William Wallace: Hero or Fool?

Personally I think that Wallace was seen as a threat both sides of the border. He was a bit of a loose cannon , with neither side knowing what he would do next. Akthough he was someone who could galvanise the people, what was needed was someone to galvanise those who led them - which is what The Bruce did.
 
You can't be a traitor to a foreign government. Wallace's death was murder, there was treachery involved, but not on his part.

The Scottish nobility saw him as a threat to their power and the English saw him as a terrorist. Funny, a few centuries later, the UK government armed, trained and funded similar terrorist organisations all over Europe.

They fought an army of occupation, were tortured and murdered if captured, and are now seen as heroes of WW2.

Men like Wallace fought the Germans in, France, Norway, Belgium etc, and are now seen as the heroes they are.
 
I sort of agree with Paranoid Marvin. From all that I have read about the man he never lacked for courage, but was found wanting on the leadership, tactical and strategic side of things. The death of De Moray was a massive blow to him.

The name is also interesting as 'Wallace' could be an indication of where his family came from. It could mean 'Welshman' and tie in with his family arriving in Scotland as part of Norman lord's household?

Strip away all the rhetoric and myths and what you might find is a young thug on the make who struck it lucky at first, but then ran out of that luck as events caught up with him. I use the term 'thug' because William Wallace was not adverse to the odd bit of murder himself and most of these so called 'heroes' of yore would be considered physcopaths in today's terms.
 
svalbard said:
I sort of agree with Paranoid Marvin. From all that I have read about the man he never lacked for courage, but was found wanting on the leadership, tactical and strategic side of things. The death of De Moray was a massive blow to him.

The name is also interesting as 'Wallace' could be an indication of where his family came from. It could mean 'Welshman' and tie in with his family arriving in Scotland as part of Norman lord's household?

Strip away all the rhetoric and myths and what you might find is a young thug on the make who struck it lucky at first, but then ran out of that luck as events caught up with him. I use the term 'thug' because William Wallace was not adverse to the odd bit of murder himself and most of these so called 'heroes' of yore would be considered physcopaths in today's terms.
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'A man of his time' is the phrase most commonly used. Considering the number of wars and violent actions in the world today , 500 years from now we (or at least our leaders) may be viewed as psychopaths by their standards; then again they probably won't be far from the truth in many cases.
 
Any National Hero's probably a bit of a psychopath, would you say that about De Gaulle to a Frenchman ?

And yes, Wallace does mean Welsh, but there've been Wallaces (it's quite a common name) in Scotland since long before the Norman Conquest.

As to seizing his chance, Robert Bruce (the future King) knighted him because he was the only candidate the nobility could agree on for the guardianship (Balliol was in an English prison at the time and the throne was vacant).

Those same nobility then abandoned his army at Falkirk and sold him to the enemy. That was treason, fighting a foreign army which has invaded your country is patriotism.
 
The Ace said:
Any National Hero's probably a bit of a psychopath, would you say that about De Gaulle to a Frenchman ?

And yes, Wallace does mean Welsh, but there've been Wallaces (it's quite a common name) in Scotland since long before the Norman Conquest.

As to seizing his chance, Robert Bruce (the future King) knighted him because he was the only candidate the nobility could agree on for the guardianship (Balliol was in an English prison at the time and the throne was vacant).

Those same nobility then abandoned his army at Falkirk and sold him to the enemy. That was treason, fighting a foreign army which has invaded your country is patriotism.
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What I meant was that we may be seen as barbaric by future generations, but by our own standards we see ourselves as humane. We may be seen as not much different than neanderthals because of our penchant to kill others for material gain, to eat the flesh of animals, and willfully damage our own bodies due to drinking and smoking - would we see that as barbaric? No. But might future generations who have done away with war, have learned to live in harmony with nature and with the other creatures that inhabit the Earth?

Like I said , the way that we are regarded by people in 1000 years time may be entirely different to how we view ourselves now. The world in which William Wallace lived is entirely different to our own , and it is unfair to judge him by our standards. Like I said , he was a man of his time.
 
I completely agree with The Ace.

I am very interested in William Wallace and always have been, not because of Hollywood but because of the books that I have read on the subject, which is almost laughable as there are so many books surrounding the topic of Wallace, but all we really have to go on is a poem written well after Wallace's death.

I also disagree with the comment that if Wallace were alive today he would be viewed as a psycopath. Psycopaths (or sociopaths are they are now known) injure or kill without reason (although I'm sure they think they have well substantiated reasons in their own head).

Wallace, from what little we know of the man, had a great passion and burning patriotism for his country and he fought as a result of that motivation. He fought and killed to protect his country from a foreign power, so he had great courage (considering the odds with which he was faced).

Ben Roberts-Smith is a good example of a Wallace like person in today's society. If you've ever heard Ben speak he is confident, calm, well spoken, logical and his thought process is obviously cohesive.

But, if you take a step back and read about why he was awarded the Victoria Cross, some of our more sensitive brethren may be forgiven for thinking of him as a psycopath.

Pinned down by a Taliban heavy machine gun, Ben's section was under very heavy, sustained fire and he knew that if something was not done quickly then his section would begin taking casualties. So he moved away from his men, deliberately exposed himself to the machine gun, which swivelled to target him and thus gave his men time to lay down covering fire on the machine gun.

Ben then sprinted forward to outflank the gun emplacement, came face to face with a Taliban fighter, placed a strategic hole in the Taliban's face and moved on. He was able to outflank the gun and killed all of the Taliban in the machine gun emplacement single handedly.

