ordered south to explain himself to the regency government.¹⁸ At the same time, writs of summons were issued to a number of northern English lords and thirteen Scottish magnates, including John Comyn of Badenoch and seven earls, commanding them to ride against the rebels with as much force as they could muster.¹⁹ The Comyns certainly did not respond; nor did James the Steward. The Earl of Carrick was not even asked to participate, indicating the extent of doubts about his loyalty. The battle of Stirling Bridge had given hope back to Scotland. Unfortunately, it also reunited England, which had been teetering on the brink of civil war in the face of Edward’s continuing high-handed demands for men and supplies for his near-constant campaigning.

As the English government struggled to maintain even a tenuous grip on the northern kingdom, the leaders of the Scottish army at Stirling Bridge were equally keen to capitalise on their victory and remove any remaining Edwardian officials. Stirling Castle, hurriedly resupplied after the battle in which its constable, Sir Richard Waldegrave, and other members of the garrison were killed, fell soon afterwards. Sir William fitz Warin, the new commander, had already faced Andrew Murray as constable at Urquhart, which had presumably, therefore, fallen before the battle.²⁰ As ‘the gateway to the north’, commanding the western end of the Forth, Stirling Castle was of great strategic importance.

Scotland north of the Forth was effectively cleared of all Edward’s men and remained in Scottish hands for the next five years or so. The southwest also seems to have been restored, temporarily at least, to Scottish control, judging by the lack of references to the area in English sources. But the southeast proved harder to recover in any permanent fashion. In the months following the battle, the Scottish army, presumably led by Wallace,²¹ besieged the great medieval castle at Roxburgh. It did not submit, although only thanks to the arrival of an English army under the disgraced Surrey in February 1298. Wallace succeeded in gaining control of Berwick town, but not the castle, although he had to relinquish it to Surrey soon afterwards. However, the smaller castle at Jedburgh did fall for rather longer and received a Scottish garrison under the command of John Pencaitland.²²

Wallace and his men were certainly extremely busy over the winter of 1297–98. As well as relieving Scotland of its foreign masters, Wallace was keen to take the war across the border. According to the anonymous chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, the army that invaded Northumberland in 1297 was led by ‘a certain Maleis along with William Wallace’. Professor Barrow has argued convincingly that this ‘Maleis’ was probably none other than the Earl of Strathearn, whose family ‘had considerable interests in north Northumberland’.²³ Wallace’s army had presumably swelled with troops supplied by Scottish noblemen who now felt that they could come out openly again in the fight against England. Whether or not that made Wallace any more effective is a moot point.

Wallace’s activities over those difficult winter months must also be seen in the context of the fact that he, and the English government in London, were expecting the arrival of an English army, summoned for a muster at Newcastle on 6 December. For a variety of reasons, however, including Surrey’s usual tardiness, it did not arrive until February. Although this resulted in the saving of Berwick and Roxburgh from the Scots – an important, if unspectacular, success – the English campaign was halted once instructions from Edward himself arrived. The king was not prepared to rely on Surrey or anyone else to lose his battles for him – they were to wait until his return from the Continent when he would take charge personally. The filtering through of this news was probably what prompted Wallace to cross the border again, leading to the ‘battle’ at Stainmoor.²⁴

As Guardian, Wallace was clearly absolutely dedicated to removing the English from Scotland and, if Falkirk had worked according to plan, keeping them removed.²⁵ But he certainly did not neglect the other, administrative aspects of his job. It was his instructions that brought about the election of William Lamberton, chancellor of Glasgow Cathedral, to the bishopric of St Andrews. And although we might detect the hand of Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, behind the selection of the man, it is to Wallace’s credit that he could take advice when necessary.²⁶

As Professor Duncan has intimated, he also did not ignore the need to maintain Scotland’s links with the outside world, writing to Lübeck and Hamburg, along with Andrew Murray, even before he became Guardian. This, together with the only other extant charter of the period – the one granting the constableship of Dundee Castle to Alexander Scrymgeour, dated 29 March 1298 – indicates that Wallace had access to functioning administrative machinery, including the chancery.²⁷ Whatever his origins, this new, dynamic leader certainly commanded the power of government, whether or not the nobility as a whole supported him.

