The time that William Wallace rose from the dead
is just one of the things I want to tell you
as we tour five sites associated
with Scotland s national hero.
because how much do you really
know about William Wallace?
If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe button at
the bottom right of the screen.
In the meantime, let me tell you five stories
like that time that William Wallace rose from the dead
That s right, it s an event we Scots celebrate to this day by stabbing
the English with chocolate swords at easter.
It all happened in Ayr.
In fact, to this day there s an Ayrshire bylaw that says;
a Scotsman within sight of Ayr racecourse is legally allowed to club an Englishman
to death with a purple curly wurly.
Last year I went to the Grand National,
and I was like a kid in a sweet shop.
I should probably tell you the story.
Wallace had been involved in a skirmish where he
d killed one of the men of a certain Lord Percy.
But, having been overwhelmed by
English soldiers, he was captured and thrown into a dungeon to starve.
When the time came for his trial they went to get him out , but he d suffered
from a fever then fallen into a coma.
Well, the English soldiers assumed he was dead
and threw his body to rot on a rubbish heap.
But an Ellerslie nurse
that s Ellerslie in Ayrshire
begged the English to let her bury him properly.
She staged a wake, but it turned out during the
wake he was a wake, so it was a fake wake,
but they kiddied on tae the English that it
wasnae a fake wake, but a real wake and that he wisnae awake at a ,
he was deid.
But he wisnae.
She nursed him back to health but when he appeared again everyone knew that
William Wallace had the power of resurrection.
People flocked to support him,
The seer, Thomas the Rhymer, made prophesies about him.
Wallace went round the country sawing ladies in half and catching bullets in his teeth.
Thus Willliam Wallace took on mythical qualities that inspired leadership more
than lands and titles ever could.
No wonder they built a national monument to him
But let me take you to another monument to give you
another fact about how his career began.
This is Elderslie near Paisley.
Now in my video on How Scottish Was William Wallace some people got upset
that I said he was from Ayrshire,
because they d seen this monument in
Renfrewshire so he must be from here
So, let s pretend there s no such
place as Ellerslie near Ayr.
Don t want to upset the Buddies.
They ve got a monument.
I m told the first real record of Wallace s
activities was actually in my home town... Perth.
In 1296, shortly after Edward Longshanks
English army defeated the Scots at Dunbar.
On St Botulf s day which
we all know is 17th June
an Englishman Matthew of York and a theif
William le Walyes William the Welshman
were accused of robbing Christina of
St John s Toun of 3 shillings of beer.
Now today St John s Toun is called Perth
and 3 shillings of beer would be two kegs.
This wasn t a: He nicked my pint! beer theft.
This was wholesale.
I m imagining some landlady of a pub finds a
couple of barrels have gone missing and sees two blokes running down a vennel,
each with a keg on his shoulder.
As it was Wallace managed to escape,
but his accomplice was tried by the occupying English Sherriff and only avoided the noose
by claiming he was a cleric.
Now somebody in the comments section
may say: It s mistaken identity.
Scotland had been recently occupied by English
forces which would have contained Welsh archers.
It could be argued that Matthew of York and
William the Welshman were two of the garrison
nicking a couple of barrels of beer
from a local Scottish landlady.
Possible, but William Walyes is
specifically named as a thief
assumed to be known and clearly not in
the English Sheriff s good books...
and his accomplice isn t a
soldier, but an English cleric.
It s just as likely that William Wallace,
teamed up with a vicar with a drink problem
and it all went a bit Pete Tong.
When the vicar turned up for trial,
drunk and incomprehensible
he just sounded English.
You know they talk funny.
Of course the most likely
explanation of a Scotswoman a Welshman and an English vicar in a pub,
is that somebody s found a medieval joke book and forgot to mention the Rabbi.
What we know for sure is that somebody called William Waleys
was living on the fringes shortly after the English invasion in 1296
and was accused of stealing beer.
That life between outlaw and freedom fighter
was shared by Rob Roy and Robin Hood.
