For his treasons Wallace was drawn, tied to a hurdle – perhaps as in the case of Fraser in 1306, wrapped in an ox-hide – at the tails of horses to the place of execution. To be drawn was recognised as the mark of a traitor. Edward did not devise this aspect of the punishment for Wallace, not had it originated in the war with Scotland. It had been employed at least twice in the reign of Edward’s father. Edward used it himself in the cases of Dafyd ap Gruffyd and Rhys ap Madedudd. Ten years before Wallace, Sir Thomas Tuberville was drawn to the place of execution. The use of the hurdle or the hide served to protect the victim and save him for the viler aspects of the sentence; he might otherwise have been ripped apart on the surfaces over which he was dragged. Wallace’s journey to his torment at Smithfield took him from Westminster, through Eastcheap, past the Tower, to Aldgate, and onwards by a circuitous city route for more than four miles, to the delight of the populace.
By a strange and cruel coincidence the London through which Wallace was dragged to his death was in some measure the product of the efforts of another Wallace, Henry le Waleys. This holder of the name was highly regarded by his king. He was at various times mayor of London and Bordeaux and was no mean planner; he helped in the creation of the new town of Winchelsea and advised on the reconstruction of Berwick.18 Some of those who now watched the melancholy and painful last journey of William Wallace had felt the harshness of Henry le Waleys as he implemented Edward’s policies for the capital. Like his master, Henry le Waleys was a harsh man and his unpopularity led to his loss of office in London in 1284. He did not, however, fall in Edward’s esteem.
At Smithfield the arrival of the hated William Wallace was greeted by a vast concourse of onlookers. Executions provided a spectacle enjoyed by all classes; the practice of viewing them continued for centuries. Samuel Pepys attended the execution of the regicide, Major-General Thomas Harrison, in 1660, and that of another parliamentarian, Sir Henry Vane the younger, in 1662. James Boswell in the next century thought executions ‘a very great melancholy’. As late as 1757 English ‘amateurs de supplice’, were crossing the Channel to Paris, to witness the protracted and hideous agonies of the hapless Robert François Damiens, who had failed in a somewhat half-hearted attempt on the life of Louis XV. The presence of a lady of the court on that occasion aroused the disgust even of the intended victim himself.
The reaction of the public to an execution was not always straightforward; criminal could become victim if the circumstances were right. Prestwich tells how, upon the execution of Dafyd ap Gruffyd in 1283, in contrast to the citizens of London, York and Winchester, those of Lincoln would not accept any part of the dismembered body.19 Their fastidiousness cost them the king’s displeasure and a considerable fine. The fate of Anthony Babington, whose plot in 1556 to murder Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, aroused great revulsion. As a consequence, the government ordered that those who were executed after Babington should either be hanged until dead or unconscious before being disembowelled. Jack Ketch, the executioner, having already botched the decapitation of Lord William Russell, narrowly escaped lynching when he did the same with James, duke of Monmouth, in 1685. A prisoner might exhibit remarkable composure. Pepys thought that, on the scaffold at Charing Cross, Vane was ‘looking as cheerfully as any man could do in that condition’. ‘Vane’, he recorded, ‘… in all things (he) appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner.’ An executed man could be deemed capable of sanctity, able to perform miracles; even such a despicable incompetent as Thomas of Lancaster fell into that category after his death at Pontefract in 1322. The crowd was capable of astonishing behaviour, if moved. The Jesuit, Father Henry Garnet, was about to be cut down from the rope while still alive, when members of the spectators prevented the hangman from carrying out the more gruesome aspects of the execution. Some pulled at Garnet’s legs until he was ‘perfectly dead’. The hangman was then allowed to carry out his remaining duties undisturbed. It seemed that even the most remarkable occurrence was possible at a public execution. Sir Everard Digby, one of the ‘Gunpowder Plotters’, was reported to have called out, ‘Thou liest!’ when his heart, plucked from his body, was held aloft by the executioner with the words, ‘Behold the heart of a traitor.’ But there was no guarantee of the public’s reaction. Sir Thomas Graham, the murderer of James I of Scotland, had boasted at his trial that he would be remembered for ridding the country of a tyrant. Instead he went to his death at Stirling universally vilified. James, increasingly loathed for his rapaciousness and severity, had become a martyr, once dead.
