Braveheart: Fact or Fiction? (Medieval Legend Investigation Documentary) | Timeline

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anyone who's ever read a detective story knows that appearances can be deceptive just over 700 years ago this innocent piece of land was witness to a brutal murder that changed the course of Scottish history forever in May 12 97 the sheriff of Lenexa William historic was hacked to death here by a young Scottish Patriot his name William Wallace or as we've come to know him Braveheart Wallace was a legend a national hero but I've come here to try to find the man behind the legend [Music] if you've ever watched the movie Braveheart forget it it's a great piece of entertainment but not an accurate guide I've come to Central Scotland to find the truth about wallace underneath schools and factories and housing estates lies a trail of blood but whether it leads to a hero or a villain depends on where you come from Wallace was the first Scottish champion in the vicious Wars of independence from England he's a Scottish icon to this day but he was certainly no saint Wallace was African faith of par excellence and was dear for his country when his country needed him he is accused of getting choirs of naked Englishmen and women's singing from this was particularly dreadful he was an underdog a second son of an unimportant knight and yet he had something at him which people responded to he must have been an extraordinary man we should never have heard of William Wallace and we might not have done except for an accident of history when Wallace was born there was no war with England Scotland was prosperous life was good then disaster struck the Scottish King Alexander the third had been causing the function in edinburgh castle late at night and probably the worst somewhere he ignored his courtiers advice and insisted on returning home to ping horn on the other side of the third or fourth he just married a beautiful princess of his age driving rain as darkness you set off along the coastal path [Music] but whether it was a midlife crisis or a noble desire to perform his kingly duties it was the death of him somewhere along the way it's been lost him and its horse stumbled and fell later on he was found here with his neck broken 600 years later the Victorians put up this monument to mark the event it says without a hint of irony that it was erected on the sexton scenery of his death seldom as libido proved so costly [Music] Scotland was thrown into crisis powerful rival factions took to arms from the country slipped towards civil war without a leader my king is gonna have to be chosen there's nearly God chooses Kings but in this case there's gonna have to be some sort of earthly intervention it couldn't happen within Scotland because that would imply the Scottish nobility were superior to the King it's got to be a great international figure and Edward the first Scotland's nearest neighbor great reputation in Europe he's the man to do it they'd ask Edward the first was a ruthless expansionist he'd already annexed Wales and Ireland the crisis gave him the chance to bring Scotland into his empire under the pretext of preventing civil war Edward took control of Scotland at NorAm Castle he made the Scottish Nobles acknowledge him as their feudal overlord the medieval equivalent of Mafia dons acknowledging a supreme boss it meant that when John Bailey was named king he was Edwards and puppet the wild Scottish Nobles caved in the common people remained defined resistance leaders emerged from nowhere throughout Scotland I hated occupying forces it's about this time the tales of a fierce young spot who's William Wallace began to circulate one typical story has Wallace fishing in a river when suddenly five English soldiers turn up and demand his catch and while it says you must be joking but offers them half anyway one of the English soldiers it's so furious but a mere jocks should give him cheek he draws his sword and lunges at Wallace Wallace immediately Paris with its fishing pole snatches the man's sword and Lots his head off then he kills two of the other soldiers before the others escape who was this Wallace everyone was asking we still don't know what he looked like these pictures are from much more recent times the only clues we have to his appearance are the accounts which tell of an arrow scar and his neck for the general agreement that he was enormous perhaps six foot six or more he was also much younger than this about 26 but where had he come from well a Scottish chronicler called blind Harry tells us that the de Wallace family which means they were originally from Wales settled in Elders Lee just south of Glasgow on the flimsiest of evidence the good old Victorians did what they do best and erected a monument but now archaeology has backed up tradition so what would have been on this side when Wallace was alive oh this is the site where Wallace four saw the light of day and there would have been a fortification here there was an archeological dig done in 1998 there's a hedge that runs right during the site here and it shows the outline of the original wooden palisade that would have surrounded the fortified property when you start 45 property what would it have looked like a there would have been a whole host of some sort either made of timber or stone surrounded by a wooden palisade in this path that were