In fact there s more similarities
to Robin Hood to come .
Before that let s go to where
Wallace was actually born
Ayrshire.
It s right that this Ayrshire lad should
have a monument in his home county
and this one was built before the one in
Elderslie, or the National one near Stirling.
But here s another thing you might
not have considered about Wallace.
They had to create a new job for him
In just over a year he d gone from a beer stealer to the leading commander of the Scottish army,
with the responsibility for an entire kingdom.
but they didn t know what to call him or whether
he should get the key to the executive washroom.
It took months for the HR
department to work things out.
In his letters that survive from the weeks after
his victory at The Battle of Stirling Bridge,
Wallace described himself and Andrew de Moray as
leaders of the army of the Kingdom of Scotland acting on behalf of the community of the realm and
John Balliol, the illustrious King of Scotland .
Now this was true , but was more a job
description than a formal job title.
You know when somebody has the
words Acting in front of their job
you never quite take them as seriously.
So they had to come up with a title for
whatever it was that Wallace was doing ,
and the Community of the Realm decided to
revert to the idea of a guardianship.
That had been used where a
body of nobles and clerics
could collectively act as a legal
government when the king s not around.
but Wallace wasn t a collection of
nobles and clerics he was a guy.
His buddy Andrew de Moray was now dead,
and Wallace was named sole Guardian.
He alone wielded the authority of
the Crown in the name of King John.
Not only had this office never existed
before for a single individual,
but for the powers of the crown be given to
someone not of royal blood , not even a baron.
When he was named Guardian,
Wallace wasn t even a knight.
He didn t have any land.
His dad, Alan, and his elder brother, Malcolm, were still alive, so
he wasn t even head of his own family
but he was in charge of the country.
That was mental!.
He even had to invent a seal for
himself, which we ll come on to.
In a strict hierarchical, society, the idea
that this guy would be standing in for the King, would have seemed mad to the English.
You can just see them taking the piss!
The beer thief?
When he was made Guardian they had to
knight him so he would have recognition
. It s like saying everyone in
management needs to have a degree ,
but the Managing Director doesn
t have ANY qualifications.
Shit!
Can we give him a degree now?
Any degree.
Just tell them it s from Glasgow Caley
Mines is from Paisley Tech
This is the monument at Robroyston
on the outskirts of Glasgow
commemorating the place Wallace was finally
captured by teachery and John of Menteith
before being delivered to Edward I of England
In his possession Wallace had letters from various European leaders
but the most famous letter that he wrote was sent by him and Andrew de Moray
to the merchants of Lubeck and Hamburg, after the Battle of Stirling Bridge, to tell them that
Scots were back in control and Scotland was back in business.
You can see the letter in the Museum of Scotland today.
On it is his personal seal that I mentioned earlier.
Now your personal seal is important to you, right?
The symbol you choose is going to have meaning.
It s your identity on paper
for everyone to recognise.
William Wallace s choice of
pattern was a bow and arrow.
If you don t think that seems
unusual then consider this...
a bow was seen a low prestige weapon.
It wasn t the sort of thing you
d use in medieval heraldry.
So this was a deliberate choice of
somebody proud of being an archer.
An English chronicler unflatteringly
reported of a certain young man by the name of William le Waleis,
an archer, who sought his living by his bow and quiver.
Of lowly birth and reared as an outlaw
How disparaging!
Now Wallace wasn t REARED as an outlaw.
Nor was he quite of low birth , but late birth.
I mean he had an elder brother.
You see William Wallace s
dad WAS a minor land owner,
but didn t have the kind of wealth that would
allow him to kit out and train all of his sons as knights in shining armour.
That was an expensive business.
Nobles were expected to turn up prepared to fight
mounted as heavily armed and armoured knights,
with warhorses, plating and equipment.
It was like owning a tank.
I don t know if your dad could afford a tank.
I don t think we could ve fitted one in our driveway...
because we lived in a tenement.