There was no pity for Wallace, no revulsion as to what was done to him at Smithfield. The English had been conditioned to see him in the most extreme terms. For Matthew of Westminister, who was present at the execution, Wallace was ‘a man void of pity … more hardened in cruelty than Herod, more raging in madness than Nero’. Wallace’s death was ‘justly deserved’, not merely in keeping with the verdict but ‘with additional aggravations and indignities’, Matthew gloated. There is no reason to suppose that Matthew was exaggerating the strength of English feeling against Wallace; those with him in the crowd undoubtedly shared his sentiments.
For the murders, robberies and other felonies he had committed, both in his own country and in England, he was hanged, as standard a punishment as drawing was for treason. He was cut down while still alive so that he might be spared none of the bestialities ahead. He was disembowelled and in all probability emasculated, although the official record makes no mention of this. Matthew of Westminster relates that Wallace was ‘mutilated’, a clear reference to what was commonly inflicted on traitors.20 For his sacrilege, the burning of religious establishments and relics, his heart, liver, lungs, and entrails were cast upon a fire. From these, it was believed, issued the thoughts which led him to sacrilege. That disembowelling and the burning of entrails was a fitting punishment for sacrilege was well established; it appears to have been first used in the case of David ap Gruffyd. Not even his royal blood had saved him from this particularly revolting aspect of the judgement. Wallace was decapitated for his outlawry. Strangely, decapitation of itself was considered a not dishonourable death, used throughout the centuries for nobles convicted of treason or other crimes. Waltheof had died thus, as did Lancaster.
But Edward was not finished with Wallace, even now. His head was placed on a pole on London Bridge, no doubt that those who passed that way might marvel at Edward’s justice. His body was hacked into four pieces. One quarter was sent to Newcastle upon Tyne and there exhibited above the common sewer, to the delight of those who recalled Wallace’s brutal invasion of the district in 1297–98. A second part went to Berwick, that town of so great and tragic a significance in the war which had made his name and brought about his death. A third part was hung at Perth, the town of St John, of such strategic value to Scots and English alike, where, according to Blind Harry, Wallace performed some of his most spectacular deeds. There is some dispute as to the destination of the fourth part. Lanercost differs from the official version in giving Aberdeen for Stirling. Both towns were familiar to Wallace. The former had witnessed one of the more calculatedly brutal episodes associated with him: the hanging of a number of Scots who had defied him. Stirling was the scene of his great victory. For that reason is may be the likelier choice, in keeping with Edward’s intention to blacken Wallace’s memory. It was Segrave who was commanded to see to the transportation of Wallace’s quarters to their destinations. For this he was paid fifteen shillings.21
Thus Wallace perished, horribly if memorably. Edward had removed his most persistent but not, as time would show, his most dangerous enemy. In doing so, as time would also show, he had made a colossal blunder. It became, and remained, an article of faith in Scotland that Wallace had died a hero and a martyr. Hero he undoubtedly was, by any measure. From the moment of his appearance at Lanark, he was a hero in personal, military and political terms, brief though his supremacy was. And Edward, although he did not live to learn
this, had made him into a martyr on 23 August 1305. Blind Harry tells us that by his death at the hands of the English Wallace entered into ‘lasting bliss’.22 He had entered into glory, his eyes fixed, Harry says, on his most beloved possession, his psalter, held before him by Clifford.23 And it was into a kind of glory that Wallace indeed had gone. His name survives in the popular memory, where those of others, with a crucial or melancholy role in the War of Independence, have not. The name of Simon Fraser means little today. Yet he served the Scottish cause well, fought with Wallace, did not betray him when it might have been to his own advantage, joined Bruce in 1306, and met the same ghastly end as Wallace. Alexander Bruce, brother of Robert, was executed at Carlisle by Edward. Dean of Glasgow, Alexander had been known at Cambridge for his scholarship and his character. He too fought for the cause, although incompetently, and fell before Edward’s violent and uncertain temper. But who speaks now of Alexander Bruce? Christopher Seton, husband of Christina Bruce, perished at Dumfries, where he had helped in the murder of Comyn. Seton is forgotten. Like his brother, John Wallace was taken to London and there put to death. Not even his relationship with William has saved John Wallace from anonymity. Not one of these, or any of the long list of Edward’s victims, not even one of the standing of the earl of Atholl, has as lasting a fame or as firm a hold on the imagination of the people of Scotland as William Wallace.
