William Wallace And All That Read online

  There were many hundreds of armoured knights on great big battle horses called destriers. The knights held brightly coloured shields and flags. There were lots of other cavalry with banners and loud horns. And there were thousands of foot-soldiers and archers – all armed to the teeth.

  Then there were loads of followers, such as blacksmiths and cooks, baggage carriers and mule drivers. They were all ready to pitch in, too, if they were needed. In fact, Long-shanks’ army might have been so big that if it were around today it would fill any of the biggest football stadiums in the world.

  Some historians claim the size of Longshanks’ army was nearer to 15,000 men – but it was still a lot larger than Wallace’s. Wallace only had about 8,000 in his army, possibly far fewer. For Wallace and his men, taking on Longshanks’ horde was like one football team trying to play against at least two others at the same time – and still win.

  To try to make it a more level playing field, Wallace and his men had already gone around southern Scotland leaving nothing but scorched earth for the advancing English. This meant that houses, fields and crops were all burned – and animals taken away.

  As a result, Longshanks’ army couldn’t find any food for themselves or their horses. According to one English report, all that they came across was one skinny cow – definitely not enough to feed an army of thousands!

  Things got so desperate that Longshanks ordered some ships to sail up the coast from England to Scotland bringing food and supplies for his men. Except that when the ships did turn up they were, according to reports, loaded mostly with wine. Longshanks decided to let his men drink it, which was a mistake. With hardly any food in their bellies they got drunk and began brawling among themselves.

  The English were tired, hungry, bruised and fuzzy when they reached the spot where Wallace was waiting for them. But that probably made them all the more determined to splatter the Scots so they could go home and have a decent meal and a good rest.

  To help make light work of the Scots, the English army had lots of wagons and trailers carrying big scary weapons. These included:

  1. Gunpowder – this was used to make a smoke bomb called Greek fire, which exploded over the enemy with a flash.

  2. Siege engines – these included giant catapults called trebuchets, which launched rotting animals and boulders at the enemy, as well as battering rams.

  3. Mobile bridges and ladders – no way was Longshanks going to let his army get caught out again by rivers, bogs and marshes. So he brought everything he needed to cross water or climb banks and walls, just in case.

  Meanwhile, Wallace had brought a secret weapon of his own. He had been breeding a special kind of giant ‘hedgehog’ called a schiltrom (or schiltron). A schiltrom wasn’t a real hedgehog, but a very large squad of soldiers holding long spears.

  When the spearmen all stood together in a tight group, with their spears facing outwards, they looked like a giant hedgehog. If an English rider galloped into the schiltrom to attack, his horse would be skewered and so would he – so the schiltrom was a very sturdy weapon.

  But Wallace needed more than giant hedgehogs if he was to win this battle. Unfortunately, all Wallace had was words. As the English prepared to begin their attack, Wallace roared at his men:

  But this was no time for dancing. It was a time for fighting! What was Wallace on about?

  In fact, when Wallace said ‘dance’ what he really meant was fight – but maybe some Scots got confused and actually started dancing. That would certainly explain why things started badly for the Scots and then got worse.

  14

  Dance of death

  Battle commenced when the English cavalry surged forward like two big waves. The first wave of riders spilled into a bog that had been cunningly disguised by Wallace and his men.

  But the second wave made it through and crashed ferociously against the Scottish schiltroms.

  Wallace’s men were immediately in trouble, but the schiltrom hedgehogs held firm and at first the English couldn’t break through. Many of Longshanks’ cavalry were skewered with schiltrom spears and ended up looking like giant horse-shaped lollipops. The riders landed on the wet, marshy ground with a loud squelch – and then got clobbered.

  Things might have started going Wallace’s way, except that Longshanks had a particularly nasty surprise in store – his archers.

  The English archers used a fancy longbow that could hit a target much further away than the Scots archers, with their puny bows and arrows, ever could. The English archers didn’t need to be anywhere near the schiltroms to start picking off the Scots spearmen one by one.

  Gradually the schiltrom hedgehogs got weaker and weaker. This allowed more and more English riders to come forward, swinging their swords and lopping off Scottish heads. Now the going got really tough. Wallace needed all his men on foot and on horseback to stand firm if they were to have any chance of success.

  But at the crucial moment, some of the Scottish nobles who had bothered to turn up for Wallace began to slink away to save their own skins. Without a proper cavalry of nobles, Wallace’s army was doomed.

  On the other side of the field, Longshanks stood and watched the Scots nobles turn and disappear into the trees. The English king could see that things were going his way, and must have felt very pleased with himself. Maybe Longshanks’ horse felt sorry for Wallace though, because during the night before it had kicked the English king in the chest and cracked a couple of his ribs.

  But Longshanks was so full of poisonous hatred for Wallace that it numbed the English king’s pain – and he stayed in his saddle to urge his men on to victory. On and on, the English cavalry and infantry went at the Scots until eventually the sheer size of the English army began to crush the Scots like an elephant rolling over a mouse.

  The Scots were overpowered and Wallace realised it was futile to carry on. Reluctantly, the Scottish leader called a retreat. His brave warriors fled towards the forest to the north, but many of them didn’t get away. They were caught by the rampaging, victorious English army.