The muster date for the English army was set for 17 June, later postponed to 25 June, at Carlisle and later changed to Newcastle.²⁸ The northern counties were not asked to contribute anything, attesting to Wallace’s success in causing havoc and mayhem in the area. The Scots seem to have withdrawn north of the border, presumably to start preparing for the arrival of the English king. Their leader was now their Guardian, and a knight as well. The banner of King John had flown proudly above his army, and the English, now very nervous about Scottish tactics and whether or not they would actually give battle, as a proper feudal army should, had learned that the terrible defeat they had inflicted on the Scots at Dunbar was not the end of the matter. On 19 July,²⁹ the sheriffs of the northern English counties were ordered to investigate ‘as secretly and circumspectly as possible’, whether or not the Scots were planning yet another expedition across the border. Preparations were also made in case they were sighted, including the collection of wood and turf for beacon fires. It was also anticipated that any Scotsmen living in these counties would be imprisoned, suggesting that Wallace was suspected of being able to call on the support of his fellow countrymen whilst in enemy territory.³⁰

The chroniclers are all full of stories about the famine that afflicted Edward’s army as it made its way along the southern bank of the Forth in the early summer of 1298. According to Guisborough, the king’s supplies failed for almost a month because ‘contrary winds’ prevented his ships from following them up the firth.³¹ This apparent reliance on provisions from the south suggests that the Guardian had opted for a scorched-earth policy, meaning that no one would benefit from the harvest in Lothian that year. If so, we have some tentative evidence for a deliberate policy of enticing the English into Scotland under difficult conditions in the hope of rendering Edward’s large army much less fit to fight. At the last minute, however, supplies did arrive, Wallace’s whereabouts were reported to the king by the pro-English Earls of Dunbar and Angus, and the English dashed quickly through Linlithgow towards Falkirk and the Scottish position.

Was Wallace caught on the hop? If so, then this surely implies a shocking disregard for elementary levels of reconnaissance. An English army of over 20,000 men is not easily missed, even if it is intent on marching quickly under an effective commander. It is also quite clear that the Scottish Guardian had his men arranged in an effective battle formation, poised in their schiltroms at the top of a slope, an ideal position for an infantry force intent on repelling cavalry. If Wallace had wished to avoid battle, surely he could have allowed his men to slip away at the first intimation of the English army’s approach. It makes more sense to suggest that he allowed his location to become known, having some assurance in the strength of his position and the expected hunger and fatigue rife within Edward’s forces. The odds were perhaps still against him, but he had done everything he could to narrow them. And he was not Bruce, whose reputation would have been damaged but certainly not destroyed if he had decided not to fight at Bannockburn. Wallace’sraison d’être was victory in warfare, and he was perhaps under pressure from all sides – from the reluctant nobility to his own men – to inflict defeat on the Hammer of the Scots himself. But as with so many things concerning the elusive William, we will never know.

His defeat at Falkirk was not through lack of bravery on the part of the men dug into the schiltroms. The Scottish cavalry fled, the Scottish archers from Selkirk Forest, led by Sir John Stewart, cut down supposedly to a man.³² Wallace himself left the field, although in what precise circumstances we do not know, but he must have been aware that his brief career in the centre of the political limelight was over. According to the Scottish chronicler Wyntoun, he resigned from the Guardianship, although perhaps that was merely a pre-emptive action since the Comyns were almost certainly looking for the first opportunity to reassume their pre-eminent position in Scottish politics.³³ The battle of Falkirk did as much to expose and break the uneasy relationship between the Scottish nobility and the Guardian as it did to restore English morale. Four days after the battle, Edward I arrived at Stirling Castle, which succumbed to him within a fortnight. The king seems to have been determined to wipe out as much of the preceding year’s losses as he possibly could, sending cohorts of cavalry to various parts of the country, including Perth, St Andrews and Ayr.³⁴

It was not that simple, however. What Wallace – and others, but especially Wallace – had done was not just win a battle and take the war to England. He had shown that it was not inevitable that Scotland should succumb to England’s great military strength; that there were ways to fight a war to restore independence that, although not strictly orthodox, would at least provide the hope of victory.