Alan Wallace probably didn t have enough land for
each of his sons to fit a tank in the driveway
If you were a younger son of middle-class
parents working on a budget,
you probably weren t going to get
the full armour-plated dinner suit
William had to make do with a bow and arrow.
but this was still a weapon that took strength and skill to use,
and professional, well-equipped archers with their own horses were in demand.
They d be on better wages than common foot-soldiers, but not as good as men-at-arms,
and not likely to ever win a knighthood.
Being an archer tells you something about
his position in his family and society.
The fact he needed to invent a seal for himself
rather than his family arms his brother would inherit from their father
tells you even more about his lack of social standing.
Choosing a bow and arrow as that seal tells you something about the man.
No pomp or pretention, but pride in his own abilities.
Having drawn many other men to him, having risen to the role of national leader
the seal he chose reminded everyone that he was one of Jock Tamson s bairns
and proud to be so.
In a time when REAL noblemen
seemed to flip sides like a pancake on Shrove Tuesday,
Wallace stood out because he never did.
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This is the monument to the Wallace Oak.
After being ferried across the Clyde Wallace was apparently chained to an oak tree here
as he awaited the escort of English troops to take him to London
for the inevitable and brutal fate that awaited him.
After hundreds of years the tree itself could no longer be preserved, so in
2021 it was replaced by this monument.
Often when people talk about William Wallace they
think in terms of the guy who ultimately lost,
hung drawn and quartered whilst OTHERS
went on to fight for Scotland.
but I guess that depends on what
you mean by winning and losing.
If we re talking about Scottish patriots,
then he was the great survivor.
We could take various events as the start
point for the wars of independence.
I suppose technically it was probably when
John Comyn led a small Scottish force
across the border to attack Carlisle Castle.
Does that make us the baddies? .
The slaughter of townspeople at Berwick
followed by military defeat at Dunbar
meant that most of the Scottish nobility
very quickly gave in to Edward
by re-signing a document called the
Ragman s Roll originally signed in 1291.
Now nearly everyone who s anyone
signed submission to Edward,
so you could almost say that the only
Scots patriots who survived after 1291...
certainly after 1296 were those who didn t sign.
Willliam Wallace didn t.
Even if you cut some slack to the Andrew
de Morays the Robert the Bruces they still didn t outlast Wallace as patriots.
Once Edward had garrisoned Scotland you could argue that the first spark of
uprising was when Wallace attacked Lanark,
but he did it in collaboration with
his social better Sir Richard Lundie
Now Lundie later switched sides at a standoff
between the Scots and English at Irvine
known as the Noble s revolt.
Robert the Bruce capitulated at the same time.
Wallace then joined forces
with Lord William Douglas, the father of the famous Good Sir James Douglas
or if you re English The Black Douglas...
Willliam Douglas had also signed the ragman s
Roll, but he and Wallace attacked Scone together
Douglas was later captured,
imprisoned and eventually died in the Tower of London just after
Wallace s victory at Stirling Bridge.
Of course Stirling Bridge was
Wallace s most famous victory ,
alongside another nobleman, Andrew de Moray.
De Moray died of his injuries shortly after.
A year later Sir John de Graham was killed at
the Battle of Falkirk and many others fell.
Whatever fight was left, by
1304 it all seemed over
when John Comyn the man who had led
that first attack on Carlisle Castle
now led the remaining Scottish Lords in
submitting to Edward I in February 1304.
Further ignominy followed, when a Scottish
parliament was made to outlaw Wallace once more.
In the time that he d gone from outlaw to
Guardian of the realm and back to outlaw,
pretty much everyone had
been killed or capitulated.
So when Wallace stood at his show trial at
Westminster the following year and said:
I can not be a traitor, for
I owe him no allegiance.
He is not my Sovereign; he
never received my homage;
and whilst life is in this persecuted
body, he never shall receive it.
He was saying something that few,
if any, others in Scotland could.
He was the last man standing.
William Wallace was a survivor.
If you want to know more about William Wallace
and his patriotic struggle then you should really watch the video coming up on screen now.
In the meantime