actually walking on it this moment actually is on the site of the ditch as I see there was a big done here in 98 which are a saw and the ditch still actually exists it's carved out of solid stone and is right under this path which were walking right now but so what does that mean about Bruce's family policies family and middle-class I would see every oh you were looking at it in a more dumb tear you would see middle class upper middle class perhaps so in 1270 it would have looked something like this on the raised ground was the northeastern corner of a fortified hamlet run by the one they were mine and Nobles descended from the Norman aristocracy and although they would have thought of themselves as a Scottish they would probably still have spoken French within the family but here's the weird thing the only record of Wallace's youth tells us that he was taught by monks and was going to be a priest it's possible because the church was a traditional option for minor nobility without land to inherit but the only physical evidence we have suggests Wallace was embarked on a less pious career [Music] we know from the seal that was discovered a few years ago that has a ball in the middle of it that well is probably saw himself first and foremost as an archer now that probably didn't mean he was a soldier necessarily it may have been a bit on the poaching side of things on the on the hunting of of deer but yeah he has he would have had to make his his own way he wouldn't have any lands given to him and I don't think there's any evidence in facts pretty clear he didn't have any lands himself so he's got to make his own way it's likely then that Wallace was a bit of a terror who came good when history gave him a cause [Music] the first had his hooks into Scotland he never gave up in 1296 after repeated humiliations his mother King John Balliol rebound the Scots assembled an army and raided northern England it was just the excuse edward was looking for he marched north this is very calm tweed today it's in England of course but seven centuries ago it was one of the most important and prosperous towns in Scotland as Edward moved forth spoiling for a fight with the rebellious Scots the people of barrack gave him the perfect opportunity for one some English merchants had been murdered here and their goods pillaged by the locals Edward decided to make an example of them [Music] followed shocked even the parties and English chroniclers of the time it word Unleashed thousands of trained killers on an unsuspecting band of lightly armed civilians there wasn't much resistance you see that Land Rover over there we'll just beyond it there's a building called the red tower and some Belgian merchants hold up their firing arrows and they killed Edwards cousin so eventually he personally ordered their deaths by having them burnt alive but it wasn't just Edward who wanted blood soon the cry rang out from the whole army havoc havoc which means plunder plunder that's where we get our word have up from there would have been mayhem the men would have been automatically killed the women raped first The Chronicles say the slaughter lasted three days and only stopped when Edward saw one of his men hacking a woman to death she was actually in the process of giving birth they say that half the population of beric was slaughtered and up the river tweed ran red as the bodies piled in the massacre at barrack was just the beginning Edward crushed the Scottish army shut up John Bailey in the Tower of London and took the Stone of Destiny the symbol of Scottish kingship back to Westminster where it remained for 700 years it seemed like total capitulation the story goes that when Edward was leaving Scotland he turned to the Earl he was about to put in charge and said to him Bombay's wealth fete ketta mail delivery in other words the guy who gets rid of shit he's doing a really good job Edwards thought that he got rid of the problem of Scotland he thought that by conquering the nobles he was conquering the people but he was wrong William Wallace was about to make very clear you [Music] and were the first that thought he'd taught the Scots a lesson but the slaughter and Barrack had exactly the opposite effect all over the country spontaneous opposition broke out then in 1297 William Wallace burst onto the scene but according to the Chronicles it wasn't the public atrocities at barrack that brought him into the limelight but a private grudge here at Lana [Music] The Chronicles tell the story of how Wallace fell in love he saw a maiden at mass here instant Kent against Church and was instantly smitten she was Marian Bradford from nearby lamington [Music] the story goes the Wallace carried on a clandestine love affair and eventually married Marian but the English sheriff of lanit William hassel rig also had his eye on Wallace's girl [Music] when Wallace got into a skirmish with Hester loose leg before they could arrest him Marian helped him escape into the hills revenge and full of lustful hate s already had Marian killed hearing at the slaughter Wallace returned under cover of darkness to wreak his revenge there's hardly anything left of Lana Carson today Lana Thistle bowling club occupies the site of Hessel Rick's stronghold Hillary wouldn't have expected Wallace to return but he did in May 12 97 he and his men probably slipped into town in ones and twos and then joined up ready