What cannot easily be demonstrated is when Wallace’s reputation, the one he has come to enjoy, was first established in Scotland. The indictment presented on Edward’s behalf at Westminster Hall would appear to suggest that he meant not only to destroy Wallace’s body – which was his to dispose of – but his reputation. That he failed to do the latter in the long term has perhaps led us to overlook the possibility that in the short term he did succeed in his aim. Wallace had been stigmatised as an outlaw and a traitor. It is difficult to argue that the verdict would have been radically different in a Scottish court, whether dominated or not by Edward, had the charges been those used at Westminster. There was a frightening unanimity in both countries on the subject of the outlaw and the traitor. Nor would the sentence have differed. For confirmation we may look to the Scone or ‘Black’ parliament of August 1320. There the members of the so-called ‘Soules conspiracy’ were brought to justice. On that occasion Robert Bruce did not scruple to use the full severity of the law if he thought it war-ranted. It is true that unlike Edward he did temper justice with mercy in certain of the sentences.24 But a famous figure of the period, Ingram de Umfraville, was so disturbed by Bruce’s execution of David of Brechin – both the judgement itself and the manner of punishment – that he withdrew his allegiance to Bruce and returned to his estates in England. All this took place when Scotland was secure from the English menace. Not even as humane a king as Bruce could entirely escape from his own temper and the cruelty into which it led him.
What then was the reaction in Scotland to the death of Wallace? It is here that we are perhaps most unfortunate in our lack of contemporary Scottish evidence on which to draw. We do know that the death of Wallace did not prevent the Scottish lords from advising Edward on and in some cases participating in the new form of government for Scotland which emerged from the parliament of Westminster in September 1305. While it is correct that discussions on the new council for Scotland had been taking place before the capture and death of Wallace, it is equally correct that, one month after his execution, men with whom he had fought were prepared to assist Edward’s lieutenant in Scotland, John of Brittany. Not even Bruce can be entirely cleared of this association, despite at least one strenuous defence of him.25 It would be comforting to draw a connection between Wallace’s death and Bruce’s rebellion of 1306, but it would be to fly in the face of reason. Bruce had long aspired to the throne and had been plotting to achieve his aim – whether or not with the help of Wallace we cannot tell.26 But whatever the motive behind the murder of Comyn – whether Bruce feared betrayal by Comyn or was thwarted by him in his plans – it was a rash and unconsidered act. It tells us that, when provoked or baulked, Bruce possessed the more extreme reactions of his grandfather, the Competitor, rather than the more equable temperament of his father, the earl of Carrick. Bruce’s subsequent moves, which involved him in rebellion against Edward, were the consequence of the murder; he was not driven by any desire to avenge Wallace.