Wallace was in an extremely ambivalent position in the aftermath of Falkirk, but the one thing he was highly unlikely to do was nothing. One possibility is that he continued with the strategy that he had employed over the previous winter, presumably with men more immediately loyal to him. The northern English counties certainly seem to have suffered Scottish attacks even after Falkirk, judging from the fact that the Sheriff of Cumberland failed to render his accounts in York on 30 October 1298 because:

during the present war between the king and the Scots, who lately invaded the said parts and caused much damage and put them in much danger so that the county could not be without its sheriff . . .

He managed to come to the exchequer on 16 November 1298 but immediately ‘returned to those parts to save them from damage or danger from the Scots’.³⁵

Stirling was also under attack by the autumn of 1298 as the Scots sought to disrupt the castle’s supply lines to English-held positions in the southeast. Indeed, the evidence for Scottish activities after Falkirk shows that there was, if anything, an increase in their use of less traditional warfare. Although Wallace was presumably not responsible for all of it, it is quite likely that he played a leading role, whether or not he was authorised to do so by the new Guardians, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and John Comyn, younger, of Badenoch, who, although representing the two most important noble factions of the time, found it extremely difficult to work together. We do not have any definite information on Sir William’s activities until more than a year after Falkirk, when a spy brought news of an extraordinary incident that supposedly took place at a Scottish council meeting at Peebles on 19 August 1299. According to that account, Wallace was intending to leave the country without the permission of the Guardians. This provoked a squabble between Sir David Graham, a Comyn man, and Sir Malcolm Wallace, William’s elder brother, who, interestingly, was associated with Bruce.³⁶ Whatever the full ramifications of that incident, which are far from clear, we can assume that Wallace was still in the country, but not for much longer. Intriguingly, we also have an oblique reference to him from perhaps around the same time. In 1307, John Sampson, the English constable of Stirling Castle between 1298 and 1300 (when the castle fell to the Scots), claimed expenses for losses incurred during that time. This included a horse, killed ‘on a [my own italic] St Bartholomew’s day [24 August] when William Wallace came to take away our supplies’.³⁷ Unfortunately, this could refer to either 1298 or 1299 but, either way, it is clear evidence that Wallace had certainly not laid down the gauntlet following his defeat at Falkirk.

Despite the accusation levelled during the Peebles council meeting, Sir William must have had the permission of at least a part of the Scottish government since he could not have travelled without the requisite safe-conducts.³⁸ Wallace’s trip to the Continent is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of his career – it is certainly not the action of a mindless thug. Unfortunately, it is also the period about which we know the least. It is possible, but by no means certain, that he visited Norway, France and Rome during his four years away from Scotland. If he visited Norway, it is interesting to note that Haakon IV’s mother, still resident in Bergen, was none other than Isobel Bruce, sister of the Earl of Carrick.³⁹

We are on surer ground with the assertion that Wallace visited the court of Philip IV, thanks to the survival of a letter of 7 November 1300 from the French king to his envoys in Rome demanding that they should help Sir William with his business there.⁴⁰ We do not know for sure that he made it to the Holy See, but if he did, then he surely would have found himself wishing for the taxing certainties of the battlefield as he watched lawyers on all sides of the argument debate the case for and against Edward’s acquisition of Scotland. This was the high point of Scottish diplomacy: in 1299, the Scottish ambassadors had succeeded in persuading Pope Boniface VIII to order the release of King John Balliol from the Tower of London into papal care. In 1300–01, they were able to argue successfully for what amounted, in effect, to John’s liberation. This development finally persuaded Bruce, politically marginalised within Scotland by the Comyns, to return to Edward’s peace. Unfortunately, we have no idea what role, if any, Wallace played in these crucial deliberations.

