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THE RE-MAKING OF A MYTHIC HERO: SCOTTISH NATIONALISM IN BRAVEHEART by KENNETH CARR HAWLEY, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial FulfiUment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved May, 1998 'JOI r3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS <^ % / /\)o • ' For their continued care and support, I thank my parents, Dan and Byrdic C oP- ^ Hawley, and my in-laws, Odell and LaVonne Farr. For her enduring afrecrion and encouragement, I thank my wife, Deborah. For their patient guidance and instruction, I thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Michael Schoencckc and Dr. Heather Barkley. Without my family, I would have floundered; without my wife, I would ha\c faltered; and without my committee, I would have failed. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 11 CHAPTER I. MYTHMAKING, NATIONAL IDENTFFY, AND SCOTTISH HISTORIOGRAPHY . 1 Bisset and Historiography 2 The Declaration of Arbroath and National Identity 5 Blind Harry the Minstrel and Mythmaking . 8 Braveheart and Historiography 12 n. ELicrriNG ANTLENGLISH SENTIMENT 16 Edward I .... 16 Smythe ..... 31 m. ELicrriNG ANTI-COLONIAL SENTIMENT 37 Irishmen ..... 38 Scottish Nobles .... 44 Bruce the Leper .... 58 IV. ELICITING PRO-INDEPENDENCE SENTIMENT 67 Malcolm Wallace 68 Campbell .... 73 Scotland and Robert Bruce 78 V. MODIFYING THE MYTHIC HERO 90 Murron .... 90 Edward II . 99 Isabella .... 104 VI. RE-MAKING THE MYTHIC HERO 113 William Wallace 113 VII. BRAVEHEARTS IDEOLOGICAL PROJECT 132 SELE(rrED BIBLIOGRAPHY .... 136 111 CHAPTER I MYTHMAKING, NATIONAL n:)ENTrrY, AND SCOTTISH HISTORIOGRAPHY Nationalistic sentiment looks to the past to legitimate the present and secure the friture; it re-makes history, appropriaring mythic legends as it forges a narional identirs'. Each time an ancient story is told, the myths are reinforced; each time today is reminded of yesterday, the origins are re-traced. Scotrish historiographers have connected their people to a legendary past, invoking the names and telling the stories which set Scotland apart as a disrinct and divinely ordained kingdom. While others have called upon mythic figures such as Romulus and Remus, Aeneas, Brutus, and King Arthur, the Scots have turned to Jacob; when their idenrity as an independent people has been challenged, the Scots have defended their narion by emphasizing Jacob's role in its founding. Renamed Israel, this descendant of Abraham and Isaac became the father of twelve sons, the patriarch of the IsraeUte narion's twelve tribes. Jacob first received the promise of a country during a dream which he had as he slept on a stone; he saw angels ascending and descending on a stairway which rested on the earth but stretched to the heavens, and Yahweh stood before Jacob and said, "Your descendants will he like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring." According to Scotrish folklore, the coronarion stone of Scotland, the Stone of Desriny, is that very rock on which Jacob slept as he was given the promise of a land in which his people could dwell. This mythic block of sandstone is said to have moved from Israel to Eg>'pt, where it remained during Israel's 400 years of slavery; then it was shipped to Sicily, to Spain, and finally to Ireland, where the first king of Dalriada, Ere (c. 400 AD), held the Stone ot Desriny as the symbol of divine blessing upon the crown. It remained in Ireland unril Dalriada's 36th king, Kenneth I (c. 850 AD), moved the stone to Scone, in Scotland. " Scotrish kings were inaugurated upon the Stone of Scone from the rime of Kenneth I unril John Balliol in 1292; after deposing BalUol in 1296, Edward I took it to Westminster, believing that he could "eradicate the memory of Scotrish kingship by remcning its mi>st -J tangible symbol." However, Edward's acrions only aroused narional senriment. The Stone held ideological significance for Robert Bruce, who in 1306 risked his Ufe to travel to Scone and parricipate in a tradirional coronarion ceremony; the actual symbol was miles away in England, but the place it had rested for centuries held such mythical power that the inaugurarion was srill considered vaUd. When Edward I heard that the Scots crowned a new king, he peririoned the pope to have the abbey itself relocated in an attempt to destroy the mythology of place the abbey generated; his request was denied. The Stone of Desriny has been inrimately connected with Scotland's disrinct identity as a nation: "The royal seat thus acts as a metonym for the unbroken link to a legitimaring moment of origin, the foundarion of the mythical race, the moment when Scota provided her progeny with a proper name." ^ The Stone of Scone represents everything that is uniquely Scotrish. Bisset and Historiography The stone's journey