Talking to someone who was there on the day (and who shall remain nameless) there was an incident that was not discussed to the general media. Just prior to outflanking and taking out the gun emplacement, Ben experienced enemy fire from behind him (which missed). The bloke I talked to shot the Taliban fighter who had fire, but another enemy ran out and jumped onto Ben's back (this bit was not discussed). The bloke held his fire because he knew if he shot the Taliban fighter there was a very good chance the bullet would penetrate into Ben as well. Ben flung the enemy from his back "like an insect" was the description, stomped on his throat and blew his brains out.

Psycopath? Sounds like it doesn't it? But he's not, he's just a normal bloke (who is very highly trained, highly motivated) who has the courage to go out and face his enemy.

Not so different from Wallace.

And the other comment about people 1, 000 years from now viewing us as psycopaths? I disagree with that also. 1, 000 years ago the Vikings were gallavanting around former USSR and UK territory, 1, 000 years before that the Romans were gallavanting around half of the northern hemisphere. In fact the small burial of homo sapien bones found in Africa and dated a couple of million years ago all show evidence of dying as a result of violent, traumatic injury. We are a war-like species, and in 1, 000 years we'll just be killing each other in far more efficient, sophisticated ways (if we make it that far without destroying ourselves first that is).
 
Do we not think of ourselves as more civilised because we don't put criminals to death as a form of entertainment? Or because we don't jump in boats and pillage,rape and murder neighbouring countries?

We may always be always be a warlike people (what a depressing thought - is there really no redemption for us?) but at least (in the majority of cases) it is kept in restraint the majority of the time.
 
The Ace said:
Any National Hero's probably a bit of a psychopath, would you say that about De Gaulle to a Frenchman ?

And yes, Wallace does mean Welsh, but there've been Wallaces (it's quite a common name) in Scotland since long before the Norman Conquest.

As to seizing his chance, Robert Bruce (the future King) knighted him because he was the only candidate the nobility could agree on for the guardianship (Balliol was in an English prison at the time and the throne was vacant).

Those same nobility then abandoned his army at Falkirk and sold him to the enemy. That was treason, fighting a foreign army which has invaded your country is patriotism.
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To lump all the nobility into the same bracket is misleading though. A number of landed knights fought and died with Wallace at Stirling and Falkirk. One abandoned him at Falkirk, (John Comyn I think) and he was finally betrayed by a Stewart. It should be noted that Wallace also fled from the battle.

The problem for a lot of these lords is that they owned lands in both Scotland and England. Wallace was a defeated man after Falkirk(which was not decisive by any standards). Edward's army was not in any fit state to take advantage of the victory. Wallace could, if he had shown true leadership qualities have continued the resistance as Guardian. But he resigned. Whereas Bruce in later years proved what could be achieved through perseverance, although he did face a lesser adversary in Edward II.

Wallace was a great warrior. Did he deserve his fate? No. It was a cruel end for a brave man.


The Taliban story has no bearing on Wallace's character. We have no way of knowing if Wallace was a clam, soft spoken, logical person with a cohesive thought process. We can only surmise, but all indications lead to a man who was quick to anger. His first actions that lead to public attention is an act of murder.
 
That could be true. We can never be certain though.
 
The Ace said:
Or resistance.
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Resistance to whom? The perfidious Englishman or just another sept of murderous Norman robber barons who, at that time, had England in their hand and were looking to extend their influence still further?

This isn't a noble, patriotic struggle of Englishman v Scotsman and no amount of historical reinvention or misplaced, dewy-eyed nationalism will make it so. This is about a wider European dynastic struggle, which in turn was just one of an endless series of dynastic struggles by land and power hungry men with armed thugs at their back. That, I am afraid, is a large part of the history of both Scotland and England.

Incidentally, on the Welsh connection in the Wallis name - don't forget that until the 11th century, a great chunk of Scotland (Glasgow down to the border and thence beyond into the north west) was Welsh.

Let us get away shoehorning historical figures into roles we wish them to play in our lives and instead try to look as coldly and academically as possible about what they did, why they did it and what conclusions we can draw.

Regards,

Peter
 
paranoid marvin said:
Do we not think of ourselves as more civilised because we don't put criminals to death as a form of entertainment? Or because we don't jump in boats and pillage,rape and murder neighbouring countries?

We may always be always be a warlike people (what a depressing thought - is there really no redemption for us?) but at least (in the majority of cases) it is kept in restraint the majority of the time.
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As everyone knows, the guillotine was at the time a merciful replacement for being hanged drawn and quartered.

Apparently the Mosaical Biblical 'eye for an eye' injunction, was as in: not two eyes, or death, for an eye.

So if we measure civilized advancement by how we, treat criminals, the old, the sick and so on, we do get more civilized as a society, though not always perhaps, as individuals. There are office psycopaths, home psycopaths, killers of spirit and peace of mind.

War can obvioulsy be offensive or defensive. Whatever else human beings would like to be, by the lowest common denominator we are still animals, the most intelligent of the apes, with all the territorial instincts that animals are given by nature in order to ensure the survival, not of the individual, but of the species, or tribe, or family, etc.

It's difficult to imagine that ever changing ...?
 
As an addendum to my earlier post, I have checked out my history books and see that the Wallaces originally came to Scotland from Shropshire, where they were part of Walter (?) FitzAlan's network of cronies on the Welsh border.

FitzAlan was invited north by King David of Scotland, no doubt as part of the ongoing attempts to impose a feudal system north of the border. The Wallaces tagged along in the hope that they would be suitably rewarded by their patron. Which they were.

Regards,

Peter
 
River Boy said:
What sources say there were more Scotsmen than Englishmen on Edward's forces?
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I know little about this particular conflict, but there was no English Army until Cromwell's New Model Army. You had mercenaries, who were fighting for cash rather than for King and country. Their allegiance was only to the particular Lord that was paying them, and it stands to reason that they would be recruited locally, or as locally as possible. We forget how vast the distances were in those days because today we can make a weeks journey in a matter of hours.
 
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