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Category Archives: Braveheart

Braveheart: Not Quite What We’d Expect to Hear Before a Battle

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by aelarsen in Braveheart, History, Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Battle of Falkirk, Braveheart, Braveheart Speech, Freedom!, Medieval Scotland, Mel Gibson, Randall Wallace, William Wallace

Mel Gibson’s William Wallace is famous for giving a stirring speech. Before the battle of Stirling Bridge, he gives this somewhat famous speech in which he tells his troops that they are fighting for freedom, although he never explains what freedom means, except that it can’t be taken away.

In reality, we don’t actually know what he said before the battle of Stirling Bridge. Since he wasn’t the main commander, he probably didn’t make any sort of address to the troops as a whole, but he might have said something to his own men. So the speech we get in the film is entirely the product of screenwriter Randall Wallace’ imagination. It’s his idea of what Wallace would have said if he were talking to a bunch of late-20th century Americans watching a movie about medieval Scotland.

So Gibson’s Wallace is famous for a speech the real Wallace didn’t make. As it happens, the real Wallace is famous for a battle speech that he reportedly gave before the battle of Falkirk. An English source, the Flores Historiarum (“The Flowers of History”), has the following to say about Wallace at Falkirk:

“when [Wallace] had collected an army of Scots in the battle of Falkirk against the King of England, and had seen that he could not resist the powerful army of the king, [he] said to the Scots, “Behold I have brought you into a ring, now carol and dance as well as you can,” and so fled himself from the battle, leaving his people to be slain by the sword…”

It’s hard to know how historically accurate this quote is. The author of this portion of the Flores is unknown, but he was almost certainly an English monk at Westminster, writing in the early 14th century. So it’s possible that the source of this quote was someone present at Falkirk, most likely on the English side. But it could also just be derisive gossip among the English. The author is pretty clearly hostile to the Scots; he also refers to Wallace as a “son of Belial” and mentions the various atrocities Wallace committed during his campaign against the English.So our source for this quote is not exactly an impartial commentator. On the other hand, the colloquial comparison of a battle to a party with singing and dancing rings true.

Nevertheless, this quote reputedly by Wallace is quite famous in Britain. It circulates in many forms

“I have brought you to the ring, now dance if you can.”

“I have brought you to the ring, now dance the best you can.”

“I have brought you to the ring, hop if you can.”

“I have brought you to the revel, now see if you can dance.”

“I have brocht ye to the ring, now see gif ye can dance.”

What all of these variations are expressing is the idea, which seems true, that Wallace did not want to fight at Falkirk, but his men insisted on a confrontation with the English.  The quotes capture a sense of weary resignation and Wallace’ awareness that his forces were not strong enough to defeat the English.

It’s pretty obvious why Braveheart leaves out this famous quote. It’s not exactly the sort of rousing speech we would expect to hear a general give his troops. In fact, it’s rather demotivating and raises the possibility that Wallace lost at Falkirk because he wasn’t a very inspiring general. Furthermore, as I said, it clearly expresses the idea that Wallace didn’t want to fight, which is not the way the film wants to depict Wallace. Gibson’s Wallace is eager for battle, makes a suicidal charge at Edward, and has to be dragged off the field, when in reality, Wallace fled the field when his men were clearly losing. That was the smart, tactical choice to make in that situation, but to modern audiences it smacks strongly of cowardice.

So rather than choosing to show audiences the complexity of the situation Wallace was dealing with at Falkirk or show him struggling with an all-too-human sense of despair, the film falls back on a standard Hollywood trope of Heroic Individuality, in which the hero fights to the bitter end, even when doing so is foolish and pointless.

This, to me, is a good example of what I find so frustrating about Hollywood historical films. Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson had a chance to depict the complicated choices and emotions that the real William Wallace was dealing with. They had an opportunity to explore a real man dealing with real problems and trying to make the best of a bad situation. In other words, they had a chance to show this historical figure as a real human being. Instead, they went for a simplistic cliché that offers no nuance and no real life lesson for the audience and simply relies on empty sentiment and a caricature of  masculinity as being about nothing but brute force and raw determination.

On the other hand, I can see why Scottish nationalists prefer Wallace’ made up speech to the one widely attributed to him. It’s definitely the more inspiring speech, and it’s one that certainly can be applied to the modern debate on Scottish independence. Both the Yes and No sides have made Braveheart an issue, with claims that the film’s macho attitude is part of the reason that more Scottish men than women favor independence. Others have disputed these claims. But if there’s any truth behind the claims, I find it unfortunate that some Scots might make a major political choice based on a Hollywood fantasy of a Scottish hero rather than on the actual man.

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Braveheart: How to Hate Braveheart A Little Less

11 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by aelarsen in Braveheart, History, Literature, Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Blind Harry, Blind Harry’s Wallace, Braveheart, Medieval Scotland, Mel Gibson, Movies I Hate, Randall Wallace, William Wallace

I hate Braveheart (1995, dir. Mel Gibson). I make no secret of this fact. I find poorly written, laughably inaccurate, and offensive in a number of ways. But that’s mostly because of how badly it mangles the historical facts it claims to be depicting. But there’s another way to approach this film, one that makes it less problematic for scholars, and that’s as an adaptation of a piece of medieval literature.

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Most people assume that Braveheart is based directly on the historical events it purports to depict. But it’s not. It’s actually based on a late 15th century Scottish poem known as Blind Harry’s Wallace. So what the film claims is a historical movie is actually an adaptation of a medieval poem about Scottish history; it’s not history at all. This isn’t the only time that Mel Gibson has pulled this trick. His Passion of the Christ (2004) is not, as most people assume, based on the Gospel narratives about the life of Jesus Christ; it’s actually based on The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, an early 19th century account of the visions of a German nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004). There’s some uncertainty whether she or a poet she knew, Clemens Brentano, was the real author of the text, but a close comparison of the film to the Gospel narratives and The Dolorous Passion demonstrates that a number of scenes were clearly taken from the latter text.

Blind Harry’s Wallace

The Wallace of Blind Harry is a long narrative poem in rhyming couplets, written sometimes around 1479 or a little later by a Scottish makar (court poet) known as Blind Harry. Little is known of Blind Harry (or ‘Hary’, as the Scottish records often spell his name), other than that he was employed at the court of Scottish king James IV; he seems to have died in 1492 or 93. The earliest surviving edition of his Wallace dates from 1488, but internal evidence suggests a composition date about a decade earlier.

