William Wallace And All That Read online

  William Wallace

  AND ALL THAT

  William Wallace

  AND ALL THAT

  Allan Burnett

  Illustrated by Scoular Anderson

  This eBook edition published in 2011 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published in 2006 by Birlinn Ltd

  Text copyright © Allan Burnett 2006

  Illustrations copyright © Scoular Anderson 2006

  The moral right of Allan Burnett 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 132 3

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

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

  For my wife Linda, the true heroine of this and many other books

  Contents

  Prologue

  1 A hero with many faces

  2 Two royal knockouts

  3 Longshanks the villain

  4 Scotland gets squashed

  5 Wallace rises up

  6 Bloody revenge

  7 No turning back

  8 Helping hands

  9 Bridge over troubled water

  10 Flush them out!

  11 Freedom

  12 Back in business

  13 Time for another battle

  14 Dance of death

  15 A new mission

  16 Under siege

  17 Betrayed

  18 The ultimate price

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Sheriff William Heselrig awoke with a jump as his bedroom door was suddenly kicked open. There, towering over him, stood giant Scotsman William Wallace.

  Before Heselrig could move a muscle, Wallace brought down his sword on the sheriff’s brow and sliced his brain in half like a grapefruit. Talk about a splitting headache!

  In a single stroke, by killing Sheriff Heselrig, Wallace became Scotland’s wildest outlaw. An outlaw was someone who lived outside the law, hunted and feared by those in power – and celebrated by poor people everywhere. Before long, Wallace was the greatest outlaw in history . . .

  But hang on a minute. Was Wallace really the greatest outlaw ever? Greater than the famous highway robber, Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor?

  Much greater. Robin Hood was probably not a real person, he was just a made-up character. Wallace also stole from the rich to help the poor, yet he was definitely REAL – as real as you and me.

  Surely Wallace couldn’t have been as fearsome an outlaw as the great Wild West cowboy Jesse James?

  Actually, Wallace was much more fearsome. Wallace killed his enemies without using pistols – just a sword, or even his bare hands.

  What about gunslinging Australian bushranger Ned Kelly? He was an outlaw who stole from the rich and powerful to feed his poor family. Was Wallace really greater than him?

  You bet. Wallace wasn’t just a robber or a bandit, and he didn’t just look after his own – he was a freedom fighter who became the leader of a whole nation.

  You see, the sheriff that Wallace killed, Heselrig, was an Englishman. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course – except that in Wallace’s day, the Scots and the English were not the good friends they are now. In fact, they hated each other’s guts!

  The English had just invaded Wallace’s home country of Scotland and stolen the Scots’ land. The Scots had had their freedom taken away and were being treated like slaves. And the job of English sheriffs like Heselrig was to make sure the Scots couldn’t do anything about it.

  By killing Heselrig, Wallace showed he was determined to stop at nothing until he got his land back. After that, he would never rest until all Scots were free again. And he was willing to wage war against the mightiest army in Europe, the English army, to win his struggle.

  As if all that were not reason enough for Wallace to get his hands dirty, there’s also something else. According to reports, Heselrig had just murdered Wallace’s beloved wife.

  Heartbroken, Wallace wanted revenge – a dish that’s best served cold. So after Wallace killed the sheriff, he chopped up the body up into meaty chunks. Ugh!

  Make no mistake, Wallace lived in very bloodthirsty and savage times. And when people like Wallace wanted to settle their differences with somebody, they didn’t tell their teacher or call the police. They splattered them!

  Besides the fact that he splattered the sheriff, a lot of Wallace’s early life is very murky and difficult to trace. In fact, nobody really knows for sure exactly how or when his adventures began.

  The trouble is, there are many different stories about Wallace’s rise to fame. Some of them are true, but some of them might not be. So first we have to learn how to tell the difference between Wallace facts and Wallace nonsense . . .

  1

  A hero with many faces

  Have you ever heard about things being lost in the mists of time? Well, Wallace’s life is a bit like that. Since Scotland is a very misty place, and Wallace lived a very long time ago, lots of facts about his life have gone missing.

  After Wallace died, storytellers tried to look after the facts about Wallace’s life in the same way that a museum looks after precious artefacts, such as swords or helmets. But museum artefacts can sometimes roll under a cupboard or get lost down the back of shelves. Likewise, bits of Wallace’s story were sometimes lost by storytellers.

  This happened often, because many bits of Wallace’s story weren’t actually written down at first. Instead, as the years passed, young storytellers had to learn about Wallace by listening to older storytellers. Remembering all the bits of the story wasn’t easy, so many parts were soon forgotten or got muddled up.

  To make up for the bits they forgot, storytellers added up new things to add to Wallace’s story. This process of bits getting lost and new stuff being added turned Wallace’s life story into a legend. A legend is half true and half fantasy.