from Egypt to Ireland is referred to in lnstructifn\es and in ProcessuSy companion pieces believed to have been written during the summer of 1301 by Master Baldred Bisset, a renowned Scottish canon lawyer. These letters were composed in response to Edward I's own missive sent earlier that same year to Pope Boniface \ III, in which the English king defended his right to subdue and rule Scotland. In the ProcessuSy Bisset claims that the Stone of Desriny was taken from Egypt bv Sccita, the daughter of the pharaoh; she and her husband Gaythelos (Gaelus), son ot the king ot Athens, carried the seat first to Ireland and then to Scotland. But in hv^tructuuxes, Bisset provides additional information, asserting that Scota and her people traveled first to Spain and then to Ireland, where they defeated a race ot giants; Scota, Gaythelos, and their son, Erk, then moved to Argyll, where they conquered the Britons and settled in the upper portion of the island called Albany (later named Scocia). These versions of Scotland's origins predate Bisset's writings, and so the legends are not to be considered the lawyer's own invenrions but rather rhetorical elements appropriated for a specific historiographical project. The Scots needed to retute Edward's claims to suzerainty on the basis of historical precedent, and connecting their people to Egypt and to Israel forges a mythical origin capable of establishing a legitimate national identity worthy of respect and recognition. Pope Bonitace VIII was to be reminded that when King Edward removed the Stone of Destiny trom Scone in 1296, he stole from the Scots their ancient symbol of divine promise, the icon which represented their long history of independence. In addition to denouncing English attempts at suppressing Scottish national identity, Bisset's hxstructiones and Proce.s.sits challenge Edward's rendering of the battles between England and Scotland, particularly the English sack of Berwick; he emphasizes the brutality and mercilessness ot the armies and the sacrilege committed against Scottish churches, comparing Edward to Anriochus Epiphanes (r. 175-164 BC), who desecrated the Jewish temple in 164 BC, provoking Judas Maccabeus to lead a revolt. Bisset also appeals to military conquests, questioning Edward's use of British history; he asserts that any claims based on the successes of the Britons are irrelevant, because the Bntons were beaten by the Saxons, who were defeated first by the Danes and then by the Normans. However, he accepts those parts of Edward's letter to Boniface which associate the English monarch with King Arthur, taking the opportunity to point out that Arthur subdued the lands surrounding his kingdom by brutal force, and that when he and his wite died, they left no heir. Therefore, the annexed lands (Scotland in this scenario) once again became independent realms. Bisset also raises earUer disputes regarding Scotland's relarionship to England. In 1291, Edward had gathered the Scotrish nobles at Norham-on-Tweed; they had asked for his assistance in resolving the succession controversy that had raged since 1286. King Edward demanded that they acknowledge his posirion as Scotland's overlord before he would hear the compering cases. As evidence, he referred to the mythic origins of England, Wales, and Scotland, legends which validated the king's intenrions to incorporate Scotland under his crown. Edward appropriated these same stories again in his letter to Boniface VIII in 1301, as he claimed that Scotland was a fief under England's control; Bisset challenges such norions with his appeals to the Stone of Destiny: Scotland is an indivisible and independent people — ancient in their origins, unique in their identity. He accuses Edward of manipularing "unproven ficrions [figmenta] about an obsolete distant past" in order to hide the truth that the Scots have had "a claim on freedom for a very long and immemorial period of rime." Defending Scotland's independence, Bisset cites the Treaty of Birgham (August 1290), reinforcing its more significant points: "We assert that the kings of Scotland and its inhabitants have done homage and fealty to [the king of England] for lands which they held in the kingdom of England of the king of England, but never for the kingdom of Scotland nor for their lands in Scotland." Bisset refers Pope Boniface Vlll to 1278, when Alexander III refiised to submit to Edward's demand that he pay homage tor Scotland itself. Bisset's explanarion of Scotland's relarionship to England re-casts the concept of feudal duty: since at least the rime of the Norman invasions, Scotrish nobles had owned lands in England and were obUgated by feudal arrangements to do homage for them, and Edward was the liege lord; however, the kingdom of Scotland was not a fiet ot the EngHsh king, nor was the king of Scotland his vassal.