Blind Harry

Blind Harry

Blind Harry claims that his source for the poem was a biography of William Wallace written by John Blair, a childhood friend of Wallace who became his personal chaplain and confessor and later supposedly wrote his biography at the request of the bishop of Dunkeld. There is no evidence for such a text actually existing, but it is not implausible that a Scottish bishop might have commissioned such a work. However, medieval authors were known for inventing sources in an attempt to make their fiction more respectable, so the fact that this biography is unknown outside of Blind Harry’s reference to it makes its existence dubious. Harry clearly mined another narrative poem, John Barbour’s Bruce, for material, often reassigning deeds done by Robert Bruce to William Wallace. Harry also seems to have borrowed things from the Alliterative Morte Arthure, particularly Wallace’ penchant for miraculous dreams, and from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. So the Wallace is not really an accurate historical account.

The Wallace (which, if you want, you can read here, either in its original Scots English or in a modern synopsis) depicts William Wallace as a classic example of a late medieval chivalrous knight. The emphasis is on Wallace’ amazing prowess and his deep hatred to the English, who are depicted as the natural enemies of the Scots.

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Harry opens by inventing a family history for his hero, but there’s little evidence that it’s accurate; he names Wallace’ father as Malcolm, whereas in one of Wallace’ own writings, he says his father’s name was Alan. The name Wallace, incidentally, means ‘foreigner’ or ‘Welshman’, which suggests that his ancestry was not of Scottish origin. Wallace’ father sent him to his uncle for education at Dundee.

Much of the early portion of the poem is given over to stories of Wallace killing Englishmen. Eventually he meets and marries a noblewoman. (As an aside, the 18th century edition of the poem that I’m working from names this woman as ‘Miranda’, a name that is otherwise unattested in medieval sources. Most scholars credit William Shakespeare with the invention of this name is his Tempest. The name, however, is Latin; it means “wonderful, admirable”. So either Shakespeare did not invent the name or the 18th century editor inserted the name into the text, perhaps because Blind Harry didn’t give the woman a name. Either way, Miranda would have been a much better name than ‘Murron’, which makes the woman sound like a cattle plague.)

Wallace prepares to make war against England. Miranda begs to go with him because she fears the evil English Sheriff Heselrig, who killed her brother. Unfortunately, while Wallace is off making plans to fight, Heselrig kills Miranda. This provokes Wallace into slaughtering all the Englishmen in Lanarkshire. This is quite typical of Blind Harry’s William Wallace; he slaughters at the drop of a hat. Sometimes he has good reason to, as here, but earlier in the poem, he kills a Englishman for trying to take his knife.

Wallace defeats King Edward several times and conquers various castles before defeating Edward at Stirling Bridge. He drives the English out of Scotland, and then marches into England, sieges and captures York, and beheads Edward’s nephew, the governor of the city.

Then the unnamed English queen (who would be Edward I’s wife) comes to Wallace and tries to make peace. Wallace refuses because he doesn’t trust ether her or Edward, but she gives him a large sum of gold anyway, basically because he’s the hero of the poem. Wallace wanders off into France for a while, then returns to Scotland and beats the English several more times, in the process massacring a hundred men who have taken shelter in a church, as well as eighty Englishmen returning from a wedding. Did I mention that Wallace really dislikes the English?

The English defeat the Scots at Falkirk, mostly because a Scottish noble tricks Wallace into sitting out the battle (so Edward wins at Falkirk, but not by beating Wallace). Wallace confronts Robert Bruce, who fails to persuade him to submit to Edward; instead Wallace persuades Bruce to stop supporting Edward. Wallace returns to France, where he conquers Edward’s French lands, but in the meantime, Edward conquers all of Scotland with the help of a treacherous Scottish noble.

Wallace returns to Scotland, more fighting ensues, and then Wallace is betrayed and captured. Robert Bruce returns to Scotland and, inspired by Wallace, takes up the rebellion. Wallace is taken to London where he is executed after being given a comforting glimpse of a psalter he used to carry.

If this summary seems long, I’m condensing a LOT. Harry might have been blind, but he certainly wasn’t mute.

The number of factual errors in the Wallace are staggering. Wallace only actually fought two major battles, he never sacked York or killed the king’s nephew, he never met Edward’s wife (since Edward’s first wife was dead and he had not yet remarried at this point in the poem), he never conquered Edward’s French holdings, and so on.

But from the summary, it ought to be clear how much of this material found its way into Braveheart, including Wallace’ education at the hands of his uncle, the killing of Wallace’ wife, the siege of York and the beheading of Edward’s nephew, Wallace’ defeat at Falkirk being attributed to treachery, Wallace’ role in inspiring Robert Bruce, and the general Anglophobia of the poem. In the Wallace, Wallace has miraculous dreams, whereas in Braveheart, Wallace has a dreamlike encounter with his dead wife, and the comforting psalter at his execution is turned into a comforting glimpse of his dead wife. Since none of these events are rooted in history, it’s clear that the screenwriter, Randall Wallace, was drawing off of Blind Harry’s work. He condensed the narrative and removed all the references to things Robert Bruce actually accomplished later. He pared out the material about Wallace in France, and inserted the material about ‘Primae Noctis’ and Edward II’s homosexuality to make the English both more villainous and more pathetic.

Randall Wallace

Randall Wallace

Blind Harry has Wallace meet Edward I’s wife. Braveheart changes that to a meeting with Edward’s daughter-in-law and throws in a romance with her, never pausing to consider that this renders Wallace’s encounters with his dead wife rather problematic since he’s cheating on the wife who is coming back from the dead for him.

So while the film makes poor sense as history, it makes considerable sense as an adaptation of a late medieval poem. Why then was Braveheart marketed as based on history rather than based on Blind Harry’s Wallace? For three reasons, I think. First, Blind Harry’s Wallace isn’t a particularly well-known text; studio executives probably calculated, correctly, that there wasn’t a big market for seeing cinematic adaptations of obscure medieval Scottish poems. Second, Hollywood has understood for some time that modern audiences find ‘based on history’ to be a powerfully appealing marketing tactic. Finally, Blind Harry’s Wallace is based, albeit loosely, on history, so in a way, they’re just cutting out the intervening poem, even if that greatly obscures the historical facts.