  Around the year 1470, many years after Wallace died, a harp-playing storyteller called Blind Harry the Minstrel finally had all of Wallace’s adventures written down in a book. By then, Wallace’s legend had grown very large indeed. So Blind Harry’s book is a mixture of truth and nonsense, or facts and fantasy.

  It’s usually not too hard to tell which bits of Blind Harry’s book are nonsense. We know that some bits are false because other, more reliable, books about Scotland in Wallace’s day contain a different version of events. Other bits of Blind Harry’s book seem just too outrageous to be true.

  For example, Blind Harry tells us that Wallace once had a fight with a hungry lion in a foreign land – and survived. It might be true that Wallace really did fight a lion, but then again it might not. If it was true, the chances are Wallace would have ended up as cat food!

  Another suspicious side to Blind Harry’s story is that it’s very repetitive. It goes a bit like this:

  In Blind Harry’s story, Wallace never had time to stop for a chat about the weather or to do the washing-up, because he was always fighting somebody! Blind Harry just loved to harp on about Wallace’s endless victories in battle.

  Many of these battle stories have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The fact is that no real man, not even a hero like Wallace, would have had the time or the strength to win as many battles as Blind Harry claims he did.<
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  But when Blind Harry’s book about Wallace first appeared, most people believed what they read. The book became very, very popular. So popular, in fact, that many hundreds of years later, bits of Blind Harry’s story were used to make a Hollywood movie about Wallace called Braveheart. Like Blind Harry’s Wallace, the film Braveheart is an exciting mixture of facts and fantasy.

  The book you are reading now contains a lot of facts about Wallace’s life, as well as many traditional Wallace stories and legends that include bits which may or may not be true. If you use your common sense, though, you can judge for yourself whether a story is likely to be true.

  Figuring out the truth about Wallace’s life is a bit like trying to work out what he really looked like. Take all the statues, paintings and other versions of Wallace that have been made over the years, for example. We have:

  Angry Wallace – this version of Wallace was built in 1814 at Dryburgh, in the Scottish Borders. See how Wallace scowls across the border at England with his big, wide eyes.

  Hunky Wallace – this version of the hero on the Wallace Monument at Stirling was made by the Victorians during the mid nineteenth century.

  Hairy Wallace – this Wallace has a great big bushy beard. You can find beardy Wallaces in Paisley Abbey and in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

  Tanned Wallace – Australian actor Mel Gibson played the part of Wallace in the film Braveheart in 1995 and now there’s a statue of Mr Gibson as Wallace at Stirling.

  Fancy-Dress Wallace – the great hero is so popular today that people dress up and pretend to be him. They also pretend to fight his battles again for fun, with their friends dressed up as enemy soldiers.

  So Wallace is a hero with many faces, but which one is the right one? Nobody really knows, but he probably had a beard or moustache of some description.

  We definitely do know that Wallace was a big man. Come to think of it, he was almost a whopping seven feet tall. That’s more than two metres!

  According to one report written not long after Wallace died, he was: ‘A tall man, with the body of a giant. Cheerful in appearance with agreeable features, broad-shouldered and big-boned, with belly in proportion and lengthy thighs.’ So definitely a bit of a hunk, then.

  In fact, we know that Wallace must have been good-looking because he had lots of girlfriends. On the other hand, there are lots of basic facts about Wallace that we are still not sure about.

  For example, we don’t even know for certain how old Wallace was. He could have been born any time between the years 1260 and 1280! But the clues suggest his birthday was probably some time around 1272.

  Then there’s the question of where he was born. Nearly everyone agrees that Wallace was born somewhere in the south-west of the country, but the tricky question is where exactly?

  Some people think Wallace popped into the world in Elderslie, which is near Paisley in Renfrewshire. They say his dad was called Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie.

  But other people believe Wallace is the victim of a dreadful spelling mistake, and he was really born in the village of Ellerslie in Ayrshire. And some say that Wallace’s dad wasn’t Malcolm at all, but was actually Alan Wallace of Ayrshire.

  As for Wallace’s mum, she was called Joan. Or Jean. Or perhaps Margaret. Nobody knows for sure who she was, never mind where she gave birth to Wallace.

  Those who reckon Wallace came from the village of Ellerslie, or somewhere nearby, point out that he definitely spent lots of time in Ayrshire when he was young.

  For example, it is said that Wallace got into furious arguments at a place called the ‘Bickering Bush’ in Ayr-shire. Perhaps the bush was one plant that didn’t like being talked to?

  We know for a fact that Wallace also had a hideout or ‘den’ in Ayrshire, which is where he was living when he hacked up Heselrig.

  It’s no surprise that Wallace needed a hideout, because by the time he got into really serious trouble it seems he was already known across the country as a bit of a brigand, or petty thief.

