Please don't get me wrong.  I loved the movie Braveheart.  It was one of the few things I asked for that Christmas when it came on on video.  I also have the soundtrack and I read the book......... and maybe that is where the trouble lies.  The book was very well written in terms of plot and story line, however it was very poorly researched.  Most of the errors that occur in the movie also occurred in the book.  The reason I am making this page is because it really ticks me off to see a movie that is no where near historically correct.

    In the movie early on it speaks of Malcolm Wallace being a farmer, which he was not.  It is true that he died fighting the English, but not in a simple peasant upraising.  He was killed at Loudoun Hill.  William's brother Malcolm on the other hand actually survived his brother.
 

    Wallace did not become an outlaw as he did in the film either.  He was an outlaw before his wife was killed.  Neither William nor his brother Malcolm had signed the Ragman Roll (August 28, 1296) at Berwick.  This document, was an oath of fealty to Edward I.  So the Wallaces became outlaws.
 

    After Wallace became an outlaw, he married Marion Braidfoot (Murron in the movie), a woman who lived in Lanark.  One day while he was visiting her secretly, because he was being hunted, he fought with a English patrol.  He managed to fight his way clear and he retreated to Marion's home.  While the English were battering the front door; Wallace escaped out the back and into the rocky Cartland Crags.  Sir William Hazelrig, the Sheriff of Lanark, burned down Marion's home and had her and her servants cut down.  Wallace full of wrath, gathered a group of men and attacked the fort at Lanark at nightfall.  Wallace cut Hazelrig into small pieces with his sword and burned the buildings and all they contained.
 

    This was not the end of Wallace's vendetta of revenge; he and his band of men turned toward Ayr where his uncle had been sheriff.  Wallace's uncle had removed from his position when Edward I made Henry Percy of Northumberland the Sheriff.  Percy appointed a deputy named Arnulf, who summoned Wallace's uncle and several others and hung them from the rafters of the newly built garrison.  Wallace's band attacked and destroyed the garrison at Ayr after nightfall.
 

    Important people left out of the movie:  Sir Malcolm Wallace, William's brother; Andrew Moray, a nobleman who raised the standard of rebellion, and was fatally wounded at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.  Sir William Douglas and James Stewart, both noblemen who fought against the English as well.  James Stewart was Wallace's liege lord.  Alexander Scrymgeour was one of the most important people left out of the movie.  He was one of Wallace's closest confedants and his personal standard bearer.  He later became the Royal Standard bearer when Bruce became King.
 

    The political situation was not as the movie portrayed it either.  In the film, there is dispute between the Bruces and Balliols.  John Balliol had been the King of Scots but was forced from the throne by Edward I after an unsuccessful rebellion.  In actuality, there was dispute between the Bruces and Comyns.  This conflict later ended when Bruce killed John Comyn in the Chapel of Dumfries.  Then Robert the Bruce declared himself King of Scots.  However this happened after the end of the film.
 

    The Battle of Stirling Bridge, in the movie it was portrayed as an open field.  It actually took place at the Stirling Bridge.  The English were unable to move forward across the bridge or retreat, due to the Scots cutting down the br idge during the battle.  They were consequently slaughtered.  This was the first time that a professional army of knights had ever been defeated by common folk.

 

    In March 1298 in Selkirk Forest, Wallace was dubbed a knight, it is arguable who knighted him.  However, it is most likely to have been Robert the Bruce.  There was then a general vote of the nobles and they named him the Guardian of Scotland.  After this, Wallace moved his armies south into Northern England.  He did not however, sack the city of York as in the movie, and as a side note the Scots as a rule did not use siege warfare.  They lacked siege engines and the knowledge to use them.  York became the headquarters of government on May 25 1298 and remained that way for the next six years.
 

    In July of 1298 the English and Scots clashed again at Falkirk.  This is the battle that Wallace used the schiltrons (the hedgehog of spears, pulled into circles) in, not at Stirling Bridge as the movie pictured.  The Battle of Falkirk is said to have been an English victory, however, due to the heavy losses the English sustained, it can arguably said that it was a draw, with the English in control of the field.  Wallace was rescued at the last moment from the English, by Robert the Bruce and a detachment of cavalry.
 

    After the battle Wallace abdicated the Guardianship.  It fell into the hands of Robert the Bruce and John Comyn.  The Guardianship changed hands again after this several times, before The Bruce was crowned.
 

    Wallace then went to Rome to attempt to persuade the Pope help Scotland.  He was unsuccessful.

    Little heard of for seven years, then he suddenly appears in February 1304 and engages the English at Peebles and at the Bridge of Earn in September of 1304.
 

    Little is know about what happened concerning Wallace until August 3, 1305, when he was captured in Glasgow.  While he was in the house of Robert Rae, he was betrayed by Sir John Menteith, for whom Robert Rae was a servant of.
 

     He was taken to London on horseback his legs tied under the horse.  He arrived in London on August 22, 1304 in the evening and was placed in the house of Alderman William de Leyre in the parish of Allhallows Fenchurch.  The Mayor of London along with the sheriffs and the alderman, led Wallace to Westminster Hall bound and shackled, through jeering crowds.  As he was tried a crown of laurels was placed upon his brow.  This was because of an alleged claim that he would be crowned at Westminster.  He admitted to all of the crimes placed on him save that of treason against King Edward i.  He claimed that he had only been defending his country against its enemies and that he had never taken an oath of fealty toward Edward.  However the court found him guilty and he sentenced.  He was chained flat to a hurdle and was dragged over cobblestones for four miles from Westminster to Smithfield.  There he was hanged until near strangulation.  Then he was castrated and disemboweled, his genitals were burned before his eyes and his entrails set ablaze while still attached to him.  After this he was decapitated.  His heart was removed and burned.  He was hacked into four pieces and his body parts sent to Newcastle-on-Tyne, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth.  His head was placed on a pike on London Bridge.
 

    The Scottish War of Independence continues on.  Bruce is crowned King of Scots.  He leads his rag-tag army against Edward II after the Longshanks had died.  At Bannockburn the Scots had been surprised by the English.  However in the movie it is portrayed as an almost Scottish surrender.  This is not the case.  The Scottish pinned the English in a horseshoe shaped curve in the Bannockburn.  The heavily armored English knights sank into the mire and were hacked down by the clansmen.  Although a peace treaty took many more years to sign.  This was truly the start of Scottish Independence.