Nevertheless, I find the idea that Braveheart is a cinematic adaptation of a fictional story comforting. It helps me watch the film without flying into a rage at its near constant glaring historical inaccuracies (Sharon Krossa counts 18 errors in the first two and half minutes of the film alone). What doesn’t work as history works to some extent as chivalrous romance. It’s still poorly written, laughably inaccurate, and offensive, but just less so. So next time you watch Braveheart (if you have to), watch it the way you’d watch the Errol Flynn Robin Hood or John Boorman’s Excalbur, as cinematic fiction, not cinematic history.

Want to Know More?

Blind Harry’s Wallace is readily available in paperback. It’s not really more accurate than Braveheart, but it’s a better work of fiction.

Braveheart: Why Braveheart is Actually a Porn Film

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by aelarsen in Braveheart, History, Movies

≈ 31 Comments

Tags

Braveheart, Droit du Seigneur, Edward II, Isabella of France, ius prima noctis, Medieval Scotland, Mel Gibson, Movies I Hate, Sophie Marceau, William Wallace

One of the frequently remarked-on inaccuracies of Braveheart (1995, dir. Mel Gibson) deals with Princess Isabella (Sophie Marceau). In the film, Isabella is an adult woman (her age is unclear; Marceau was 29 at the time, but Isabella seems to be younger, perhaps early 20s), who gets married to Prince Edward (the future Edward II) during the course of the film. She falls in love with Wallace (Mel Gibson), has sex with him, and at the end of the film taunts Edward I by telling him that she is carrying Wallace’ baby and that her child will eventually supplant Edward II as king.

Sophie Marceau as Isabella

Sophie Marceau as Isabella

In reality, Isabella was born in 1295, and since the film is set around 1297, that means she was 2 years old and living in France at the time. She married Edward II in 1308, at the age of 13, and hadn’t even been to England when Wallace rebelled. So this romance is entirely fictitious. It’s easy to discount this as simply the sort of obligatory romance that every Hollywood action film has to include; Gibson, in the DVD commentary track, dismisses it as just exactly this. But if we assumed that, we’d be entirely wrong. The romance between Isabella and Wallace is, in fact, critical to the entire film; without it, this movie couldn’t have been made in 1990s Hollywood.

Trigger Warning: This post discusses rape.

A Bummer of an Action Film On the surface, Wallace’ story is poor fodder for Hollywood. He was a rebel in a political dispute that happened 700 years ago that Americans would not have had any real understanding of. He had one major military success that wasn’t fully his, got defeated at his next major battle, and was eventually captured, tortured and executed. The end.

In other words, Wallace lost. His rebellion achieved comparatively little of lasting impact, although it helped to stir up Scottish resistance against the English and laid seeds for Robert Bruce to harvest more than a decade later. That’s not the sort of story that Hollywood likes to tell. It rarely offers films in which the hero dies at the end (among recent action films, Gladiator is the only other one I can think of off the top of my head), but if the hero dies, he must certainly die victorious.

So how can one pull a serious victory out of Wallace’ story? The film certainly builds up the idea that Wallace inspired Bruce to make his rebellion, but that’s still a fairly intangible sort of victory by Hollywood standards. To supplement that, Braveheart’s screen-writer Randall Wallace (note the last name) added the Wallace-Isabella romance so that Wallace can impregnate Isabella and thereby eventually supplant the villainous Edward I and his pathetic son Edward II.

Quite simply, Wallace wins by knocking up Isabella. His military victory is entirely irrelevant to the story, except insofar as it inspires Isabella’s love. In other words, what actually matters in the film in terms of the ending is Wallace’s sexual prowess, not his military prowess. Without the Wallace-Isabella romance, Wallace simply loses, and that’s not acceptable in a Hollywood film. So while the film pretends to be a war movie, it’s actually a porn film in which the whole plot is a contest to see who’s get to boink the leading lady.  

Lights! Camera! *Ahem* Action! Once you start to realize what the real plot of the film is, it begins to read very differently. It’s really about a competition to see who is more sexually potent, the Scottish or the English. Early on, King Edward (Patrick McGoohan) announces that “the problem with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots!” and then declares that he will remedy this problem by reinstituting what the film calls ius prima noctis. This “right of the first night”, more properly called by the French term droit du seigneur (“the lord’s right”), was a fictitious notion that medieval nobles had the legal right to sleep with a peasant woman on her marriage night before her husband did. It’s completely fictitious; no medieval noble every enjoyed a formal legal right like that. But as the movie presents it, it is this fact that triggers the Scottish rebellion. The Scots rebel because the English want to sleep with Scottish women.

But the film thinks that this mass rape of Scottish women is not enough to have inspired Wallace; his rebellion has to be personal. So in the film, Wallace rebels not because of ius prima noctis but because an English soldier tries to rape Wallace’s wife, Murron (Catherine McCormack). The soldier is unsuccessful; Murron fights so hard he’s unable to accomplish his goal, but she gets arrested and executed. So the film doubly determines the film’s rebellion as being about the English desire to have sex with Scottish women.

That sets up a theme of sexual competition between the Scots and the English, in which the issue is which side is sexually superior. And the answer to that question is fairly clear. The Scots are sexually skilled and the English are sexually inept. The English soldier fails to conquer Murron. Later in the film, Isabella’s handmaiden comments that she spent the whole night with an English noble, but all he did was talk, because “the English do not know what to do with their tongues”. In contrast, Wallace is so sexually compelling, Isabella falls in love with him before she meets him; in one of the few actually medieval-feeling details of the film, the first time she hears his name, she is so overwhelmed she has to sit down. And, of course, Wallace spends an awful lot of time waving that anachronistic great sword around…

Ok, so let’s get all Freudian. The film repeatedly invokes sexual imagery during its battle scenes. I’ve already explored how badly wrong the film’s version of the battle of Stirling Bridge is. Instead of the historical battle, the film’s battle is structured as a series of efforts to prove sexual prowess. The Scots taunt the English by flipping up their kilts and displaying their penises; the English, being dressed differently, can’t do the same. Instead, they respond with a couple volleys of arrows that mostly fail to penetrate the Scots, although one Scot is hit in the ass. The Scots respond with further sexual taunting, and the English retaliate by making a rather foolish lance change. Yet this attempt to penetrate the Scots also fails, because the Scots successfully penetrate the English with their spears. During the battle, there’s a brief shot of a Scotsman driving his sword into an Englishman’s groin, symbolically penetrating and castrating him at the same time.