  The English rulers of the city of Perth certainly had their eye on him. In 1296, they made note of ‘a thief, one William le Waleys’. Waleys was an old spelling for Wallace.

  If Wallace was a known thief, that might explain one legend about his early brushes with the English authorities. The story goes that Wallace was wandering through his local market in Ayrshire one day, carrying a few fish he had caught in a nearby river. He was just minding his own business when two soldiers appeared:

  But Wallace didn’t believe the Scots needed permission from the English to do anything. It was the English who had stolen the Scots’ land and waters in the first place, thought Wallace, along with all the animals and fish in them.

  So how did Wallace react when he was accused of being a thief? Perhaps he said:

  Not Wallace – it’s quite clear that this humble young country gentleman was no pushover. So maybe he said:

  But the tall and muscular Wallace was probably in no mood for bargaining, either. In fact, if Wallace said anything at all it was more like ‘Here’s the sharp end of my sword – take that, you rats!’

  Two skewered soldiers later, Wallace’s reputation as an outlaw started to grow.

  Wallace was clearly a clever fellow and he had probably done well at school when he was a lad. It is said that young Wallace went to the Grammar School of Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland, and lived in a nearby village called Kilspindie.

  According to another story, schoolboy Wallace got into trouble with the English authorities in Dundee, too. Apparently, the son of the English governor of Wallace’s town was a bully, who always picked on Wallace and his family.

  One day, Wallace decided enough was enough and tore into the toerag with his sword. Again, we can’t be sure whether this story is true or not – but it sounds like Wallace, all right!

  When he wasn’t getting into trouble after school, Wallace was also educated by two wise uncles who were priests in the Church – a very powerful organisation in those days. Wallace’s uncles taught him some very important lessons.

  The first lesson Wallace learned was how to read and write in Latin, which was a language used all over Europe for very important business.

  The second lesson was how to read and write in French, also a language used for very important matters. Wallace would be able to use French and Latin to call on powerful people across Europe to help him when he got into really deep trouble – but more about that later.

  Of course, Wallace also knew the native languages of Scotland. These were Gaelic, which was spoken all over the country in those days, and Inglis, which later became known as Scots.

  As well as preparing his mind for the adventures that lay ahead, Wallace had to exercise his body. One way of doing this was hunting.

  In the great forests that then covered Scotland, Wallace learned how to ride horses expertly and hunt for wild animals like tusked boar – while avoiding the jaws of deadly wolves.

  Another way to get in shape was to become a warrior. Wallace learned how to fight enemy warriors with weapons like axes, swords, spears, dirks, daggers and long-bows with arrows. (Though probably not all at the same time!)

  To protect himself, Wallace wore armour hidden under his clothes – so that strangers wouldn’t know his real fighting strength. His outfit included the following fashionable items:

  All of this meant that Wallace was well prepared for fighting the English when the time came. Before we begin Wallace’s adventures properly, though, there is one big question that needs answered.

  How did Wallace’s country end up under English rule in the first place?

  2

  Two royal knockouts

  Scotland’s problems began in 1286, when Wallace was probably still a teenager. It was all King Alexander III’s fault.

  Alexander was a good king, wise and strong, who had ruled Scotland peacefully for almost forty years. But nobody’s perfect, and Alexander was no exception.

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p; One night, while he was at a feast in Edinburgh Castle, Alexander decided he wanted to go and visit his young French wife, Yolande, for a bit of romance. Nothing wrong with that, you might say.

  Except on the night in question, it was blowing a ferocious gale and Queen Yolande was forty miles away in the royal palace of Kinghorn, Fife.

  To get to his wife, Alexander had to follow bad, narrow roads, and take a ferry across the treacherous waters of the Firth of Forth. Then the king had to ride along the cliff tops above the Fife shoreline with waves crashing below and the wind howling all around.

  The ferryman begged him to turn back, but Alexander wouldn’t listen. He had guzzled lots of wine before he left Edinburgh Castle, making him very stubborn and tipsy.

  So Alexander galloped off into the murk, along the windswept cliff tops. But instead of concentrating on controlling his horse on its treacherous journey, it seems the king thought of little else except hugs and kisses with the lovely Yolande.

  So what do we think happened next? Surprise, surprise, Alexander’s horse lost its footing in the darkness and high winds, and the king was sent sailing through the air to meet his doom. He landed on the beach with a royal thud, breaking his neck, and that was the end of him.

  So Alexander was one of those kings who really did meet his downfall. Or you might even say he was a jilted lover.

  Anyway, the king’s death was bad news for Scotland because he didn’t leave behind a son to take over from him. People in those days thought kings made stronger rulers than queens, so the Scots weren’t very happy when they realised that Alexander’s only heir was his granddaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway.