William Wallace

On August 22, 1305, William Wallace, Scottish patriot, was executed for high treason by Edward I of England. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered. From the article:

"Capture & Execution

Wallace was finally caught in Glasgow on 5 August 1305, thanks to traitorous friends according to some medieval chroniclers. The most wanted man in Scotland was dragged to London to be prosecuted as a traitor to the Crown in Westminster Hall. Wallace was said to have been made to wear a crown of oak leaves to signify his lowly status as an outlaw. Wallace was formally charged with promoting Scotland’s allegiance with England’s enemy France, accused of killing innocent men, women, and children, including clergy during his raids in northern England, and charged with having led armies against the English Crown.

The Scotsman rejected the charges against him and declared that he owed loyalty only to his own king, the deposed John Balliol. Predictably found guilty of treason, on 23 August Wallace met the most gruesome death penalty an English court could dish out: to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. First, Wallace was stripped naked and dragged by his heels behind a horse through the streets of London. Reaching Smithfield, he was hanged but released from the noose just before death came. Laid out on a bench, his intestines were pulled from his body, he was then decapitated and his body chopped into four quarters. Wallaces’ head was put on public display on London Bridge as a warning to others, and the other four parts of his body were dispatched for public display in Aberdeen, Berwick, Newcastle, and Stirling, site of his great victory.

Robert the Bruce, meanwhile, was now having serious misgivings concerning his support for the English Crown. It seemed highly unlikely that Edward would ever make Robert king of Scotland. Steadily over the next year - and probably largely in secret - Robert began to work on gaining allies from key Scottish barons and eventually he was able to declare himself king in March 1306 (he would reign until 1329). Fortunately for Robert and the Scots, Edward I’s successor, his son Edward II of England (r. 1307-1327 CE), was militarily incompetent. After winning a great victory at Bannockburn in June 1314 CE, Robert was able to systematically remove the English invaders from Scotland one castle at a time.

Legacy

William Wallace was gone but not forgotten, and his legend grew thanks to such epic and highly romanticised ballads as The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie, written by either Henry the Minstrel or Blind Harry c. 1470. It is this colourful ballad which forms the basis of the 1995 film Braveheart. An important history of Wallace’s life, the History of William Wallace, was written in the 16th century. In the 1860s a Gothic monument was erected at Stirling to commemorate Wallace’s achievements. Still standing, the tower is an impressive 67 metres (220 ft) tall. Finally, fine statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, who remain two of the greatest martial heroes in Scottish history, stand either side of the gatehouse of Edinburgh Castle, still today the symbolic heart of the kingdom they had fought so hard to keep free of foreign control."