Lest you think I’m reading too much into this, shortly before the battle scene, Wallace meets with his men in a forest to discuss strategy. Hamish, one of Wallace’s lieutenants, makes a joke about the size of his dick, just after Wallace looks up at the long, straight tree-trunks around them and hits upon the idea of making them into spears. So the film pretty much tells us that the spears are really Scottish cocks.

Another example of the film’s Freudianism comes a little after the battle of Stirling. Wallace’ men lay siege to York (which didn’t happen), and they take a battering ram to the gate. They struggle to force their way in, especially since the English are pouring flaming oil on them, but Wallace jumps in to lend a hand. A moment later, the gates are knocked in and there is an eruption of fire. I dare you to watch that scene and not think of ejaculation.

See what I mean?

So for Braveheart, war is all about sex. Wallace is fighting Edward I, but he’s not just fighting him militarily. The two men are locked in a competition to see who gets to sleep with Princess Isabella. The film repeatedly suggests that Edward I has carnal thoughts about his daughter-in-law. In fact, when he declares the revival of ius prima noctis, he does so while he’s looking straight at Isabella. His lust for her inspires the actions that lead to the Scottish rebellion. But Edward doesn’t get to sleep with Isabella; Wallace does. Edward may fantasize about boning her, but Wallace is the one who actually knocks her up. That’s why Isabella’s pregnancy is such a powerful symbol; Wallace gets to have what Edward wants, and the long-term consequences are that Edward’s line is supplanted by Wallace’ seed.

And Here’s Where the Film Gets Ugly In many Hollywood films, the female lead is the prize for victory. But not in Braveheart. Wallace gets Isabella, but he doesn’t get to keep her, because he’s executed. Instead of being the prize, Isabella is just a tool for Wallace’ victory (along with Wallace’ tool, that is). The film treats her like a brood mare or a field to be plowed and sown with seed.

However, unlike her namesake in Ironclad, Isabella has some real agency. She chooses to offer Wallace strategic information, and at the end of the film she announces her intentions to destroy Edward I’s family line. The problem, however, is that her agency is entirely devoted to helping and avenging Wallace.

The film’s only other important female character, Wallace’s wife Murron (where the hell did Randall Wallace come up with that name? It makes her sound like a cattle disease. The woman’s real name was allegedly Marion.), is similarly devoted to Wallace. She is sexually faithful to him to the point of preferring death over being raped. Obviously a woman might make such a difficult choice even if she weren’t committed to her husband, but Murron’s fidelity is reinforced in other scenes. Her faithfulness is supernaturally strong; she returns to him twice after her death, both times to offer him reassurance at difficult moments. While the film is ambiguous about whether Wallace is just dreaming her up or whether her ghost is actually there, the overall impression is that she’s come back from the dead because of her love for him.

Murron, the first time she returns from the dead

Murron, the first time she returns from the dead

So consider what the film has done with its two female characters. Wallace’s wife is intensely, supernaturally, faithful to him. She seemingly returns from the dead twice because even though she’s dead, she’s still his wife and he needs her. Wallace, however, feels no such obligation to Murron, because he sleeps with Isabella once Murron is dead. She is faithful to him even though he is not faithful to her, and her second visitation comes as he’s being executed, after he’s essentially cheated on her. So Murron is willing to ignore his infidelity, simply because she loves him. Braveheart is offering up a classic male sexual fantasy driven by the double-standard. Women exist to provide sex, love, and emotional support and so are expected to be committed to their man, while men are able to sleep around as they choose without losing their exclusive claim on their wives. When you put that together with the fact that Isabella’s entire purpose in the film is to get knocked up so Wallace can defeat her father-in-law, it seems clear that far from being romantic, Braveheart is actually quite misogynist and demeaning to women.

While We’re At It, Let’s Be Homophobic as Well But Isabella’s decision to commit herself to Wallace has a problem with it. She’s married to another man. Broadly speaking, Hollywood morality tends to frown on adultery. Most Hollywood films tend to do one of two things with adultery. Either it is a bad choice that usually leads to worse things like a decision to murder one’s spouse, and must therefore turn out badly and be punished, or it must be presented in a sympathetic light; the marriage has to be bad, the cuckolded spouse must be neglectful or abusive, and the other man has to be obviously a better choice morally. Since Isabella’s adultery has to be presented in a sympathetic light, it has to be clear to the audience that Isabella has a really good reason for cheating on her husband, Prince Edward.

And so the film makes the choice to depict Prince Edward as a classic example of the Hollywood Sissy. Braveheart’s Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) is a slightly-built, almost delicate man. He is far more interested in his boyfriend’s clothing than in either his new wife or in manly pursuits like warfare. He can’t be dragged away from his lover long enough to participate in political councils, so he sends his wife instead. At one point, Edward I throws his son’s boyfriend out a window; when Prince Edward tries to attack him, Edward bitch-slaps him and takes his knife away with contemptuous ease (symbolically castrating him, I suppose). All-in-all, Prince Edward is a pathetic little sissy boy.

He just wants to sing!

He just wants to sing!

This is completely ahistorical. The actual Edward II was a tall, handsome, physically robust and athletic man. Among his hobbies were ditch-digging and brick-laying (rather odd hobbies for a medieval noble, but clearly evidence of his physicality). He loved swimming and rough-housing, and once seriously hurt one of his companions with rough play. At the battle of Bannockburn, when it became clear the English were losing, Edward had to be physically dragged off the field because he wanted to stay and fight. Whatever his sexual preferences might have been (and scholars still debate exactly what his relationships with Piers Gaveston and the Despensers were), it’s clear that the actual Edward was not the limp-wrist he is in Braveheart.

But the historical Edward won’t do. He’s too close to the sort of man the film wants to present Wallace as. Isabella’s choice to cheat on the historical Edward II would be more puzzling, so Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson resort to the oldest and most offensive stereotype of homosexuals Hollywood knows. (To be fair, however, Randall Wallace is not the only author to demonize Edward II; most historical novelists who choose to write about him do similar things.)