for their revenge [Music] the attack was Swift and terrible Wallace went straight to the sheriff's house surprising him in his bed one blow of his enormous sword went straight through the sheriff's skull down to his collarbone death would have been instantaneous the young follower made sure by stabbing the inert body three times then the Scottish traders went on the rampage killing the English at will sparing only women and priests the killing of hassel rig is the first documented reference we have of Wallace but the love story may well be fiction after all Wallace was an outlaw and the sheriff was the local judge maybe Wallace simply killed him to avoid prosecution for some other crime it could be that he was already beyond the law that he was a kind of an outlaw if you've been poaching he may even be on being beyond Scots law and and maybe he was someone on the wrong side of the tracks who sort of made good because wore a blue coat [Music] and because of his success legends stick to Wallace like glue he's an archer and he kills the local sheriff now at that time stories of other fugitive noblemen like Robin Hood were hugely popular we know that Wallace's Maid Marian only appears in later versions of the story maybe the chroniclers wanted to turn Wallace into a Scottish version of Robin Hood and so they gave Wallace his Maid Marian too while we're on the subject of myths and legends because it's probably a good time to admit that Wallace was never called Braveheart that's the name that belonged to that other Scottish hero Robert the Bruce after he died when his Braveheart was put into a casket and carried into battle sorry Wallace's slaying of the sheriff of Lanna made his reputation people started flocking to his cause the outlaw band became the militia and then an army and at its head and nobody from elders me well that's it that's the key to it isn't it if the personality of Wallace sudden he must have been an extraordinary man we should never have heard of William Wallace and we wouldn't have done if it wasn't for this war he obviously had leadership qualities but I think he also had that single mindedness that devotion to a cause or one cause which in this case was Scottish independence that meant that he would you know there was no other way for him and I think he's just one of these extraordinary people in in history that that's do extraordinary things by the little personality not by the situation that they find themselves there but Wallace wasn't alone in the highlands a young nobleman called Andrew Murray had been fighting an equally successful guerrilla campaign when Wallace joined forces with Murray the rebellion became a revolution the English had to act Edward the first who was away fighting in France ordered a formidable army north to sort out the rebels firing their way to the Highlands was the Mighty River force why so Marie decided to take the English on at the crossing point its name was to echo in history Stirling Bridge [Music] in 1297 the bridge held the key to the strongholds in the highlands graphically demonstrated by this 13th century map if the English were going to take Scotland they had no choice but to cross [Music] woloson Murray decided that a battle at Stirling Bridge was their best chance of defeating the mighty English army but it wasn't this Stirling Bridge amazingly the exact location of Wallace's greatest triumph was a mystery until recently nobody could find the foundations of the original bridge find them and you find the battleground then amateur archaeologists decided to test a local tradition that the bridge lay upstream from today's with some homegrown technology I don't understand how you ever managed to see those well it's pretty lucky but there are times of the year when the fresh waters coming down in the fancy and we used an old method that the paddlefish has used which was to make a bucket out of wood with a glass bottom and they could see that the freshwater mussels on the bed of the river it is it is but it's very effective and are sunny did and if you put your head right and exclude the light here on the edge it's a marvelous vision look for the riverbed I should be able to see yes I've got it all solution to rulings it's not very easy to use but revision mark 2 should pay some this you might make a fortune yes the ancient town seal from Wallace's time shows a flat wooden platform on top of eight stone piers everyone had been looking for a bridge that went straight across the river but you don't need eight piers for a straight bridge what they discovered was that the piers went across the river diagonally no one knows why but it means that the number of peers fits perfectly for a bridge that looked something like this this narrow structure was a key part of Wallace's plans [Applause] [Music] the Scots had positioned themselves on the high ground on the north side of the river in 1297 this is what Wallace might have seen he and his lightly armed foot soldiers would have had a clear picture of the task that faced them looking south to the river they could see the English as they prepared for battle in the shadow of Stirling Castle accounts say that the English had brought a thousand cavalry and fifty thousand infantry to face the spears and Dirks of the rebels they outnumbered the Scots by as much as ten to one well it's his menu it was make or break the English army that team was