William Wallace Read online

  This ebook edition published in 2012 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  This edition first published in 2007 by Birlinn Limited

  First published in 1986 by John Donald Publishers Limited, Edinburgh

  Copyright © Andrew Fisher 1986 and 2002

  The moral right of Andrew Fisher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ebook ISBN: 978-0-85790-493-5

  ISBN: 978-1-84158-593-2

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  To the memory of my father,

  who gave me my love of Scottish history

  and

  To my grandson, Josh, in the hope that

  one day he will share in that love

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Preface to the Second Edition

  Introduction

  1 The Silent Years

  2 The Time of Defeat, 1296–1297

  3 The Time of Victory, 1297

  4 The Time of Revenge, 1297–1298

  5 The Time of Power, 1298

  6 The Time of Despair, 1298

  7 The Time of Sacrifice, 1298–1303

  8 The Time of Doubt, 1303–1304

  9 The Time of Betrayal, 1305

  10 The Time of Glory, 1305

  Conclusion

  Select Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  I am grateful to my publishers for the opportunity once again to look at the enigma of William Wallace. My family, as always, has supported me through the days of doubt and sorrow with which I have been faced. In particular, I am indebted to my daughter, Claire, who has shown an unexpected talent for the deciphering of hieroglyphics – mine.

  Preface to the Second Edition

  In 1986 I wrote that William Wallace was ‘at best a shadowy figure and likely to remain so’. The intervening years have not caused me radically to depart from that opinion. Valuable, and impressive, work on Wallace has, of course, been done in that period and I am happy to acknowledge my debt to it in the text. There has also been Braveheart. In essence Blind Harry writ large for the screen, the film was hugely popular. It undoubtedly made the name of Wallace more widely known than ever before. That, for many, was justification enough. But the Wallace it portrayed had neither depth nor character; he was, as in ‘Harry’, a one-man fighting machine, an automaton, programmed to kill on mention of the word ‘English’. Nevertheless, Braveheart cannot be ignored; it has its place in the conclusion to this new edition. We do now have one significant piece of information on Wallace; his father was not Malcolm, but Alan, as we shall see. But even that change brings with it a question; was the family of the great Scottish hero quite the homogenous unit devoted to the defeat of Edward I, as has been thought, or was it, rather, divided in its loyalties?

  William Wallace continues to intrigue as well as to inspire.

  Introduction

  William Wallace was born into a Scotland long at peace with its southern neighbour and, since the celebrated if mistitled Battle of Largs and the subsequent Treaty of Perth in 1266, free from the fear of invasion from Norway. His family, though landed and established in Scotland for over a century, was not noble and was without influence. The education he received, perhaps in training for the priesthood, gave him a facility in languages but was distinguished above all by that love of liberty which he retained to the end of his life. It is possible that before his invasion of northern England in late 1297, he had never set foot outside of Scotland. His world, and much of his experience, was centred on the west of Scotland. We may reasonably suppose that his contacts were unexceptional, restricted and governed by the rigidly hierarchical nature of the society in which he was raised. His knowledge of great men and great events would be circumscribed by his immediate environment; the name of Stewart or Bruce would carry more weight with him than that of Alexander III. A younger son, he had few prospects and an uncertain future.

  He was thus in no way prepared, by birth, education, or training, for a role of any consequence in the history of his native land. Yet when the ambition of Edward I combined with the weakness of John Balliol to usher in that conflict which we choose to call the Scottish War of Independence, Wallace was to rise within a year to an eminence and reputation, in Europe as in Scotland, which none could have foreseen. He led and directed the resistance to Edward, broke the sequence of English successes in the field, maintained the cause of John Balliol, restored his country to its rightful place in the councils of Europe, and where others, ostensibly his betters, yielded and collaborated, set an example of constancy and perseverance. Even his horrific death in London came to be seen as a victory. He became and remained an inspiration to both singer and poet.

  Wallace was by any standards a remarkable man. But if undoubtedly heroic, he was not perfect. There is to Wallace not merely a dark but an unknown side. In an age of brutality, he was brutal. He was no less cruel than those against whom he fought. He repaid the sack of Berwick in 1296 with the ravaging of Northumberland the year after. To achieve his ends, he turned, often violently, on any, Scots or English, who stood in his way. The Church he supported in Scotland, its English representatives he treated less tolerantly. The crimes with which he would be charged by Edward’s justices in 1305 were not wholly fabrications; Wallace himself at his trial, far from seeking to deny or excuse them, gloried in what he had done and regretted that he had not done more. Implacable to the end, he exuded defiance in the midst of his enemies.