I dislike Braveheart because of its numerous historical inaccuracies, its anachronistic notions of ‘freedom’ and its rather simplistic narrative. I hate it because of its deeply-rooted misogyny and homophobia. Gibson demeans women, gays, and the English all so he can run around battlefields stabbing people with his enormous penis substitutes and live out a male fantasy of sexual potency and female devotion.

Years ago, during a class on medieval warfare, some students asked me what I thought about Braveheart. That question is a sure-fire way to sidetrack me for 20 minutes, and I gave them a condensed version of this analysis. A year later, I ran into one of the students from that class. He said, “I went back and rewatched Braveheart, and you’re completely right!” So go ahead, rewatch it and tell me whether you think I’m right. Because once you start to see how Freudian the film is, you can’t stop seeing it.

Want to Know More?

Braveheartis available on Amazon.

Kathryn Warner is pretty much the leading expert on Edward II, and her book on him, Edward II: The Unconventional Kingis one of the best things written about him, although I’m not convinced by her argument that he survived his eventual deposition. Her blog about Edward II is definitely worth a look if you want to know more about him than you ever thought possible.

I wish I could recommend a book about Isabella of France, but frankly everything I’ve seen written about her is complete crap. Stay away from Alison Weir’s book.


Braveheart: When is a Sword Not a Sword?

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by aelarsen in Braveheart, History, Movies

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Braveheart, Mel Gibson, Movies I Hate, The Wallace Sword

In Braveheart, Wallace spends most of the battles wielding an enormous sword, far larger than the other swords in the film, so large that it looks almost comical in some scenes. So it’s worth a brief discussion, although I’m hardly an expert on medieval weaponry.

A promo shot of Wallace and his sword

A promo shot of Wallace and his sword

Late medieval soldiers sometimes used a sword that was much longer than conventional swords, typically with a blade that was 3 to 3 ½ feet long and with a hilt long enough to accommodate two hands. These swords have gone by a variety of names that all designate roughly the same weapon (with some differences, for example in the hilt and cross-piece, or the length): longswords, hand-and-half swords, bastard swords, claymores (a Scottish term meaning literally “great sword”); in the period they were typically known as swords of war or great war swords, so I’m just going to call them great swords.

Although there are a few early precursors, great swords were primarily used in the period from roughly 1350 to 1550. Although extremely long, these swords were light enough that they could be wielded either one-handed or two handed; the latter allows for greater force. While it could be wielded from horseback, it was probably best suited to combat on foot. They seem to have been most popular in Germany and Italy, where whole systems of sword-fighting were built around them. In battle, great swords were particularly useful when confronting units of pikemen (such as Wallace’ schiltroms), because the length and force of the sword make it particularly good to use against pikes; it can be used to knock the pike out of the way and then step in within the pike’s range, making it hard for the pikeman to respond. Using a great sword with a shield is difficult, and in general, great swords worked best with plate armor, which lessened the need for a shield and which therefore freed up the off-hand for use with the great sword.

Two examples of a great sword in a late medieval manuscript

Two examples of a great sword in a late medieval manuscript

So it’s fairly clear that Wallace is unlikely to have used a great sword in his battles. They had not really become common yet, they required heavier armor than Wallace is likely to have worn, and they are better used on foot whereas Wallace was almost certainly fighting primarily from horseback. So is this an example of Braveheart’s rather cavalier relationship to the historical facts?

Not quite. The film was almost certainly relying for its ideas about Wallace’ sword on the so-called Wallace Sword, a weapon reputed to have belonged to Wallace. In 1505, King James IV paid for an armorer to provide a new hilt, pommel, scabbard and belt for a sword said to be Wallace’ sword. That sword may be the one given to the Wallace Monument in the late 19th century, where it is now on display.

The so-called Wallace Sword

The so-called Wallace Sword

So at the start of the 16th century, the king of Scotland possessed a sword thought to be Wallace’ sword. But a close examination of the weapon now at the Wallace Monument has revealed that it contains parts of four different swords, and the blade may in fact be three separate pieces welded together. Much of the sword has features that post-date Wallace by more than a century, but one part does seem to be typical of 13th century swords. So it is possible that part of the current blade is genuinely Wallace’ sword, but the sword as it now exists was not one that could have existed in Wallace’ day. If Wallace did use a piece of this sword, it would not have been a great sword but a much shorter sword typical of the late 13th century. Great swords were more common in Scotland in the 16th century, so it would make sense if someone at that time had taken Wallace’ genuine sword and combined it with parts of other swords to make a weapon that looked more like what 16th century Scots would have expected a heroic Scotsman to use.

So Braveheart used a replica of an actual sword that is reputed to be Wallace’ sword, even though that sword is almost certainly not the sword Wallace actually used, but may contain a piece of one he did use. As the late great Allan Sherman once said, it’s a genuine copy of a fake Dior.

Of course, if you want to get all Freudian on this movie (which I do), we can see other reasons why Mel Gibson might want to spend the movie waving such a long sword around…

Want to Know More?

I’m not sure there’s much more to be said about the Wallace Sword, unless you’re way more into weapons than I am. So let me just repeat the recommendations from the last post.

Braveheartis available on Amazon.

There are a couple books on William Wallace, but the only one I’ve seen that is worth anything is William Wallace: The Man and the Mythby Chris Brown. Although I’m not sure that Brown is a scholar, the book is well-researched and does a good job laying out what we actually know about Wallace, which is less than a lot of people seem to think.

Osprey Books publishes a lot of carefully researched and beautifully illustrated works on specific military campaigns and weapon systems, and their book on Stirling Bridge and Falkirk 1297-98: William Wallace’s rebellion (Campaign)does a good job of surveying Wallace’s military career.


Braveheart: The Scottish Movie

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by aelarsen in Braveheart, History, Movies

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Braveheart, Edward I, Falkirk, Freedom!, Hugh Cressingham, Medieval Europe, Medieval Scotland, Mel Gibson, Military Stuff, Movies I Hate, Robert Bruce, Stirling Bridge, William Wallace

When Mel Gibson released his Braveheart (1995, dir. Mel Gibson), it proved a worldwide hit. It earned five Academy Awards, and became probably the most successful film about the Middle Ages ever made. Almost 20 years after the fact, a very sizable percentage of my students have seen it. It is also one of the most historically-inaccurate films ever made and a film largely reviled by professional medievalists. Like 300, we’re gonna be feasting on this film for multiple posts. So let’s begin, shall we?