regarded as a Matthias Phaeton machine in Christendom Wallace must have been a dynamic leader toughing still then he's made the belief that they could win no just against superior numbers but against much more superior almonds horses weaponry even money when it comes down to and even on water were outnumbered Wallace used the land of Scotland itself to help the fourth loot round leaving an area of boggy ground between the English and the Scots this was crossed by a single raised causeway that followed the same course as the road does today the bridge and this narrow road caused a bottleneck the logistics of getting the sheer numbers onto the field of battle would have made for a scene like the start of the London Marathon it made some of the English Knights nervous because as the nobles discussed tactics the tithe rose making the marshland even buggier delays and a decision would prove fatal three times the English started across the bridge and three times they drew back Dominican friars were sent across to offer Wallace peace terms but the message came back we have not come for peace but to avenge our country the upstart was spoiling for a fight and the English were happy to oblige Wallace and Marie couldn't believe their luck the enemy was about to fall into their trap the narrow bridge could only take two horses at a time as the heavily armored mounted Knights rode off the causeway to form a battle line the ground became too buggy for an effective charge the English were probably expecting the Scots to wait till they'd all processed across the bridge and lined up nicely that was the etiquette of chivalry but Wallace and Marie weren't like that they were Street fighters engaged in a last-ditch attempt to save their country they waited until just the right amount of Englishmen had crossed enough to fight and enough to kill and then Wallace gave a single blast of his horn [Music] the Scotch rushed out from their stronghold on the high ground beyond where that white bungalow is they attacked on both flanks and they cut off the English retreat back to the bridge with no room to form up and completely unable to maneuver the English was stuck Scott / - the hands freeze of their horses and stabs at their underbelly and as the horses fell the English was deadly it was the college [Music] The Chronicles report 5000 English dead the victory was against all odds native cunning and spirit had defeated numbers money and equipment the English retreated in disarray to this day sterling bridge is symbolic of an unbreakable sense of national pride whatever the southern neighbors may do and on the very turf where Wallace's men splashed through the mud to bring down the English cavalry a new generation of warriors struggle for pride and glory [Music] wake up Rica there is a sense of of history here I mean I believe it because I'm also the history teachers knows that rugby coach but I sense and I think the boys feel to that this is a an ancient lady it's surprising when you tell this story of the battle you could hear a pin drop because there's a sense of pride as a sense of achievement that you can sense about among the pupils sure they you know you lose the atmosphere a bit later but for that moment there's just there's something in them that they just feel yeah yeah we did this here William Wallace was a national hero but he was now on his own his partner Andrew Murray had been one of the handful of Scottish casualties nevertheless the Scottish tales were up Wallace decided to take the battle to the English next time they saw the avenging Scott was going to be on their own turn [Music] what was William Wallace really like well to the Scots he was the hero of Stirling Bridge 27 year-old Victor of the hated English but his partner Andrew Murray dead Wallace got all the glory and that success makes the real man hard to find the ballads and myth started almost at once the Scottish chronicles are more celebrations of a legend than objective histories I think there are various reasons why Wallis is a legend Wallis represents Scottish national resistance in a most extraordinary way I mean this this was a man who absolutely turned the tide the English seem to seem to dealt with Scotland in 1296 the Scottish nobility had capitulated John Bailey ill the King had miserably abdicated and you know this nobody arose and Scotland rose with him and you know that that is a tremendous achievement there's no doubt of that football match with rival fans knows there are always two ways of looking at any incident the English hated Wallis to them he was a terrorist have broken the chivalrous rules of war in football terms who'd taken the penalty before the people was ready and what happened next seems to confirm that Wallace had a much darker side [Music] Boyd with his success of sterling Wallace swept into northern England it was time for the Scots to vent their fury the English chronicles a Bullitt stories of Wallace's savagery he put monasteries to the torch and laughed as monks were drowned in front of him he slaughtered women and burned schools with the schoolchildren inside rape torture and atrocity marked his progress through the borders he shocked an aged hardened to brutality the stories evoke contemporary parallels the English accused Wallace quite explicitly of effectively ethnic cleansing that his intention was to get rid of everyone that spoke English from