  Posterity, as in the case of his contemporary, Robert Bruce, has tended to look away from Wallace’s flaws as if afraid of the truth. Wallace was, simply, a man of his time, with all that means; our recognition of the fact does not detract from his stature. More significant, and more harmful to the memory of Wallace, is the manner in which our lamentable ignorance of his life before May 1297 and of the period between the defeat at Falkirk and his death seven years later has led us to neglect a number of crucial questions connected with him. The result is that we have made something of a one-dimensional figure of a man who cannot have been other than complicated. Of such questions three in particular present themselves for our consideration. First, how could a man untutored in the art of war – he had after all no Queen Eleanor to provide a translation of Vegetius for him – and without experience in its practice emerge with such authority and ability as a military leader in the summer of 1297? Second, on the basis of the admittedly meagre information available to us, what role can we allocate to Wallace after Falkirk which fits in with our knowledge of his character, temperament and talents? Third, given that the traditional link between Wallace’s execution in August 1305 and Bruce’s murder of Comyn in February 1306 and his rebellion is discredited, what was the relationship between Wallace and Bruce?

  It is not to be expected that the answer to these questions is to be discovered in contemporary sources. Wallace is at best a shadowy figure and likely to remain so. But that has not prevented criticism of his decision to fight at Falkirk or general agreement that his defeat there inevitably brought in its train his resignation as Guardian. It has not prevented an unflattering comparison of him with Andrew Murray, or, more damaging, a view of him which is condescending and therefore unflattering. Wallace deserves better of us. It is too much to see in him one who, as
it were, sprang forth readymade in 1297, remained fixed and unalterable over a period of some eight years, learned and forgot nothing, was never tempted to despair, never profited from the study of the political manoeuvres of his Scottish associates, never deviated from a pre-ordained path. Wallace was not such a man. What we believe we know of him is more often interpretation than fact. That is understandable, given our ignorance. But if we accept that we do not know, and cannot know, the whole story of William Wallace, we can look at him again, and in offering an answer to our questions, come closer to an authentic picture of the first and most enduring hero of Scottish nationalism.

  1

  The Silent Years

  ‘Bow and quiver’

  When in 1124 David I succeeded his brother, Alexander I, as king of Scotland, he was already firmly committed to the introduction into his new kingdom of the Anglo-Norman system of government.1 Raised at the English court from the age of eight,2 he had studied the principles and the practice of that system at first hand, especially with the encouragement of his brother-in-law, Henry I. Through the administration of his own considerable estates in England3 and, later, of those parts of Lothian ceded to him by Alexander, he had gained further and more personal experience. He thus brought with him as king not merely a philosophy of government but the first of those men from England who would help him rule Scotland on the Anglo-Norman model.4 He began to surround himself with the acquaintances of his youth, ambitious, thrusting adventurers, men determined upon success and its corollary, the acquisition of land. To the reign of David I we may trace the appearance in Scotland of many of the great names of the country’s history, among them Bruce, Balliol and Comyn. Of these particular families, the first two would in time themselves produce kings of Scotland, while the third, unlike them almost entirely forgotten today, may have been prevented from the achievement of monarchy by the precipitate and murderous action of the most famous of the Bruces.

  In or about the year 1136, as part of the process of creating in Scotland what would become a new aristocracy, David took into his service as ‘dapifer’ or steward of the household a certain Walter, the third son of Alan Fitzalan and his wife Avelina.5 It was a position of undoubted trust and responsibility that the king had offered Walter, although its holder did not at that time rank quite among the highest officers of state. Walter’s family had been hereditary stewards to the lord of Dol in eastern Brittany since the middle of the eleventh century. Indeed, his eldest brother, Jordan, returned to Dol from England, where the family had settled in the early years of the reign of Henry I, to carry on the established tradition. We do not know the circumstances in which David the future king of Scotland and Walter his future steward first met. It may have been as early as 1114 when they, like Alexander I, campaigned in Wales under Henry I. Whatever the occasion of their meeting, David did not forget the other man. As a younger son, Walter had few prospects of advancement as long as he remained in England, and it is likely therefore that he accepted David’s offer of employment with both alacrity and gratitude. The ability to recognise and, equally important, to act upon an opportunity was, after all, an inherited characteristic. Walter’s father, Alan, had been a close associate of William the Conqueror’s youngest son when the latter’s route to the throne of England had seemed blocked. But when Henry took advantage of the unexpected death of his brother, William II, in August 1100, to make himself king, he did not neglect his old friend. Alan, it has been written, ‘benefited substantially, not to say spectacularly, after Henry had acquired the English throne’.6

  In keeping with his new dignity as steward, Walter Fitzalan was granted by David and his grandson and immediate heir, Malcolm IV, extensive holdings in Renfrew, Ayrshire, and Lothian.7 In marriage he took Eschina de Londres, and their son, Alan, succeeded upon Walter’s death in 1177 to what had by now become a hereditary office. Alan’s son, Walter II, followed his father in office in 1204 with the more impressive-sounding title of ‘seneschallus’. It was this Walter who was the first to be known as ‘Steward of Scotland’. Yet another Walter, the sixth in the line introduced into Scotland by David I in 1136, married in 1316 Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I. Through this union the Stewarts became the ruling house of Scotland in 1371 when the son of Walter and Marjorie became king as Robert II, and they were later, in the person of James VI and I, to ascend the throne of England.