The Scottish Wars of Independence

The political circumstances around Wallace’s rebellion are extremely complex, and can only be summarized here. In 1286, the Scottish king Alexander made the mistake of riding his horse down a rocky slope during a storm, breaking his neck in the process. He left no direct heirs other than a young grand-daughter who died 4 years later, which triggered a major political crisis in Scotland. 13 different nobles put forward claims to the Scottish throne. The two leading contenders were John Balliol and Robert Bruce (often incorrectly termed ‘Robert the Bruce’, a corruption of his French name, Robert de Brus).

Because Scotland was heading for a civil war over this issue, the Scottish nobility invited Edward I of England to arbitrate the dispute. Edward demanded that all of the competitors acknowledge him as the overlord of Scotland. Most of them reluctantly accepted this demand, which was not as outrageous as it sounds today, since Edward’s great-grandfather Henry II had enjoyed this position; in Edward’s view, he was simply claiming a right that had slipped over the past two reigns. In 1292, Edward issued a ruling in favor of John Balliol, a ruling accepted by a majority of the Scottish nobility.

A portrait thought to represent Edward I

A portrait thought to represent Edward I

In the years following, Edward treated Balliol as a vassal rather than an equal, and eventually in 1296, Balliol renounced his homage. Edward responded by invading southern Scotland and defeating the Scots at the battle of Dunbar. Balliol surrendered soon after. Edward deposed him and sent him into captivity, and proceeded to take control of much of Scotland.

The Scots, understandably, disliked this, and bristled at English rule. In 1297, rebellions broke out in numerous parts of Scotland. Andrew de Moray (or Andrew Murray) seized control of Moray in northern Scotland and began conquering northeastern Scotland in the name of Balliol. About the same time, William Wallace rebelled and killed the sheriff of Lanarkshire in southern Scotland. Wallace’ rebellion struggled to catch up to Moray’s lead; it’s important to realize that at this point, Moray was the leader of the movement, not Wallace.

Edward responded by sending troops into Scotland. He also sent his vassal Robert Bruce, but Bruce chose to side with the rebels. On September 11th, 1297, the English forces, led by John de Warenne and Hugh Cressingham, encountered the joint forces of Moray and Wallace at Stirling Bridge. The Scots took up a position on boggy ground at the north end of the bridge over the River Forth. A sizeable advance force of English infantry and several hundred cavalry under the leadership of Cressingham advanced over the bridge, but then got slowed down by the boggy ground. The Scottish forces seized control of the north end of the bridge and effectively cut the advance force off from the rest of the army. Because of the narrowness of the bridge, the English were unable to get the rest of their army across the river, with the result that the advance force was slaughtered. Warenne chose to retreat, ordering the destruction of the bridge. The unfortunate Cressingham was killed and his body flayed; legend holds that Wallace had a baldrick made out of his skin. Andrew Moray suffered fatal injuries in the battle and died a few weeks later, leaving Wallace as the dominant figure in the war. Wallace invaded northern England and plundered it. After that, he was knighted and appointed Guardian of Scotland.

Modern Stirling. Note the river--it's going to be important.

Modern Stirling. Note the river–it’s going to be important.

Chris Brown, in his William Wallace: The True Story of Braveheart, offers a somewhat different interpretation of the battle based on the idea that the bridge opened out onto a narrow spit of land between two bends in the river. In his view, what the Scots did was simply occupy the neck of the spit, preventing the English from continuing their crossing and forcing the cavalry back into the infantry. In this view, it was not the Scots who prevented the cavalry from retreating, but the English infantry and the narrowness of the bridge.  It’s a plausible scenario. The chief problem is that archaeologists have not yet identified the location of the bridge, which makes a definitive interpretation of the battle difficult. There is also disagreement over whether the English made a second attempt at crossing the bridge or not.

This is essentially Brown's reconstruction of the battle

This is essentially Brown’s reconstruction of the battle. Other reconstructions put the bridge at the bend by the word ‘river’

The primary Scottish tactic during the war was the pike schiltrom (sometimes called a ‘hedgehog’). This was a formation in which a large number of men armed with pikes (essentially long spears) positioned in a circular or square formation with men facing outward in all directions. This presents a wall of pikes no matter what direction the schiltrom is approached from, and since horses will not run into an unmoving object, it provided very good defense against the dominant knightly cavalry of the 13th century. At Stirling Bridge, the Scottish pikemen charged to the bridge and then formed up a schiltrom, thus effectively separating the two halves of the English army. (If you prefer Brown’s reconstruction, they formed their schiltrom at the neck of the spit.)

However, the schiltrom was essentially a static, defensive formation. Once it had formed up, it could not move quickly because it was only effective as long as it maintained its outward-facing orientation; to move, men on one side would have to walk backwards while keeping in formation. Under Brown’s reconstruction, it could have advanced slowly, since it would not have had to defend its rear, but even if it was entirely forward-facing, it would have to maintain its close formation.

The schiltrom was part of the so-called Infantry Revolution of the 14th century; in the decades after Wallace, it was to help drastically reduce the effectiveness of cavalry. But Wallace and his men were at the forefront of this development, before people had really figured out how to best use pikes.

Stirling Bridge hurt Edward’s war effort, but it was hardly a decisive battle. In the long run, it changed very little strategically. In 1298, Edward came north with another army. Initially, Wallace adopted guerrilla tactics, harassing Edward’s forces but not giving battle. Edward contemplated falling back to Edinburgh but then he got word that Wallace was encamped at Falkirk just a few miles away. Wallace seems to have wanted to retreat from the English forces, which substantially outnumbered his troops, but his men, apparently grown overconfident, insisted on fighting. Wallace took up a position between a woods and a small river. Before the battle, Wallace is reported to have told his men, “I have brought you to the (dancing) ring, hop (dance) if you can.” Not exactly an inspiring speech.

Wallace’ infantry were formed into schiltroms, supplemented by a modest force of cavalry and archers. Edward had a significant force of cavalry and a large number of longbowmen, as well as a sizeable force of infantry.

The English cavalry scattered the Scottish archers but could not penetrate the schiltroms. The Scottish cavalry attempted a counter-attack, but were badly outnumbered by the English cavalry and broke and fled. Then Edward brought forward his archers and proceeded to demolish the schiltroms, which were unable to respond effectively to missile fire without losing their formation. Once the Scottish pikemen had been substantially thinned out, the cavalry charged in and finished them off. Wallace fled into the woods. His reputation ruined, he resigned the Guardianship of Scotland.