But Scottish success in Europe was ephemeral. Changing political circumstances among the great powers – England, France and the papacy – saw the Scots left out in the cold. By the end of 1302, there was no hope of Balliol’s restoration with the help of a French army. In 1303 Edward – freed from any diplomatic restraint – launched yet another campaign across the border. But this time he intended to strike north of the Forth for the first time since 1297.⁴¹

By then Wallace was already back in Scotland. What is most interesting about his activities after his return before the summer of 1303 is not that he resumed the harrying of English forces but that he did so in the company of other noble commanders. What is equally interesting is the fact that most of these commanders were supporters of the (sole) Guardian, Sir John Comyn. As we have already noted, Wallace apparently left Scotland in 1299 in the face of bitter opposition from Comyn. The Wallaces were, if anything, under the protection of Bruce, whose political ambitions were virulently opposed by the Comyns, supporters of King John and their own pre-eminent position in Scottish politics. Yet Sir William seems to have returned to Scotland prepared to work directly with the Comyn-led government. It is also noticeable that the contemporary English sources, which are almost all we have to work with for this period in Wallace’s career, usually manage – as they had not done before 1299 – to accord him his knightly status. It is a great pity that we do not know more about his activities on the Continent.

In mid-June 1303, at the same time as Sir Simon Fraser and Sir Edmund Comyn of Kilbride were reported to have crossed the border to wreak havoc around Carlisle, Sir John Moubray⁴² and Sir William Wallace were marching through Galloway. They reputedly had ‘attracted to them most of the Galwegians’, a state of affairs that doubtless hugely irritated Edward I, who had spent the past five years carefully restoring his position in the southwest. On 23 June, the day on which the letter detailing Scottish activities was written, Moubray and Wallace’s force was on the offensive against the English garrisons in Caerlaverock and Dumfries, reportedly ‘coming to destroy Annandale and to join Sir Simon Fraser and his company’. It was greatly feared that this combined force would then threaten Carlisle yet again.⁴³

Scottish tactics during the campaigning season of 1303 revolved sensibly around stretching English resources as far as possible. The main English army, it should be remembered, was in the northeast, striking deep into territory that had been effectively held throughout most of the war by the Scottish government. Although a force under Sir Aymer de Valence had been left in the south, it and the contingents defending the border were badly provisioned with men, ‘because almost all the men-at-arms and foot-men are with the king’. Supplies were similarly affected. If the Scots could reduce Dumfries and Caerlaverock, even temporarily, then that would go a long way to compensate for any successes that Edward might achieve in the north.

Unfortunately for them, the officials of the great English war machine managed, although perhaps only just, to maintain enough men and supplies in the right places to keep even their demanding master reasonably content. In 1303 Edward succeeded in not only striking into the Comyn heartland of the northeast but wintering in Scotland to deprive the Scots of the chance to undo his good work. Wallace, Moubray and Fraser were kept at bay by Valence, his army refreshed by men-at-arms, including Bruce, diverted from the main English army.⁴⁴ By September many of the Scottish leaders felt it was time to begin negotiations. Sir John Menteith and Sir Alexander Menzies went to Valence at Linlithgow, but they were heartened by the sight of so many starving Irish soldiers and ‘broke off their business by reason of the scarcity that they saw among the said people’.⁴⁵ Their hope was short-lived, however, as Edward bedded down for the winter in Dunfermline. The Scottish government now had few places to hide and even fewer from which it could maintain its administration and vital links to the Continent. Comyn finally sued for peace on behalf of the Scottish political community at the beginning of 1304.

