A Hero for the Freedom of Scotland

A HERO FOR THE FREEDOM OF SCOTLAND

Most people know the famous film of Mel Gibson, “Braveheart”, where an episode of the war between Scotland and England is related. It’s undeniable that the film offers a worthy spectacle of Hollywood and that spectators are entertained by its scenes during all the film. The history relates how a plebeian man of the end of XIII Century, William Wallace, after the lost of his family and his wife, rebels against the British Crown and his king, Edward I. Wallace attacks English positions of Scotland. He wins a big number of battles helped by the strength of his patriots. Nevertheless, Wallace is hunted down and captured, taken to London, tried for treason, and executed by hanging, drawing and quartering, the new and beastly technique for traitors.

The film which was shooted in Scotland, in Ben Nevis mountain and which won 5 Oscars does not fit in too much with the truthful image of William Wallace. It does no look like with what really happened.

William Wallace never went beyond the frontiers of Scotland. Moreover his troops never took possession of York as the scriptwriter of the film, Randall Wallace shows in “Braveheart”. Wallace’s troops only arrived to Cumberland and Northumberland, that are in Scottish territory.

Another fact that shows differences between the film and what history books explain about Wallace is that his father, Sir Malcolm

Wallace, was alive when he began in 1297 a revolt against England. In the film we can see how his father is murdered in a barn by the English.

A fact that arouses a great admiration and sentimentalism in the spectator, is the death of Wallace’s fiancйe . In the film we see how she is murdered by an English captain, after our hero attacks a group of soldiers who have tried to rape her. Wallace and his lover have to get marriage in secret because the English had decreed the “Prima Note”. Neither one fact nor other fact have been demonstrated. On the one hand it does no know whether Wallace’s wife was executed when Wallace led the rebellion. On the other hand about the decreed of “Prima Note” neither exist a reliable evidence about its authenticity. It is possible that it happened but it is not sure.

The most serious historical fallacy is that William Wallace was executed in 1305, and the princess Isabella did not go to England until 1308 and she did not go there to get marriage with Edward 11 because she was already married with him. Hardly she could meet Wallace and breed a son of him.

As for the Scottish custom of painting their faces at the moment of fighting is real, but it does not correspond with William Wallace’s time.

Although the film contains some historically inaccurate flights of fancy, the film is grounded on three undoubted historical facts. First, at the end of the 13th Century Scotland was invaded and occupied by the armies of Edward I ,the Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet king of England; second, the standard of resistance was raised by William Wallace, the son of a minor rural laird, while the country’s “natural leaders” squabbled among themselves about the still disputed succession to the throne; and thirdly, Wallace was eventually captured and done to death with exemplary brutality by the authority of the aforesaid English monarch.

The film can be seen from different points of view. On the one hand “Braveheart” can be seen as an overwhelmingly positive message.