The second phase of Falkirk, after the Scottish archers and cavalry were dispersed

The second phase of Falkirk, after the Scottish archers and cavalry were dispersed

Over the next several years, Edward gradually got the upper hand in Scotland. Bruce submitted to Edward in 1301. In 1304, after Wallace was defeated again in a minor encounter, most of the Scottish leadership surrendered, although Wallace did not. Finally in 1305, Wallace was captured near Glasgow. He was put on trial, found guilty, and publicly executed; he was hanged, cut down while still alive, emasculated, disemboweled, beheaded, and cut into four pieces. His head was put on a spike at the Tower Bridge, and his limbs were sent to Scotland for display. That brought Wallace’ rebellion to an end, but not the Wars of Independence.

It’s important to realize that there is no evidence that William Wallace was a particularly skilled general. He only ever fought two major battles, and the victory at Stirling Bridge may have been due as much to Moray’s leadership as Wallace’. He was more successful at guerrilla warfare than open-field battles. At best, Stirling Bridge suggests that he was capable of finding a intelligent way to minimize the English advantage, but attacking when the enemy is disorganized and in a bad position does not require particular genius, just the ability to take advantage of an opportunity. He was smart enough to realize that he was unlikely to win at Falkirk, but lacked the leadership skills to get his men to obey him. In the end, Wallace was a failure as a general; his major contribution to Scottish history was in helping start the process of resistance to English rule, not in delivering a major victory.

Braveheart’s Battle of Stirling Bridge

Braveheart offers versions of both Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, but they’re very different from the historical battles. The first battle takes place on a small plain with low hills and a forest behind the English. There is no river or bridge in sight, and the ground is firm, rather than boggy. Wallace (Moray never even appears in the film) arrays his infantry in a simple line. He instructs his small cavalry force to ride off; in reality this is a flanking maneuver, but it’s intended to trick the English into thinking the cavalry has fled. The English command a mixed force of cavalry, archers, and infantry.

I know there's a river around here somewhere...

I know there’s a river around here somewhere…

The English commander (who I’m going to assume is  Hugh de Cressingham; I’ve watched this movie several times and I’m never clear on this question, but perhaps I’ve just missed something) orders his archers to open fire on the Scottish position, who are taunting them and flashing their genitals at them. The archers inflict a few casualties, but the Scottish miraculously parry most of the arrows with their shields. This is extremely unlikely.

After a second round of Scottish taunting and English arrows failing to achieve very much, Wallace’ cavalry rides off and Cressingham orders a cavalry charge (which is done with a properly dressed line, in contrast to Olivier’s Henry V). The Scots, however, have a trick up their kilts; they have secretly brought pikes with them, which are laid on the ground where the English don’t see them. Thus the cavalry winds up charging not a disorganized mass of general infantry troops but a pike wall that kills their horses and shatters their charge. The Scots massacre the English cavalry, at which point Cressingham panics and orders the infantry to charge in and a formless brawl ensues as both sides charge each other. Then the Scottish cavalry reappears, and the English forces are completely routed; Cressingham is decapitated in battle.

Could a battle like this have happened around 1300? Yes, given a few assumptions. One of the basic rules of medieval warfare is that the side that advances its infantry is at a disadvantage, since the infantry is likely to lose formation (you can see this when the two infantries charge each other at a full run). So the Scots taunt the English in an effort to get them to advance. Instead, Cressingham orders his longbowmen to attack the Scots, who as infantry are going to be particularly vulnerable to archery (they either have to stand their ground and take the hits or advance and risk losing formation). After two flights the English are winning; the Scots are slowly taking casualties and have done no harm to the English. Cressingham’s obvious tactic is to continue exactly what he’s doing because it’s working.

But then we reach the first assumption; for this battle to happen, Cressingham must be a complete idiot and overconfident. When the Scottish cavalry rides off, he foolishly thinks he’s routed them and sends in his cavalry. Had Cressingham been a more prudent general, he would have kept up the missile fire and considered the possibility that the Scots were trying to flank him. The movie present Wallace’ flanking tactic as being extremely clever when in fact it’s actually a pretty basic tactic. Remember, the English have a forest behind them in the movie; they would have chosen that deliberately to prevent a flanking maneuver.

Then we get to the second assumption. The film suggests that it is possible for a pike unit to hide its weapons on the ground until the last minute and therefore trick cavalry into charging it. That’s a huge assumption, and one I’m fairly dubious of. Pikes have to be positioned and braced firmly on the ground using one foot as a sort of backstop so that the pike won’t slide on impact. That’s a complex maneuver, and not one that can quickly done, especially by troops that have never used pikes before (the film shows Wallace dreaming up the pike strategy the night before the battle). And these are cumbersome wooden poles a couple inches around, rather than actual pikes. Also, the film cheats. In all the earlier shots of the Scottish infantry, there are no pikes lying on the ground, but they magically appear just when the Scots are ready to use them. In reality, the English would probably have spotted the pikes on the ground and figured out what the Scots were up to. So the film’s trick is wildly implausible. But if we assume that somehow this trick could be pulled off, what follows is reasonable.

Whoa, dude! Where did these pikes come from?

Whoa, dude! Where did these pikes come from?

At this point, Cressingham sends in his infantry. A smarter tactic would have been to stand his ground, resume archery fire, and force the Scots to charge a defensive line under withering arrow fire. Instead, Cressingham panics and orders his infantry to advance. Wallace rather foolishly does the same thing, and the result is a completely chaotic battle in which the Scots have nullified most of the English advantages but have also lost their own unit cohesion. Had Wallace been a skilled commander, he would have stood his ground and let the English infantry charge his pike wall; instead, he gets a lot of his men killed. Perhaps he knows that he barely has control of his army and figures they’ll charge anyway.

So, assuming that Cressingham was an incompetent general and assuming that the trick with the pikes could be pulled off (which it probably couldn’t), this battle could have happened. In contrast to 300’s Thermopylae, this battle makes sense on some level, if you grant a couple of unlikely possibilities. One of Gibson’s concerns is to depict the battle as an extremely chaotic and frightening event, which is a fair assessment of some medieval battles. In this, he is drawing off the same tradition that Kenneth Branagh tapped into a few years earlier in his Henry V.