the north England even the Scottish chronicles realized there was a problem they said he tried to prevent the excesses of his men defending priests at the altar on the other hand they made no bones about his hatred of all the English so was Milus a national hero or a war criminal the National Wallace Monument is the great Victorian expression of his legendary status it dominates the landscape of Wallace's great triumph at Stirling Braveheart fans and Scots from all over the world including the South Florida branch of the Stewart clan come to pay homage but even here there's a grim recognition that there was little room for compromise in medieval warfare and the said provenance executioner's would then put this through the back or the front of the head and that is your cranial spike if he knew Wallace as a person it probably wasn't a guy you would like to get on the wrong side of it was probably terrifying it was probably enough a lot of people in Scotland but either feared them or hated I'm at the time we see him as a national hero and we see him differently but Wallace is one major inherent strength was a killed Englishman wherever and whenever I found them that is that was his job and that's what he did not to be confused with your dispatching dagger which has two sharp pages one to the left and one essentially Wallace was a man of his day that he was a very bloody violent man living in a violent age and he stood no nonsense at all from enemies and which of them as soon as look at them but at the same time here's a man that was a leader people he was an underdog a second son or an unimportant Knight and yet he had something in him which people responded to and he led them he had a vision he was true to his king he was fighting for join Belial he had loyalty he had a sense of purpose a sense of achievement he had a brain that could think of strategy no I think there are many good aspects of Wallace's personality and character which you can focus on but we tried to sort of say that those days are going over and we want to slaughter the English on his return from his campaign of terror along the English borders Wallace was knighted possibly by Robert the Bruce then Sir William Wallace was made guardian of Scotland in the absence of the King he'd been given absolute power while it's new the English weren't beaten he began preparations at once for the defense of the realm he put a jibbety in every major town to deal with backsliders another sign of his ruthlessness perhaps or just a desperate recognition of the scale of the expected English response pretty soon the king realized that if he wanted a job done properly he was gonna have to do it himself next time Wallace met the English army it would be led by King Edward the English wouldn't be fooled by another surprise attack so to prepare for a clash with the heavily armoured English cavalry Wallace invented a battlefield tactic called the shield from the outnumbered ranks of infantry would form an enormous circle of Spears so that the charging Knights would be met by a deadly giant Hedgehog as a massive English army advanced from the South Wallis retreated the burning fields and crops as he went his plan was to use a scorched earth policy to break the English lines of supply it nearly worked as the English army lumbered on getting hungrier there was no sign of the enemy then at Edinburgh a scout reported that Wallace was just 20 miles away in Falkirk ready to pounce if the English retreated Edward ordered a forced march at dawn on the 23rd of July 1298 the English luck changed The Chronicles tell us that as the English army was advancing up the forth they saw a flash of armor up here on the hill it was Wallace spying on his enemy but by the time an advanced guard had raced up here he was gone instead down there in front of the town of Falkirk they could see the entire Scottish army preparing at last for battle no one knows why Wallace chose to stand and fight the English were almost out of food and ready to retreat perhaps he thought he might be overtaken and preferred to choose the battleground of AB Stirling had made him overconfident either way the Battle of Falkirk was to be crucial and yet incredibly no one sure where it took place the scraps of information we have from the Chronicles just refer to a hilly area overlooking boggy ground and the water course it could have been the town centre site where the park is today the rise just beyond the supermarket the farmland under calendar woods or here the mum rooms sites near the main Edinburgh Falkirk Road whatever the location we know the story of the day Wallace had his men arrange to up on the high ground with four large circles of spearmen and in between them he had his short bowmen on behind his cavalry minh ready to charge i've brought you to the ring he says it is men now dance as best you can the English cent wave after wave of cavalry across the boggy ground up the slope and onto the waiting Scottish Spears but then two things happened that changed the course of the day and the future of Wallace's reputation firstly the Scots nobility who made up their cavalry suddenly outs and left and secondly the English brought on their new secret weapon the long [Music] the longbows range was deadly some thought it went against the rules of war as horrific in its time as napalm as effective as a machine gun Wallis escaped with his