But not everyone agreed with surrender, although those who held out were only a tiny minority. However, they were sufficiently effective during the spring of 1304 to warrant the attentions of a force numbering several thousand men under Sir John Segrave and Sir John Botetourt. Edward also demanded that certain Scottish nobles who now held office within his administration should work hard to bring the rebels in. The Earl of March, presumably at his castle at Dunbar, was strongly reproved for having ‘let the enemy go’.⁴⁶ But around 10 March the two Sir Johns finally managed to ‘discomfit’ Sir Simon Fraser and Sir William Wallace at Happrew near Peebles, thanks to information on their whereabouts provided by a local spy. Unfortunately for the English, neither Scottish leader was captured.⁴⁷

With the surrender agreement under his belt, Edward now looked forward to a parliament at St Andrews where, among other things, Wallace, Fraser and the Scottish garrison of Stirling Castle were declared outlaws under Scottish law.⁴⁸ This was probably also the occasion of a grant made to the king’s ‘dear valet’ of ‘all the goods and chattels of whatever kind he may gain from Sir William Wallace, the king’s enemy’.⁴⁹ The name of the beneficiary was first written as Edward Bruce,⁵⁰ but this surname was deleted and that of Keith substituted. There is perhaps nothing particularly sinister about the change of beneficiary, but the fact that the Bruces do not appear to have been rewarded with much in the way of property or offices for their early re-attachment to Edward suggests that the English king was now distancing himself from that ambitious family. But it is undoubtedly fortunate for the reputation of the great hero king, Robert I, that his younger brother did not profit at the expense of the other great hero of the period.

It is also interesting that no mention was made of any lands belonging to Wallace. The spy present at the Peebles council of 1299 stated that Sir David Graham demanded the forfeiture of Sir William’s lands and property as punishment for his unauthorised trip abroad. We presume, given his position as a younger son, that Wallace did not hold land through his own family. He may, of course, have benefited personally whilst Guardian, and who could blame him – once he became a knight, he would have needed a regular income to keep him, his horse and equipment in good shape. On the other hand, the spy may have got the details of the shouting match between Graham and Sir Malcolm Wallace wrong. Once again, we just do not know.

Throughout the long process of bringing Scotland to a final peace in 1304–05, the English king was particularly careful to ensure, as far as possible, that each stage in the proceedings was accomplished with the active participation of the Scottish political community and according to Scottish laws and customs. The next major step was to bring about the surrender of Stirling Castle, which was duly achieved, under extremely unpleasant circumstances, on 24 July. Edward insisted that the besieged remain until he had fully tested his fine new weapon, Warwolf, and he considered the hanging and disembowelling of every single member of the garrison, a course of action from which he was dissuaded by his wife.⁵¹

Sir Simon Fraser seems to have accepted which way the wind was blowing at some point between the St Andrews parliament in March, when he was explicitly condemned as a rebel, and the reduction of Stirling Castle. On the day after the garrison’s submission, Edward ordered the people of Scotland, but especially Sir John Comyn, Sir Alexander Comyn, Sir David Graham and Sir Simon Fraser:

To make an effort between now and the twentieth day of Christmas [13 January 1305] to take Sir William Wallace and hand him over to the king so that he can see how each one bears himself whereby he can have better regard towards the one who takes him, with regard to exile or ransom or amend of trespass or anything else in which they are obliged to the king.⁵²

It is hard to imagine how many of these men, but especially Fraser, must have felt about being forced to hunt down a man who had lately been their comrade-in-arms. There is a presumption, of course, that Wallace would never have submitted to Edward no matter what he was offered, which leads us to a discussion of the conditions negotiated by Sir John Comyn at the beginning of the year. In many respects, Edward tried hard to be accommodating, within the limits of his steadfast belief in the righteousness of his claim to be overlord of Scotland, and therefore his anger and frustration towards those who had opposed him since 1297 are understandable. So long as the Scots were prepared to grovel a little and acknowledge unequivocally his sovereign rights over them, the English king would not exact the full revenge to which he felt he was entitled. Almost all the notable rebels, including Comyn, were promised their lives and liberty and the enjoyment of their property. Many would, it is true, be asked to serve varying periods of time in exile or pay a fine, depending on how personally Edward felt offended by their behaviour. Sir Simon Fraser and Thomas Bois were offered the harshest conditions (which may have prompted Fraser to continue his resistance), probably because both had served in the English administration before defecting and were therefore guilty of a personal betrayal in Edward’s eyes.⁵³ As the above extract indicates, however, even these punishments might be ameliorated if they worked hard to prove their loyalty.⁵⁴

