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"LIKE A SWAN FROM A RAVEN"

THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL IMAGE OF WJILIAM 1 297- 1582

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

of

The University of Guelph

by

JAMES E. FRASER

In partial fulfilment of requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

April. 1999

O James E. Fraser, 1999 National Library Biblioth&que nationale I4 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliogaphiques 395 Wellington Street 395, m Wellington OrrawaON KIAW 0th~ON K1A ON4 Caneda Canade

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une Licence non exclusive Licence allowing the exclusive pennettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduke, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent Stre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation, ABSTRACT

"LIKE A SWAN FROM A RAVEN" THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL IMAGE OF 1297- 1582

James E. Fraser Advisor: University of Guelph. I999 Dr. EL. Ewan

This thesis is an examination of the development of the way in which William Wallace and his career were assessed and described in British historiography from Wallace's lifetime to the publication of 's Rerum Scoticarum Historia in 1582. Beginning with the image of William Wallace constructed by his English contemporaries, the thesis traces the extent to which each subsequent image drew upon its predecessors, isolating four distinct stages or phases of development. The first of these, termed the Edwardian image. was constructed within the English chronicles contemporary with Wallace. The most significant influence shaping the second stage, termed the Brucean image, was exerted by Robert Bruce, whose self-interested propaganda included a consideration of Wallace and his career. In the fifteenth century, image entered into a third stage, founded upon the Brucean image but greatly influenced by popular legend, imagination, and fifteenth-century issues. In its fourth stage, the image was altered to suit Renaissance attitudes within a that was decreasingly anti-English. I1

Acknowledgements

Having benefited greatly from assistance and support from countless sources in the enterprise of completing this project, I wish to acknowledge in particular the efforts of the foilowing: Dr. Dauvit Broun of the University of . who took the time to share the substance of his forthcoming publication on Fordun's gesta cmnalia, which greatly influenced the second chapter; Scott Moir and Dr. Scott McLean of the University of Guelph, both of whom took unsolicited time to call my attention to works they had encountered which were of great utility to this project; my advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Ewan, whose support and encouragement. including long-term access to a number of sources from her private libnry, were invaluable to me: Drs. Daniel Fischlin, Linda Marshall, and Keith Cassidy. who were willing to monitor the progress of this endeavour and to offer their advice and assistance; and the Scottish Studies Foundation of Canada, for its support in general of the Scottish Studies Program at the University of Guelph, and in particular for its generous extension to me of the 1998 Stanford Reid Bursary.

I have also been sustained in my work by the support of friends and family too numerous to mention, but would be remiss if I did not recognize my colleogues at the University of Guelph for various instances of peer counselling, support, inspiration md encouragement, and for their assistance in helping me to grow as a scholar over the past two years. In particular I would like to thank Courtney Hanis for her willingness to listen and for her friendship.

This work is dedicated to the memory of Jessie Gavin Fraser. i ii

Table of Contents

Introduction Pg*1

William Wallace: "Chief of Brigands" pe-9

The Brucem Image of William Wallace pg.38

William Wdlace: "Hammer of the English pg-75

William Wallace and "the Public Interest" pg. 1 17

Conclusion pg. 15 1

Bibliography pg. 156 Introduction

In the spring of 1297. there was a Rising in Scotland, the seeds of which had been sown eleven springs earlier in 1286 when, as a result of an accident, Alexander m. King of

Scots, died; he left as his only direct heir a three-year-old granddaughter, the daughter of the king of Norway. The 'community of the realm of Scotland*selected a body of six Guardians from among their number to maintain the royal government in the name of 'the Maid of

Norway.' but when she died in 1290, leaving the succession in dispute (the so-called 'Great

Cause'), the king of , Edward I, became as prominent in Scottish politics as the rival claimants to the throne. Invited to help maintain order within a Scotland divided and to offer his good offices in the search for the most valid heir, Edward set about securing recognition of the age-old claim of English kings to feudal overlordship in Scotland. It was a claim he had researched well by consulting the chronicles of his own kingdom, and having secured a general assent to it from the ill-situated community of the realm of Scotland,' Edward presided over a tribunal which, in 1292, recognized the superior claim of , Lord of Galloway, who was subsequently enthroned as John, King of Scots. Respecting the

English overlordship he had already recognized, John did and fealty to the king of

England for Scotland.