But Braveheart’s Stirling is certainly not Stirling Bridge, where Wallace and Moray won because they struck the English army at a vulnerable moment and took up a strong position that exploited the narrowness of the bridge and the bogginess of the terrain.

In a previous post, I said that the right question to ask is not “Is this film historically accurate?” but rather “Why is this film being inaccurate about this particular detail?”, and Braveheart illustrates this principle on several occasions. Why did Gibson make up a battle instead of trying to recreate Stirling Bridge the way it happened? On the surface, it seems like an odd decision. The name of the battle is Stirling Bridge, and it’s a fairly well-known event, at least in Scotland, so you’d think that the omission of the bridge would be a problem. And the Scottish tactics at Stirling Bridge were intelligent; the film could have showcased Wallace’ tactical cunning in a more plausible way than it does.

Years ago I saw an interview with someone involved in the film (I don’t think it was Gibson; it may have been the director of photography) who claimed that they couldn’t find an appropriate bridge to use. This is a fairly silly thing to say, since Hollywood routinely builds sets like that all the time.

I think a much more likely reason has to do with how Gibson wanted to present the battle. As I’ve mentioned, in reality, Wallace and Moray won Stirling Bridge because they made good use of the terrain and the bridge. They cut the English forces in two, held off the infantry that had not yet crossed the bridge, and slaughtered the cavalry, which couldn’t maneuver effectively on boggy ground and couldn’t retreat back to the bridge. But that doesn’t fit Gibson’s narrative of Wallace, whom he constantly presents as a plucky, outnumbered underdog who wins his fights through sheer moral force. Showing the bridge would force Gibson to acknowledge that Wallace won because his control of the bridge kept him from being outnumbered; it would undermine the plucky underdog quality Gibson was trying to create. So it seems to me that Gibson’s version of this battle is inaccurate because accuracy at this moment would have violated the point he was trying to make about who Wallace was and who the Scots are as a people. He consciously re-wrote the past to achieve a particular effect.

 

Braveheart’s Falkirk

After Stirling, Wallace lays siege to York, which never happened, and captures it. He executes Edward’s unnamed nephew and sends his head to Edward. Edward’s daughter-in-law, Isabella meets Wallace and warns him that Edward plans to invade, so Wallace is able to prepare for the forthcoming battle.

In Gibson’s version of the battle of Falkirk, the battle again takes place on a small plain surrounded by hills and forest. There is no Westquarter Burn. The Scots prepare the ground by pouring pitch on the ground.

Both sides line up their troops in a line. There is no sign of the Scottish schiltroms. Edward disdainfully decides not to use his archers, and instead orders his Irish mercenaries (of whom there were none at the actual Falkirk) to advance, with the stated purpose of getting them killed to soften up the Scots. The mercenaries, however, switch sides because of Wallace’ cleverness in getting the Irish to support him. Then he orders his archers to use fire arrows to light the pitch on fire after the English have advanced their forces. The English cavalry breaks, and the two infantries collide (again, ignoring the rule to never advance your infantry if you can avoid it). Wallace again seems to be winning.

The Scots charging at Falkirk

The Scots charging at Falkirk

However, the Scottish cavalry refuses to engage, and Edward explains that he has bribed its leaders. The film presents this as a villainous trick, ignoring the fact that Wallace has just done the same thing. Apparently it’s ok when Wallace lures the mercenaries to his side, but it’s evil when Edward does it with the cavalry. Edward callously orders his archers to open fire even though it will mean killing lots of English soldiers. This spells Wallace’ defeat. Wounded (he pretty clearly has an arrow in his lung, which would have killed him fairly soon after the battle), he charges Edward’s position, but is intercepted by Robert Bruce, who helps him get to safety.

So, as with Stirling Bridge, Gibson’s Falkirk is entirely wrong. There are no schiltroms. Gibson’s Wallace uses fire where the real one didn’t. Gibson’s Wallace advances his troops when the real one didn’t. Gibson’s Wallace schemes to get the Irish to switch sides and his Edward does the same to the Scots, when in reality neither of them did anything of the sort. The historical flight of the Scottish cavalry becomes conscious treachery. Instead of fleeing in defeat, Gibson’s Wallace fights against all odds until he cannot fight any longer and must be taken off the field against his will.

It’s easy to see why Gibson’s depiction of Falkirk is inaccurate. The historical Wallace was not a tactical genius; he favored guerrilla tactics; his victory at Stirling Bridge probably owed as much to Moray’s skill as a commander as to his. Reluctant to fight but forced to by his troops, he adopted a static position that was bound to lose the battle because of the English archers, and when he lost, he did the smart thing and ran away.

But once again that runs directly counter to Gibson’s preferred vision of William Wallace. Gibson’s Wallace is a clever commander who makes effective use of stratagems and loses only because he is betrayed by a corrupt nobility who are willing to be the English king’s lackeys. This betrayal is heightened by the rank immorality of the cinematic Edward, who is arrogant, treacherous, and willing to sacrifice his own troops for no good reason (and that’s all just in this scene). The Scots had victory within their grasp, and lose it because they lacked moral resolve, not because the English were better at warfare.

In a future post, I’ll talk about how these battles fit into the wider message of the film. Here, it’s enough to say that there is a sharp disjunction between the historical battles and the blatantly moralistic battles that Gibson presents. There is no reason he could not have shown the battles as they actually happened, except that it didn’t fit his purpose to do so.

Want to Know More?

Although it pains me to admit it, Braveheartis readily available on Amazon.

There are a couple books on William Wallace, but the only one I’ve seen that is worth anything is William Wallace: The Man and the Mythby Chris Brown. Although I’m not sure that Brown is a scholar, the book is well-researched and does a good job laying out what we actually know about Wallace, which is less than a lot of people seem to think. The best work on Edward I is Michael Prestwich’s Edward I (The English Monarchs Series). If you feel you need some context for Wallace’ rebellion, take a look at Michael Brown’s The Wars of Scotland, 1214-1371 (New Edinburgh History of Scotland).

Osprey Books publishes a lot of carefully researched and beautifully illustrated works on specific military campaigns and weapon systems, and their book on Stirling Bridge and Falkirk 1297-98: William Wallace’s rebellion (Campaign)does a good job of surveying Wallace’s military career.


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