William Wallace: A True Scottish Champion, Fact or Legend?

The historical figure of William Wallace was a real man who lived in the late 12^th to early 13^th centuries. He is said to have died in 1305 and fought the victorious battle at Stirling Bridge in 1297. His iconic tale now resonates as one of Scotland’s most heroic and legendary.  William Wallace truly stands as a beacon of true Scottish-ness. The Chapbook entitled “The History of William Wallace: The Renown Scottish Champion,” was published at some point in the 1840s as a short historical biography.  People reading this Chapbook, at the time it was originally published, would most likely have taken the events told in the story as historically accurate. The truth of the matter is that there is no way, even today, to be able to know for certain the exact factual events that took place. The History of Sir William Wallace is largely based off of the idea of collective memory, biasness and myth. Collective memory and bias tie into the idea that people will re-tell a story slightly different each and every time. They will unintentionally include personal opinions, which can be based off of political standpoints, religion, social class, etc. The story has been told and re told such a great amount of times that it is inevitable that this would take place, resulting in the story evolving into more of a legend than anything else. There is however a very fine line between the absence of definitive source material on Wallace and the actual documented evidence that exists, such as plays, poems and historical accounts.  The interesting facet to the story of William Wallace, has to do with there being just enough evidential fact to stiffen the claim, therefore merging fact and fantasy.

The earliest version of a William Wallace historical account was an epic poem type verse of 11,000 lines written by Blind Harry between the years 1474-1479. Ever since then the Scots have been retelling his story each generation, creating an eventual martyr of Scottish patriotism. Each retelling of the story seems to place a particular stress on Wallace’s contribution of unity with Britain. He has quite plainly become a hero and a symbol of National identity for Scots. This sense of heroism appealed to a Victorian sense of individualism, which resulted in a resurgence of interest into William Wallace’s story in the 19^th century. The 19^th century bore the idea of the “Traditional Wallace” and the “Authentic Wallace,” basically pertaining to the dissection between fact and fiction within his story. However at the end of the day, the concrete truth about William Wallace will most likely never be known, which is a constant theme within the study of all History.

The YouTube link below is a short clip from the contemporary 1995 film entitled “Braveheart,” in which Mel Gibson portrays the iconic William Wallace. He is giving a freedom speech here, in which he asserts his position as not only a leader, but also as a true and free Scotsman. Please watch this Clip for comparison and analysis purposes. 

Reference

Graeme, Morton. “The Most Efficacious Patriot: the heritage of William Wallace in 19^th Century Scotland.” The Scottish Historical Review 77, 204 (1998): 224-251. 

*we claim no rights to this YouTube clip and recognize that it is the property of Walt Disney, we will take down said clip upon request if necessary