Bruce’s whole relationship with Wallace was a strange one,27 but it may well be that the clue to the question of Wallace’s reputation is to be found in certain of Bruce’s actions once he became king. It must be remembered that, prior to the murder of Comyn, Bruce’s behaviour had always been dictated by a degree of self-interest absent in Wallace. His family had always stressed the strength and legitimacy of its claim to the throne. Bruce himself fought for years to establish that legitimacy against the claims of Edward II. It might not serve his purpose in this struggle to have his name linked with that of Wallace, a convicted traitor and outlaw. This question of legitimacy may explain the otherwise surprising omission of Wallace’s name from Barbour’s account of Bruce. Even in the famous speech which he puts into his hero’s mouth at Bannockburn, Barbour can find no place for a mention of Wallace. Uplifting though Bruce’s address is, noble as its sentiments are, he does not in Barbour’s report call upon the name of Wallace to inspire his army. It may not be irrelevant that after the completion of his work Barbour received first a gift of money and then a pension from Robert II. There was again war with England. Barbour would thus fulfil the role Blind Harry gave himself at the time of James III, if with different motives; to produce a story which would stir and unite a people governed by a weak king in the face of the enemy. If this argument is correct, it makes Barbour’s treatment of Wallace the more striking.
More significant, however, because of the firm evidence, is Bruce’s attitude to Menteith, the traditional villain in the story of Wallace’s capture. It was noted earlier28 that Menteith, in seizing Wallace, was acting on the instructions of Edward, to whom he was bound by his oath of loyalty. It is entirely possible that Comyn, Lindsay, or Graham might have played Menteith’s role had opportunity offered. But that opportunity, and with it the loathing of posterity, fell to Mentieth. If in the capture of Wallace Menteith had been acting by reason of his oath to Edward, he was not averse to an attempt to lay hands upon the possessions of those who had joined Bruce in 1306.29 Yet, in 1309, Bruce accepted Menteith into his peace and bestowed lands upon him. Menteith’s name, further, was one of those associated with the Declaration of Arbroath. Menteith, first for the Scottish cause, then Edward’s man, and finally a supporter of Bruce, did not suffer in the latter’s eyes because he had handed Wallace over to the English any more than he did by his shifts of allegiance. If your years after Wallace’s death, Menteith was received by Bruce and was subsequently so to be established that he was involved in the Declaration of Arbroath, we are entitled to wonder whether it was Wallace’s reputation rather than that of Menteith which had suffered in those years.
If this is indeed the case, it may explain, along with Barbour’s omission of Wallace from his tale, the reticence of his contemporary, Fordun, on the matter of the inspirational nature of Wallace’s reputation. If Fordun tells us how Wallace learned of the meaning of freedom and casts Menteith as the villain who betrayed Wallace to the English who tore the hero apart in London, we have to wait for Andrew Wyntoun for the quintessential and lasting Scottish view of Wallace:
In all England there was not then
As William Wallace so true a man.
Whatever he did against their nation
They made him ample provocation
Nor to them sworn never was he
To fellowship, faith or loyalty.30
Wyntoun’s description of Wallace, embroidered by Blind Harry, has prevailed. The English account of Wallace is ignored. Yet neither is wholly satisfactory. Only by utilising both sources, together with such documentary evidence as we possess, can we hope to achieve an understanding of
this remarkable man.
NOTES
1 Stevenson (ed.): Documents Illustrative of Sir William Wallace, 189.
2 Guisborough, 142. Wallace summoned Carlisle to surrender under the title of ‘the Conqueror’. Given his recent victory and his almost unimpeded progress through the north of England, however, the title may be said to be not undeserved. See chap. 5 above.
3 Wright (ed.): Political Songs of England, 218.
4 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 18 August 1305. Stubbs (ed.): Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, i, 139, includes Geoffrey de Segrave among the judges.
5 Wright, op. cit., 94, in ‘the Battle of Lewes’.
6 For a contemporary account of the trial, see Stubbs (ed.): Chronicles, i, 139–42. Modern commentaries appear in Bellamy: The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages, 34 et seq and Keen: ‘Treason Trials under the Law of Arms’ (EHR), passim.
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