  The appointment of a steward by David I in 1136 was thus of immense significance for the history of Scotland. It resulted also in the arrival in the country of another family which, through the career of one man, was to become more celebrated in the popular imagination than the Stewarts themselves. We have seen that Walter Fitzalan decided to leave England at the invitation of David I because he was frustrated in his ambitions. His brother, William II Fitzalan, had been more fortunate. He had achieved a position of some standing in England, not least in Shropshire, where he was lord of Oswestry. Among those listed as owing him service in 1166 was one Richard Wallace.8 At an unknown date Richard elected to follow Walter Fitzalan to Scotland, and as the other had profited from the move to the northern kingdom, so did Richard, although on a lesser scale. He thus formed part of a remarkable influx from the south into the Stewart honour of Renfrew under Walter I. Among those who, like Richard, appeared in this period, were Robert Croc, Henry of Nes, Gilbert fitzRicher, Robert of Montgomery and Simon Lockhart. Neither they nor any of the others drawn to join Walter Fitzalan bore a name comparable to that of Wallace.

  Richard Wallace is found as a witness to a charter granted by Walter I Stewart to the abbey of Paisley in 1174. The name recurs in respect of more charters, by, for example, Richard de Lincoln and Richard de Nicholle.9 Under the Stewarts Richard Wallace held land in Kyle, in Tarbolton, Mauchline, Auchincruive and, possibly, Riccarton.10 The connection with the Stewarts was to continue, albeit in vastly different circumstances; towards the end of the next century, in the war against Edward I, the names of Stewart and Wallace would be linked.11 At the time of Richard Wallace, no one could have foreseen that it would be the name of the vassal rather than of the lord which would be the more fondly remembered.

  It is possible that Richard Wallace, having flourished under Walter I and his son Alan, survived as late as the time of Walter II (1204–1241). If so, Richard Wallace cannot have been unaware of the early manifestation of that rivalry between two families, Bruce and Comyn, which would in due course bedevil the attempts of William Wallace to lead a united Scotland to victory against Edward I. As early as 1174, the year in which Richard Wallace witnessed the Stewart charter to Paisley Abbey, the families were in opposite camps in Scottish politics. Richard Comyn, the justiciar of Lothian, accompanied William I ‘the Lion’ on his invasion of northern England which ended with his capture at the siege of Alnwick, whereas Robert Bruce of Annandale threw his weight behind Henry II.12 William I was, of course, no John Balliol, but the Comyn support for William perhaps now seems as ill-advised, if patriotic, as that which they gave to Balliol in 1296. The Bruces had picked the winning, if unpatriotic, side in 1174 and did so again in 1296. Richard Wallace, by the standards of his time, had a long life, but even if we allow for that, he cannot have seen an improvement in the relationship of Bruce with Comyn. As the thirteenth century wore on, the Comyns, relatively late starters in Scotland when measured against their rivals, were threatening to surpass them in terms of land and influence. By the middle of the century, during the minority of Alexander III, the situation between Comyns and Bruces was one which would have been depressingly familiar to William Wallace.13

  It is from Richard Wallace or le Waleis, the ‘Welshman’,14 vassal of the Stewarts, that the most famous bearer of the names of Wallace was for generations believed to be descended.15 A genealogy was constructed, and widely accepted, for William, which appeared to stand the test of time and scrutiny. According to this, William was the son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie near Paisley, the great-great-grandson of Richard Wallace, and his wife, variously Marga
ret or Jean, the daughter of Sir Reginald Crawford of Crosbie, hereditary sheriff of Ayr. The name of Crawford was at least as old as that of Wallace and another Reginald was, as sheriff of Ayr, a contemporary of Richard the ‘Welshman’. William Wallace was neither an only child, nor the first born to his parents. The year of his birth has never been satisfactorily established. A great deal of effort has been spent, much of it on the basis of contradictory information supplied by his celebrated if unreliable biographer, to settle the question.16 If it is futile to add to that effort, we shall not be far wrong if we content ourselves with the observation that William was still a young man when he first made his name in 1297. The nature of what might be termed his ‘historical’ life was such that only a man in his prime would be capable of living it. An outline of the details, sparse enough in themselves, serves to prove the point. Between 1297 and his death in 1305 William is known to have raised a rebellion against the English who occupied his country, defeated Surrey and killed Cressingham at Stirling, overcome the subsequent loss of the formidable and inspirational Murray, cleared Scotland of effective English troops, led an army on a destructive campaign in winter through the northern counties of England, returned to Scotland to carry on the government in the face of the doubts, not to say the opposition, of the native nobility, maintained an army in being and trained it, fought against and almost defeated the hitherto invincible Edward I at Falkirk, escaped that monarch, travelled to the Continent, certainly to France, where he survived a period of imprisonment, moved on to Rome and perhaps further still, made his way back to Scotland in hazardous conditions, and thereafter continued either openly or from hiding the struggle against the superior and relentless enemy into whose possession he was ultimately betrayed. We need none of the embroidery in which Blind Harry indulged to draw the obvious conclusion. It is difficult to see how the physical strength without which he could have done little of this, not to mention the robustness of mind necessary to sustain him in the face of adversity, could have been found in one who was not young.