life 10,000 of his men didn't to be fair to Wallace he had planned a strategy around what the English normally do which is a major cavalry charge and that's why you got the short term please this head talk of Spears and he had trained his men well unless then they've been practicing for it for quite a while but what he couldn't have foreseen really was that Edward would deploy the archers in the way that he did and this is the beginning of of the rise of the English Archer to such our preeminent position in the hundred years war against France in the next century they're gonna win win battles and paroled Wallace got was on the receiving end of that he had planned it is just that technology took over the people who know the movie it may come as a shock to know that Falkirk wasn't the end for once he was to carry his fight on for seven more years before his horrific betrayal death [Music] you [Music] Falkirk was anihilation wallace escaped with his life for a reputation in tatters his loyal foot soldiers have been slaughtered by English bowmen and if blind Harry's to be believed his cavalry had simply deserted him Sir John Graham was one of the few Nobles who stayed at Wallace's side his remains lie in full-cut graveyard one of only three marked graves from 10,000 dead Wallace didn't just fight the English she also fought the threat from his own nobility possibly because of his lowborn status or lowborn compared to the degree Errol's of Scotland who were jealous off of Wallace's sudden high standard in the community what are you gonna do you must a don't die are you gonna call me and live to fight again I mean it's already for the seven hundred years obviously it was a dreadful thing I don't think the Scottish calorie could won that battle under not no they couldn't have done it and so I think they very wisely said let's go regroup try and think again so you don't think the cavalry betrayed no I don't I think they very sensibly it saw the way things were going I mean what could they get what there's nothing we could have done what they're gonna do right down that hill into the Calvary and be and being completely massacred we've got to remember was himself survived the Battle of Falkirk unlike a lot of the men in this shorter demoted from his role as guardian of Scotland and with his troops decimated it seems Wallace returned to the land he knew best hiding out in the forests of Selkirk while he regrouped Edward the first had battered the Scots into military submission when Wallace Ria's it isn't as a soldier but as a diplomat while he was Guardian Wallace had been used to playing on the international stage while so much else has been lost incredibly we have one of Wallace's own letters he was writing to the merchants of Lubeck in Germany basically saying that Scotland was open for business now in the wake of military disaster it seems Wallace took the political initiative against the hated Edward another letter which has since been lost shows that Wallace made journeys to the King of France and to the Pope to try and win political support it was the equivalent of an appeal to the United Nations at the time it was a unilateral action not backed by the nobles who were trying to appease Edward while they consolidated their position so do you think that in his later years Wallace would have been a bit of a political loose cannon like Edward Heath or Arthur Skov I think this is exactly the way to describe Wallace although he does when he comes back from the continent in 1303 he does join with the rest of the Scottish nobility he's one of the leaders of the Scottish army and that's that's quite interesting he's one of many but when Scots decide when John Comyn of badnik as the sole guardian at that period that Scotland has had enough and that perhaps they should submit to Edward whether they thought this was only a temporary measure or not Wallace could not would not submit he's not the only one but he's the main one and I think most of the Scottish nobility and the Scottish people it's not just the nobility a lot of the Scottish people it had enough as well and they would have thought shock but Wallace wouldn't shut up he fought on in the way he knew best as an outlaw while everyone else including Robert the Bruce went with the flow Wallace kept one step ahead of the law we went straight to the top of Edwards most-wanted list the shocking thing was when the end came that wasn't an Englishman that captured Wallace he was actually betrayed by a skort who was an English pea but an awful lot of the problems in Scotland don't essentially was succinctly summed up by Robert buns who said we are bought and sold for English gone in 1305 Wallace was finally betrayed to the English by this time most of Scotland's nobles were back on the Redwoods rule again and one of his tests of their loyalty was whether or not they were prepared to try to capture Wallace but eventually the betrayal wasn't just political it was personal the man chosen to close the trap round him was Sir John Menteith a particular friend of Wallace's who was godfather to his two children they surprised Wallace here at Rob Royston just outside Glasgow there was a struggle eventually Wallace was subdued and dragged south of the border to avoid any possibility of rescue 17 bruising days later he arrived in London on the 23rd of August Wallis was brought before the King's Bench at the