  The Battle of Falkirk ended in disaster for Wallace. For more than 300 days since the Battle of Stirling Bridge, he had kept Scotland free – but now the yoke of slavery was back on the menu. It was time for a change of scene.

  15

  A new mission

  Wallace must have felt bruised, battered and thoroughly miserable after Falkirk. That was a shame, because although he lost the battle, Wallace had actually scored a small victory.

  The Battle of Falkirk left Longshanks and his army so hungry and worn out that they didn’t have the strength to march all over Scotland and conquer the country properly. So the flame of freedom still flickered, although it was now very faint.

  Before long, the English king went back down south, leaving a nest of cronies, stooges and turncoats to keep an eye on Scotland. This encouraged the Scots to fight on against the English in small battles, here and there. Wallace himself even joined in a few of these skirmishes, like the old days before Stirling Bridge.

  But Wallace probably couldn’t help feeling depressed. He had missed his chance to get rid of the English once and for all at Falkirk. And he must have known the jealous Scottish nobles who thought he should never have been in charge in the first place were happy to see him fail. It seems pretty clear that Wallace was fed up of fighting the English and fed up of being stabbed in the back by other Scots.

  Did that mean Wallace gave up his struggle for Scotland’s freedom? Never. In fact, Wallace’s holiday was actually a new mission.

  His plan was to become a Scottish ambassador. In other words, Wallace would put his knowledge of foreign languages to good use by asking powerful people in other countries for help.

  So in 1299, Wallace and a handful of loyal knights set sail from Kirkcudbright, on Scotland’s south-west coast. Destination – France (and Rome).

  First, Wallace planned to try to persuade the French king, Philip IV, to come to the Scots’ rescue. Then,
he planned to go and ask for help from the pope – the most powerful man in Europe. This all might sound quite straightforward, but actually it was a difficult and dangerous mission.

  For a start, just getting to France was hard enough. Wallace had to sail down from Scotland and around the coast of England, across treacherous seas crawling with English warships and other nasty surprises.

  It was only a matter of time before Wallace sailed into trouble.

  Wallace and his knights had only been at sea for two days when they spotted some unfriendly ships heading their way. As they approached, it became clear that the warlike craft were not English – no such luck. Wallace had run into pirates!

  The ships carried the flag of the most feared pirate on the waves – the Red Rover. The Red Rover used to be a French knight called Sir Thomas de Longueville, but after he fell out with the king of France he changed his name and took to the ocean.

  For sixteen years, the Red Rover had terrorised all who crossed his path. Now he was master of the seas.

  Fearing for their lives, the Scots turned their rudder and set their sails to escape. But the Red Rover’s fleet was too fast, and before long the lead pirate ship caught up with them.

  The Red Rover leapt aboard Wallace’s ship. No sooner had he landed on deck, though, than quick-thinking Wallace grabbed him. The Red Rover wrestled Wallace but our hero was too strong for him. Soon the pirate begged for mercy.

  Wallace took the Red Rover’s weapons from him and made the pirate swear on his sword that he would never attack the Scots again. The Red Rover agreed and Wallace spared his life.

  For defeating the dastardly pirate, Wallace arrived in France to a hero’s welcome. He turned the Red Rover over to the authorities, and the pirate promised to be good from now on.

  Then Wallace did something that made the French love him even more. The French were still at war with the English, so Wallace and his men joined the French army for a while to help them out. Wallace defeated the English twice, which impressed King Philip.

  But Wallace hadn’t really come to win battles for the French. He wanted Philip to help Scotland. But even though Philip was at war with the English, the French king was worried about upsetting Longshanks too much.

  At least Philip did give Wallace a special passport so that he could travel safely across Europe to Rome, to see the pope. Maybe he could help?

  16

  Under siege

  When Wallace got to Rome, he impressed the pope with his story of how the Scots had fought the English empire to defend their little country. The pope especially liked the bit where Wallace told him that the Scots were trying to protect their churches from being destroyed.

  After Wallace’s visit, the pope warned Longshanks to leave Scotland alone. So did the pope’s command make the English king behave? No, it just made Longshanks even angrier. All he cared about now was smashing the Scots and walloping Wallace.

  By 1303, Wallace was back in Scotland and Longshanks had launched a new invasion. The English king even offered a reward to any Scot who betrayed Wallace and handed him over to the English. The price on Wallace’s head was 300 marks, which was a small fortune in those days. But this reward failed to tempt Wallace’s men, who were loyal and honest.

  As Longshanks and his army travelled through southern Scotland they burst, battered, burned and blasted everything in their path with swords, clubs, flaming torches and gunpowder.

  Eventually, Longshanks reached Dunfermline Abbey, which was a holy place and the grandest and most beautiful church in Scotland. It was also the place where the English king’s sister was buried.

  So was Longshanks there to admire the view and perhaps say a prayer or two? Was he there to pay his respects to his sister? And was he worried about how upset the pope would be if he smashed the abbey to smithereens? Of course he wasn’t.