But there was an exception. Wallace was not mentioned by name until negotiations were well underway and the finer points were being dealt with. It was Edward who brought up the issue of the former Guardian, and his message was simple and devastating: he was ‘to be received to the king’s will and ordinance’. In other words, the general conditions, guaranteeing life, limb and freedom from imprisonment, were not to apply and Sir William faced the unenviable task of throwing himself on Edward’s mercy, a quality that many, including the garrison at Stirling, had found in short supply. In the final document, the potential vagaries of royal clemency were given further emphasis with the injunction that Wallace was to submit ‘to the will and grace of the king, if it seems good to him[my italics]’. It was anyone’s guess as to whether Edward would find it good.⁵⁵ This uncompromising position, combined with Sir William’s obvious commitment to the cause for which he had fought so fiercely, made it almost inevitable that he would do anything other than kneel abjectly before King Edward.

Time was running out. Once Fraser had submitted, it is likely that Sir William would have found it increasingly difficult to find somewhere safe to lay his head, never mind from which he might operate a resistance movement. There is no direct mention of him between the episode at Happrew in March 1304 and the following September, when Thomas Umfraville, Constable of Dundee, and other members of the garrison, gave chase to him ‘beneath Yrenside [Ironside]’, a hill behind Dundee.⁵⁶ Perhaps Wallace was looking for help from his old comrade-in-arms, Alexander Scrymgeour, to whom the former Guardian had granted the constableship of Dundee castle nearly seven years earlier.

Once again Wallace disappeared, this time for nearly a year until 3 August 1305 when men of the Keeper of Dumbarton, Sir John Menteith, finally captured him, supposedly at Robroyston near Glasgow. Sir John has gone down in history as the ultimate Scottish Judas, although he had certainly been a leading member of the patriotic cause until the submissions of 1304. In some ways he was unlucky that Wallace was found within his jurisdiction; it certainly seems likely that many other Scots, from the highest to the lowest, would have done the same.⁵⁷

The charges brought against Wallace can also be read as a list of his successes as a leader of the resistance movement and then Guardian, particularly with regard to the holding of Scottish parliaments and the maintenance of the Franco-Scottish alliance.⁵⁸ A mere twenty days later, Sir William was brought to ‘trial’ and executed at Smithfield.⁵⁹

If William Wallace had left us his thoughts in the face of his imminent execution, he might have done worse than pre-empt Mary, Queen of Scots with the famous words, ‘In my end is my beginning’. That Wallace had an extraordinary career prior to his early death is not to be doubted – he is one of the very few real-life heroes of the pre-modern period to have come from his level of society. But those exploits were as nothing when compared with what has been claimed for him in the centuries since 1305. There is, of course, considerable overlap between the historical Wallace and the man of myth, but it is remarkable, too, how often it is necessary to distinguish between them. What I have tried to do here is to present, with a degree of brevity, what we do know about the man, ignoring much of the uncorroborated evidence of Blind Hary, and to highlight the areas where there are significant gaps. It would be wonderful to think that, in time, some of these gaps might be filled, but the trouble with Wallace is undoubtedly the infuriating lack of source material for critical moments in his life.

I have also tried to provide a degree of context for Wallace’s activities. This is partly in order to help to explain what he was up to, but perhaps more particularly to try to alleviate the impression, now overwhelmingly present in our minds post-Braveheart, that Sir William operated more or less alone with a small band of loyal followers. As I have already argued, to fix our gaze so single-mindedly on this one man, however important he was as an inspiration in his own time and subsequently, is to diminish the contribution and achievements of countless others, both known and unknown. This is a complicated period in history – like any other – and those who lived through such a desperate war are owed our honest attempts to understand their actions, even when they do not behave as we might wish. That too is a freedom worth fighting for.