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Essay: BRAVEHEART
Author: Robbie
Topic: William Wallace and Mel Gibson's Movie
Question: "How historically correct was the film BRAVEHEART?"
SOURCES -
1. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots
Ronald McNair Scott [1982]
2. Robert Bruce: King of Scots [1974]
3. William Wallace: Brave Heart [1995]
James A. MacKay
4. Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland
Geoffrey W.H. Barrow [1976]
5. The Scottish War of Independence
Evan MacLeod Barron [1914]
6. The Wars of the Bruces
Colm McNamee [1997]
7. William Wallace: The King’s Enemy
J.D. Gray [1991]
8. William Wallace
Andrew Fisher [1986]
9. Edward I
Michael Prestwich [1988]
MacKay's biographies are not quite as balanced as they should be. He tends to have a somewhat slanted view of Bruce, I noticed, more so than a good modern chronicler ought, i.e. he injects his opinion too much. MacKay also neglects to use McNair-Scott's book as a source when writing 'Wallace' which is now considered the definitive biography of Bruce, while McNair-Scott did use MacKay's.
And one of MacKay's sources is questionable. A Welsh poem which chronicles Wallace's career. While many of these biographical epic poems have their basis in fact, they should not be used as a primary source, but as a reference to popular opinion of the time. MacKay does this, after a fashion, checking facts and stripping away the poem's mythology - still, he relies on it too much. Note: This poem was written nearly 200 years after Wallace’s death. Not exactly a comtemporary account.
The other two biographies of Wallace by Fisher and Gray repeat most of what’s in MacKay’s book. It is also more up to date then the these two. Fisher’s is particularly suspect since he relies more on the myth than either MacKay or Gray and tries to pass it off as fact, his objectivity out the window. Prestwich’s biography on King Edward serves as a welcome counterpoint to those who wish to make Willace more than he actually was by pointing out the relative unimportance of the man and his rebellion, which was more the work of Andrew Murray, in any case, a fact that Edward was aware of.
However, all nine books confirm the same thing - Gibson's Grand Epic Motion Picture is based on the greatly embellished myth of Wallace, not the reality. In fact, he got almost nothing right except his name. Even the death scene was inaccurate.
MYTH ONE: Bruce was never at Falkirk. He was 50 miles away at Ayr Castle, a Bruce estate, conducting his own raids.
MYTH TWO: Bruce's father was not the leper skulking the battlements of a castle in Edinburgh, who, according to the film, was behind the eventual betrayal of Wallace seven years after Falkirk. The Elder Bruce lived most of his life on his English estates, and was already somewhat estranged from his son long before Sterling Bridge. While he was alive, however, he did support his son’s ambitions towards the throne and an independent Scotland. He died nearly a year before Wallace's capture, and not of leprosy.
MYTH THREE: Bruce and Wallace did not know each other well, and they had very different agendas. Wallace supported King John Balliol who was appointed by Edward I when the succession after Alexander III's death [in 1286. The film's date of 1280 is six years too soon] was in question. Because of primogeniture [heredity on the paternal side] Balliol had the stronger claim.
Technically Bruce's claim was better, and more direct, but from the maternal side. Edward I could have gone either way, but because of tradition and law of primogeniture, and Edward's feeling that a Balliol would be more pliable than a Bruce, he made his choice accordingly. [Balliol's derisive nickname was 'Toomb Tabard' which means 'empty coat']
Bruce's own agenda, of course, was to be king, which was why Wallace did not support Bruce, and why Bruce supported Wallace only in principle - and from a distance. Mel's pretty speech to Bruce notwithstanding, Wallace would not have followed him anywhere, let alone in a battle to 'freedom'. Wallace, as I said, supported Balliol. That allegiance to clan never changed, even after Balliol was exiled in France long before Sterling Bridge. Both Comyn and Wallace were setts of Clan Balliol in direct opposition to allegiances to Clan Bruce. Though these allegiances were not referred to as ‘clans’ quite yet. Clan allegiance was mostly confined to the Highlands. Still, the families to the south had feudal alliances that held the same meaning. And freedom did not mean what it means now. They fought for freedom from the English but not from any lofty ideals of personal freedom. This was the feudal Middle Ages. Freedom of any sort was not even a concept, let alone an idea. Wallace supported Balliol unquestionably because Wallace, and his family, had always been vassals of the Balliol and Comyn clans, as mentioned. Bruce, however, was not capable of the type of betrayal of a fellow countryman of which the film depicted, [which never happened] but he was very ambitious, and certainly not a saint. Bruce did a lot of nimble fence dancing in the years between Falkirk and Wallace's death.
MYTH FOUR: King Edward I was not the 'cruel pagan' from the film. There were NO PAGANS in the second half of the Middle Ages, let alone a pagan monarch. It's an absurdity. The Church would not have allowed it. Excommunication was a very real threat in those days, and no one was psychologically immune from it. Edward had also gone on Crusade to the Holy Land, a rite of passage for most European monarchs for two hundred years, and not something done by a pagan. Edward I was no more cruel, unprincipled or land-hungry [not to mention money-hungry] than any other mediaeval king [Philip the Fair comes to mind]. Yes, he developed a very virulent and obsessive hatred of Wallace, and later, of Scots in general, [particularly after his wife died. She had been something of a restraining influence on him. After her death he became very bitter and petty] but that hatred would be no worse than that of latter-day English kings. The English just loved to conquer people.
MYTH FIVE: Edward II was not the quivering, cowardly fop Gibson made him out to be. His Parlement couldn't stand him or particularly Piers Gaveston [His Favorite, as he was called], and the nobles were constantly bickering and trying to get rid of him, and his wife never left France until his death, which she orchestrated. But Edward number two did have a backbone. He ruled a long time. He would be better described as 'disinterested' or 'indifferent'.
MYTH SIX: The hanging of the Scottish nobles in the barn which young Wallace supposedly witnessed never happened.
MYTH SEVEN: Prima Noctes [a noble's first dibs on a Scottish vassal's newly married virgin bride] could never have been implimented by any 13th century monarch. The Church would have had a fit. Prima Noctes went out with the Romans around the 4th century.
MYTH EIGHT: The whole business between Wallace and Edward II's wife. That isn't even Scottish myth - it's complete Hollywood Hokum.
MYTH NINE: Scottish dress, language, pipes, Highland Clans, etc., were not outlawed until 1746 after Bonnie Prince Charlie's [Stuart] defeat at Culloden Moor. Before that, Scots could, in a word, be Scots. Culloden Moor and the end of the Jacobite Cause is what led to the almost total decimination of the Highland Clans and Scottish heritage.
MYTH TEN: Wallace did not seek revenge on the nobles who betrayed him at Falkirk. He was too busy running and hiding. The Earl of Mentieth, who abandoned Wallace at Falkirk, was also the one who betrayed him, again, leading to his outright capture seven years later.
Other Gibson Movie myths:
1. Wallace had two brothers, Malcolm and John. William was the
middle son. He had two sisters as well.
2. Neither of the brothers, or father for that matter, were
killed when William was a boy. His mother was also alive.
3. There is no 'Uncle Argyle'.
4. Wallace's lieutenants Hamish Campbell and his father, and the
funny Irish guy are fiction also. There was also no earldoms
of Mornay or Lachlan.
Note: References to clan dress were wrong. The clans did not
start wearing particular official tartens until Cullodon
Moor. Also, the word 'kilt' is wrong. Kilts did not exist
until the 19th century, and was invented by an Englishman.
What the Scots wore was referred to as 'breacan'. Breacan
meaning 'tarten' or 'plaid' in Scots-Gaelic. And the armor
worn by the English was completely wrong. I don’t know who
thought up those getups, but armor at that time was the
tightly knitted chain-mail with thick padding underneath so
that it didn’t chaff.
5. Wallace's father, Malcolm, was a 'sir', not a commoner. A
landed knight.
6. Scotland was not a poor, oppressed country while Wallace was
growing up or after. Trade in wool, cattle, a flourishing
ship-building business, and abundant silver made in
prosperous, [little wonder Edward I wanted it so badly] and
Wallace grew up in peace and plenty. The reign of Alexander
III was a very peaceful and profitable time, almost a
Renaissance of sorts, with no wars of any kind and few
major disagreements.
7. There was no 'pilgrimage'. Wallace never left the British
Isles during his lifetime. At least, nothing that can be
confirmed.
8. Scotland was not then, what we would consider to be Scotland
now. Much of it, right up until the middle of Alexander III’s
reign, was still in the hands of Scandinavia.
9. Bruce was not 'the 17th Robert Bruce' as the leperous old man
states, or the 17th 'Earl of Bruce' as the narrator states.
'Bruce' was a surname, not a title. Young Bruce was the 7th
Robert and his titles were the 7th Earl of Carrick and 4th
Lord of Annandale, a title he inherited directly from his
Grandfather.
10. Wallace died in 1305. King Edward I died in 1307.
11. Wallace's marital status is in question. According to J.J.
Robinson's 'Born in Blood' and McNair-Scott's book, Wallace
was married. Both site the same source, the Scalaronica
Chronicle which says that Wallace married in secret, and
while visiting her one evening clashed with an English
patrol, retreated back to her house and as the pursuers
hammered at the front door he escaped by the back to the
rocky Cartland Crags. Enraged by the failure to capture him,
Sir William Heselrig, Sheriff of Lanark, ordered the house to
be burnt and all within it, wife and servants to be put to
the sword. The chronicle that states all of this is
contemporary, but according to MacKay the topic is subject to
speculation and intense debate. There doesn't seem to be any
proof either way, and even the Welsh poem is silent on the
subject. MacKay thinks it's unlikely. Even a 'secret'
marriage would have had some sort of ecclesiastical
documentation.
12. Edward II, the first son of a king of England to be styled
‘Prince of Wales’ was NOT Edward I’s eldest son. He was his
youngest son and last child, and he became king only because
the male siblings who preceeded him all died before their
father. John had been the king’s eldest son, and he died as a
child. There was also Henry and Alphonso. Only Alphonso, or
Arthur as he was sometimes called, came close to adulthood
dying shortly before his tenth birthday. The few survivers of
his eventual brood of 12 were all girls besides young Edward.
13. More about the timing. The film made it seem as if the battle
of Bannockburn had happened no more than a few weeks or
months after Wallace’s execution. But Bannockburn would not
happen for nine YEARS after in 1314. There was a very long
line of important battles and invasions that led up to
Bannockburn, and they can in no way be dismissed as
irrelevant. Not psychologically or strategically. They were
very important. And Bannockburn was hardly the end of it. It
was the BEGINNING of the end of it. Bruce would fight for
another 13 years before his crown and his country were
recognized as independent of England.
14. Edward II’s wife, Isabella, who was also the only daughter of
the king of France, Philip IV, was only 8 years old when the
wedding took place in 1299, long after Stirling Bridge and
Falkirk. She did not leave France until she was of age, about
nine years later, which certainly precludes her from doing
the nasty w/ Sir William in 1305. She would have been 12 or
13 for God’s sake. Edward, Prince of Wales, was 15 at the
time of the marriage. The marriage eventually produced 4
children, the eldest of which would become Edward III. Edward
number two might have been a homosexual - but he knew his
duty. He also was nearly as tall as his father, besides being
an excellent knight and horseman. By all accounts he had a
good relationship w/ his son. Needless to say, Edward I never
tossed one of his lovers out the window. It’s unlikely that
the king even knew, nor cared about his son’s sexual
proclivities, as long as he married and produced an heir.
Young Edward would also have had a beard by the time his
father died. He was 21 at that time.
15. John Balliol, the exiled king of Scotland, never set foot
there again after he was imprisoned by Edward I in the Tower
in 1295, and later released to the care of the French. What
the hell was he doing in Edinburgh after Sterling Bridge?
16. Wallace was not made Guardian of Scotland all by his
lonesome. He shared this duty w/ a bishop named Lamberton and
John ‘the Red’ Comyn, a Balliol supporter, the man Bruce
would kill in Greyfrier’s Church in 1306, which lead him
directly to Scone where he was crowned king. He made enemies
of every Comyn and their kin on the face of the earth, but
Bruce and his lieutenants would slaughter them and render the
clan and their allegiances redundant. The family never
recovered. Indeed, the Comyn name is all but nonexistent to
this day.
17. No one ever bargained for Bruce’s crown w/ Wallace’s life.
Not even Mentieth, the betrayer. He was bargaining for his
own head and for the English estates King Edward would grant.
As for Bruce, he never showed himself in front of an English
army to bargain for recognition of his crown or otherwise
until Bannockburn. To the English, he was an outlaw and a
traitor. Had he been caught he would have received the same
death as Wallace and his three brothers; Thomas, Alexander,
and Nigel. Bruce had nothing to bargain w/, even if he had
chosen to do so. By 1306, it was too late for that. Once he
was crowned, his choice was clear. And the English would have
accepted nothing except total surrender and death.
-- So what set off Wallace's hatred of the English and made him an outlaw? No one seems to know that either. MacKay thinks the possibility arose when his father was killed [Wallace was an adult by this time] in a dispute with an English lord. But he doesn't seem willing to bet the farm on this speculation.
-- One note about appearance - Gibson's Wallace bantered with the soldiers about how he wasn't as tall as the stories told about him, remember? "You can't be Wallace! Wallace is seven feet tall!" Obviously not a shrimp like Mel. But Wallace was very tall. Well over six feet [6'4" or 6'5"] according to biographers, which made him seem a giant in those days, which is why it was noted. Details like that tend to stick because they are unusual and easy to remember. Mel, of course, isn't even close.
-- Another thing about the Wallace Myth is that the movie, and Scotland outside of the historians, greatly exaggerates his place in the scheme and dynamics of Scottish politics and independence. Truth is, it was a noble named Andrew Murray who was mostly responsible for the victory at Stirling Bridge. It was he who organized the first resistence, he who recruited the nobles, and he who devised the tactics used to win the battle. He gave it all legitimacy and fire. He is mostly, and sadly, forgotten now. He died of his wounds from Stirling Bridge several months later. But it is Murray who deserves the fame that Wallace, by dint of the vagaries of history, acquired.
-- Another truth that blind admirers of Wallace seem to forget is that Wallace DID NOT pave the way for Bruce to become king as is often assumed. Bruce, with his driving ambition and nearly holy pursuit to be king, had nothing whatsoever to do w/ Wallace. The discontent was there. The Scottish Church, behind every single resistence to English rule since the days when the Saxons still held the throne of England, was poised to act. They backed Murray, they backed Wallace, and they backed Bruce. Bruce was their ideal candidate as a king. They sanctified his coronation, they defended his right as king against the Church in Rome, they exonerated and defied any and all attempts to excommunicate Bruce or his lieutenants. They backed Bruce from the start, and it was only a matter of timing. If Wallace had not been there all the events that led to the murder of John Comyn, Bruce’s coronation at Scone, and Bannockburn all would have taken place as is. As unlikely as it seems, the events that led to Wallace’s rise, capture, and execution ARE mutually exclusive to Bruce’s own path to the throne. Scotland was ready again for a strong king after twenty years of Edward’s iron fist. In 1307 Edward was dead and his son was incapable and uninterested in following through w/ his father’s obsessive agendas.
- Another note: How the devil can you fight the battle of Stirling BRIDGE w/out a bridge? It was because of this bridge that Murray and Wallace won in the first place.
- A second note: When being drawn and quartered, which was a traitor’s death, the intended victim is dragged behind a horse to the place of execution (drawn), which is at least a mile away from the Tower of London where most high trials for treason took place at that time. He didn’t get a ride. Intended victims of the stake usually did. That wild mane of his would have been shorn off as well (Hair made for messy head-lopping). You weren’t just killed very painfully, you were humiliated. He was killed too nicely.
- Last note: Stiltrons are large formed circles of infantry holding long spears pointed outwards to repel heavy cavalry. It was a tactic developed more than a century ago in the Holy Land by the Militant Orders, particularly the Templars who used and revised a similar tactic used by the Saracens. Not only did Wallace NOT invent it, but it was executed wrong in the film when depicted in one straight line across the front. (If we’re going to be picky we might as well do it right.)
- Conclusions? Braveheart was a great film, and Mel deserved his Oscar.
It's not 'Dances With Wolves' but it's close.
- But history? Nope. Not unless you go to the University of Hollywood whose motto is: History says it never happened. We say, 'So what?'
- To quote Randall Wallace, the film’s writer, who thinks he is a descendent of his subject (Though how this is possible when Wallace is executed and never has children remains a really interesting and open question. Perhaps they had sperm banks in those days.), "I never let facts get in the way of the truth."
Oh, brother.