  Longshanks ordered the abbey to be burned to the ground! But as if that weren’t unholy enough, the pope should have seen what Longshanks did next.

  Longshanks ordered his son, the prince of Wales, to get his men to climb onto the roof of every Scottish church they came across. This sounds a bit mad, but pay attention.

  The men had to strip off the heavy lead sheets that were used to keep the rain off the church roofs and then give the sheets to the English army’s blacksmiths. The blacksmiths’ task was to melt the lead down and turn it into flaming-hot fireballs for chucking at the Scots. Clever, eh?

  In fact, Longshanks used every weapon he could think of against the Scots, as his army continued their rampage around the country. They attacked countless castles, churches, towns and villages. Before long, Longshanks arrived at his ultimate goal – Stirling Castle.

  Stirling Castle was the greatest fortress in Scotland, and if it were to fall into Longshanks’ clutches it would mean total defeat for the Scots. Longshanks knew this very well. So when he arrived there, the English king began the most awesome castle siege that had ever been seen. The Scots inside Stirling had no chance.

  Longshanks’ siege weapons were so fierce they would have put even the mighty Roman Empire to shame. Some of them had wooden wheels that were as tall as a man standing on somebody else’s shoulders. Others were smaller but just as deadly. They included:

  1. Giant darts – the length of two men lying head to toe, these sleek devils were launched by a special catapult. The darts flew up over the castle walls to spear the soldiers inside. Each special catapult was called a ballista. Longshanks had more than a dozen ballistas to fire his deadly darts.

  2. Mobile cranes – these could raise a cage of twenty English soldiers high up onto the walls of the castle. Once there, the invaders could open the cage door and jump down into the castle.

  3. Steel claws – mounted on the end of a massive pole, each deadly claw was used to pull down the weaker parts of the castle walls, like parapets and overhanging galleries.

  4. Tortoises – not real tortoises, but they had a hard metal shell that made them look like a tortoise. Protected under the moving shell, engineers with picks and shovels filled up the moat around the castle with earth and rocks so that the invaders could get close enough to the castle walls to climb them.

  5. Giant rats – not real rats, but mighty battering rams that looked like rats. They were as long as a bus and made from wooden beams covered with metal. They were used to break down walls and gates.

  6. The War Wolf – this was Longshanks’s new secret weapon, the biggest catapult EVER built. But it didn’t work very well, which at least gave the Scots a chance.

  The Scots in the castle fought bravely to repel the invaders. Once the siege got going, the Scots fired hot tar and boiling oil over the castle walls at their attackers. They dropped hooks down from the castle walls to try to turn the English weapons upside down. But the English were just too many and their weapons too powerful.

  Eventually, the Scots began to run out of food and water. On 20 July 1304, those that were left alive finally gave in and surrendered.

  When Stirling fell, Scotland’s nobles and other leaders believed their nation was finally beaten once and for all. They all surrendered to Longshanks – except for one man.

  Now who might that have been?

  17

  Betrayed

  Longshanks offered Scotland’s defeated nobles a deal – bring me Wallace and I’ll go easy on the rest of you. The Scots agreed, but it was an empty promise. After all that Wallace had done for Scotland, nobody really had the stomach to stab him in the back now. Not even the scheming Scottish nobles.

  Even those who did think about betraying Wallace wouldn’t have been able to find him, anyway. Wallace and his men had gone back to living off their wits, as a band of outlaws hiding in the hills and woods. To hunt down Wallace, Longshanks was forced to hire a professional army of assassins, spies and turncoats.

  One of these was a man called Sir John de Menteith. He had switched sides from Scotland to England and was keen to impress Longshanks. There are a few stories a
bout how Menteith got his hands on Wallace, but one of them begins when Menteith persuaded his nephew to join Wallace’s band.

  Menteith’s nephew told him that Wallace was in Robroyston, just outside Glasgow. One night, Wallace and his men were awoken by somebody hammering at the door. Straight away, Wallace realised the party of visitors had not come to borrow teabags or collect for charity. It was Menteith and his men.

  Once they burst inside, the marauders dragged Wallace’s closest companion outside and skewered him on the spot. But Wallace was alert straight away, and as two men tried to grab him he got the better of them. He knocked the brains out of one of them and broke the back of the other on the windowsill. Ouch.

  More of Menteith’s men rushed in and, eventually, overpowered Wallace. The giant hero was taken out, with his hands and feet tied together.

  The turncoats tied Wallace to the saddle of a horse. He was taken on a long journey south to England, where he would face a trial. Wallace spent a night in a dungeon in the town of Carlisle, before a gruelling seventeen-day journey south to London.

  According to reports, in London Wallace was paraded through the streets on horseback, with a crown of ivy on his head. The crown was supposed to mock him, like the Romans mocked Jesus before his crucifixion. The crowds that gathered on the streets stood and watched as the fearsome Scottish warrior, who had won great victories against the king of England, passed in front of them.

  On 23 August 1305 Wallace was taken to Westminster Hall and tried by judges picked by Longshanks. Wallace was given no right of appeal and the judgement was already decided beforehand. It was a mock trial.