Royal Palace of Westminster this was once the largest freestanding building in Europe in 1305 it was the intimidating setting for a show Tom Wallace stood silent facing his accusers as charge after charge was read out he only spoke once when accused of treason against Edward he shouted out that he could never have committed treason as he had never given his loyalty to anyone but the rightful king of Scotland but in the end the odds were stacked against Wallace the trial was more about humiliation than justice as he stood on this spot the sentence for treason was declared Wallace was to be hung drawn [Music] [Music] strip naked with his feet tied to the tails of two horses he was dragged through the city of London his head banged against the cobbles the London crowd pelted him with filth miraculously when he arrived here he was still conscious in those days this was known as smooth field it was just outside the city walls today we know it's a Smith field the site of the famous London meat market and here just round the back of some vast hospital they butchered William Wallace now in Wallace's case of course in in his hanging he'd be dangling there suffocating going purple in the face I starting out of his head bloodshot struggling arms and legs Jack dictating he'd probably be incontinent of urine and faeces stool now this require great skill on the part of the executioner because he's got to cut him down while he's still conscious drawn its slash open your belly with a knife pull out your guts pick up his knife and crudely give away toss the guts onto the fire if it was still slightest bit alive he might smell his own intestines burning and then pack the body Oh probably using max take out the heart cut it up show to the clowns now the heart would still be beating Wallis by now would be brain days problem is that see the heart beating because the heart will go on after brain death will go on beating for several minutes I've seen after half an hour well-known phenomenon Wallis his head was displayed on London Bridge the four parts of his dismembered body was sent to barrack Edinburgh Aberdeen and Stirling the scene of his greatest triumph to warm the Scots and that should have been that and thirty-five Wallis had died a failure his reputation as a military genius had been smashed after just nine months then for the next seven years he'd been powerless to stop Scotland falling under Edwards rule but like many heroes who died young his death sealed his immortality it's Wallace's legacy that's his lasting achievement one is his executions inspired Robert the Bruce to take on his mantle nine years later Bruce invoked Wallace's spirit before the decisive battle of Bannerman which established the independence that Wallace had so long fought for months almost five centuries later Robert Burns who was brought up in the same forests where Wallace used to hide out was inspired by Bruce's tribute he wrote scott's where hey it's become Wallace's and for a symbol what he represents when the foundation stone of the Wallace Monument that Stalin was led 70 or 80 thousand people turned out the day Tasya so it meant something to people even back in the days when Scotland was seen as North Britain and anytime that Scotland's future has been called into question Wallace's shadow is there a lesser man might have simply given up but Wallace went on trying admittedly not very successfully but he remained absolutely consistent so that that Scottish cause and I think therefore it's hardly surprising that this man has become a symbol of Scottish nationalism in an utterly justifiable way he is crucial to the Scottish psyche and to to how the Scots have felt about themselves and he is the symbol of unadulterated Scotland it's of any match of symbol I have to say sometimes wonder what we women really feel about Wallace but but he's very important as being somebody that we can look up to with no trace or having had any talk with England but as a man of the people Wallace came to represent personal freedom as well as Scottish independence [Music] this is the one stone of Falkirk where Wallace is said to have spied on the English miners in Scotland used to be bond to two hundred years ago the local miners released from serfdom started a tradition which lasts to this day of marching here in the name of Wallace to affirm their status as free men [Music] I came to Scotland in search of a national hero but the man I found was much more complex and ambiguous than the well-known legendary character with his deeds of derring-do of course Wallis was a man of his time he was brutal man in a brutal age but his absolute insistence that no man or group should be able to dominate any other against their wishes makes him for me not just a Scottish hero but a universal one [Music] you

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Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 596,284

Rating: 4.7740836 out of 5

Keywords: stories, real, Full length Documentaries, Documentaries, BBC documentary, 2017 documentary, Channel 4 documentary, Full Documentary, Documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, documentary history, History, TV Shows - Topic, history documentary

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Length: 48min 40sec (2920 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2018

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