By 1295, however, the community of the realm had grown weary of Edward and this

arrangement; John was set aside and replaced by a council of twelve, which concluded an alliance with Philip IV of (in effect, a declaration of war against Edward) and issued a call to arms for the defense of Scotland. Hostilities began in March 1296 with a failed

see Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.31-38 for a detailed account of this process Scottish attack upon Carlisle and the savage sack of Berwick by the English army; trounced at Dunbar in April, the Scottish leaden withdrew to the northeast and sued for peace, and

Edward accepted John's resignation of the at Montrose in July and took him prisoner. After marching through the northeast of Scotland in a show of strength,

Edward returned to Berwick in August, where in a parliament he established and organized

a provisiond of occupation under John de Wuenne the Earl of Surrey.

Having received the written proof of the homage and fealty of "every substantial freeholder of land in s cot land."^ the king of England returned south with his many prisoners of status.

It was in reaction to these circumstances, and against Warenne's provisional government. that the Rising of 1297-1304 occurred. Supported by the clergy. which also took the Scottish case before Philip IV of France and the Pope, and led largely by men who

had opposed John's claim to the throne during the Great Cause (his supporters having made

up most of Edward's prisoners). the Scots strove to free themselves of English control. Their

principal leaders were the only two remaining Guardians from 1286, , of Glasgow, and James Stewart, but others would emerge, including a member of Stewart's

feudal following named William wallace.' Beginning with the status which came with being

the Stewart's man, in 1297 Wallace embarked upon a remarkable career which resulted in

his becoming "one of those rue immortals who tower head and shoulders above their

contemporaries.'* With uprisings underway throughout Scotland, Wallace led an attack on

Lanark in May, killing its English sheriff, and proceeded in the company of Sir William

Douglas, James Stewart's former brother-in-law, to raid Scone and put Warenne's chief

' Barrow, Robert Bntce, p.76 ' see Barrow, Roben Bruce, p.8 1-82 for Wallace's connections with James Stewart. ' Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.8 i justiciar to flight. While Wishart, Stewart, Douglas and the young Robert Bruce, after their

so-called 'capitulation* at Irvine in June, discussed a resolution to the situation with the

English, Scottish unrest, aided by a sympathetic nobility, was coalescing under two leaders,

Andrew Murray, the son of a Moray lord, in the north and northeast, and Wallace in the

south. By the time talks broke down and Wishart ilnd Douglas were imprisoned, Murray and

Wdlilce were drifting together; by the time Wuenne entered Scotland with his army, they

had joined up.

At Bridge in September, their forces inflicted a humiliating defeat upon

Warenne, dier which Wallace and hdurray. who had been badly wounded in the battle, led

their army into northern England to waste. pillage and terrorize; Murray seems to have died

in November. Wallace (with Murray before his death) issued letters, writs and charters and

mmged for the election of a successor to the deceased bishop of St Andrews, styling himself

'commander of the army of or 'Guardian of' Scotland with the 'consent of the community

of the realm' and 'in the name of' King John; while Edward was extricating himself from

Randen to deal with the Rising, Wallace was knighted, very possibly by Robert Bruce,' and

was presumably also formally named Guardian. King Edward met William Wallace in battle

at on 22 July 1298, destroying both his army and his credibility; removed from or

resigning his position, Wallace led a mission to elicit the support of the French for Scotland

in 1299- 1300, and probably proceeded from to to join the Scots lobbying for

papal favourO6In 1303, with the Rising petering out in its sixth year, Wallace emerged again

among its leaders in the field,' but the fighting spirit of the Scots continued to wane, and the

' Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.96 ' Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 1 10-1 16 ' Barrow, Roben Bruce, p. 127 community of the realm finally submitted to Edward's peace in 1304. Wallace, however, did not submit, almost certainly because Edward would not hear of it, and he continued to skirmish with English garrisons with a dwindling band of followers while Edward targeted him for capture at all costs. Finally captured in August 1305. William Wallace was dragged from the Tower of to Smithfield after a sensational trial and, on 23 August. was savagely mulilatrd and executed; his quilrters were hung at Newcastle. Bewick, Stirling and

Perth, and his head stuck on London Bridge.

The story of William Wallace, and the image it established of this remarkable man. entered into historiography even before his death, but his greatest achievements. as Banow writes. "lay in the future, in his capture of the popular imagination."' Janet Abu-Lighod, the scholar of Islamic urban history, once wrote that:

in some ways, historiography takes the same form as the traditions of the Prophet. The authenticity of any proposition is judged by the knurl or 'chain' by which it descended from the past. Certain chains are deemed more trustworthy than others. One makes reference to an earlier authority in order to substantiate a statement's authenticity or truth. The truth, therefore, is only as good as the isnad (chitin) of its 'construction'?

From contemporary accounts, all of which were rendered by English observers who constructed an uneven and unfavourable image, Wallace's story subsequently passed through three distinct phases or stages in the historiography of his own people, each of which had its doubts about the isnad of its predecessor. It was rescued from the one-sided grasp of his enemies and rehabilitated by the Scottish historians of the fourteenth century, who wrote under the considerable shadow cast by the figure of Robert Bruce - Robert. King of Scots after 1306 - and the aegis of the independence he had secured for Scotland. The Wallace

* Barrow, Roben Bruce, p. 138 ' Janet A bu-Lighod. 'The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Ewnce, and Contemporary Relevance" in Urban Development in the Murlirn World*(H. Arnirahmdi & S. El-Shnkhs. eds.). New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1993, p. 1 1- 12 story could not be fully illuminated under such a shadow, and the construction of his new native image was duly influenced by the legacy of 'good King Robert.' The Scottish historians of the fifteenth century found much that was relevant and of literary interest within the Wallace story as their predecessors had rendered it, and these characteristics enabled them to construct a new Wallace story in which they expatiated in unprecedented ways.

They did perhaps too much with Wallace, for the sixteenth-ccntury historians who followcd them streamlined the story and extracted from it only those elements which enabled them to construct yet another image of the man which was more palatable and relevant to sixteenth- century sensibilities.

It is fashionable to search for the 'historical' William Wallace - to attempt to cut through the mythology and the agenda of his biographers to get at the 'real' Wallace. It is the purpose of this enquiry. however, to leave aside matters of 'historicity' in order to examine the historiographical images of William Wallace from their beginnings in the accounts of his English contemporaries until the image assumed the form in which it was bequeathed to 'modem' scholarship around the turn of the seventeenth century. An examination of this kind is necessary because down through the centuries. the image of

Wallace has become, as Barrow alluded to above. at least as important (if not more important) as Wallace's actual identity and deeds. As R. James Goldstein points out, "the difficulty, even futility, of drawing a stable line between history and representations of history"1° cannot be denied. It was the idealized image of William Wallace accepted as history, and not the 'historical ' Wallace, which dected and influenced such notable men as

It' Goldstei n, The Matter of Scotland, p.3 Robert Bums and William Wordsworth in their formative years" and which became central to the rhetoric which rejected unionism and gave rise to modem . The nineteenth-century leaders of the nationalist movement paid homage to that same image, not to the 'historical' Wallace. when they erected his famous monument at Stirling. and it is the former which remains important to what Ash calls "the contemporary nationalist revival.""

Thc dangcr associated with William Wallacc has always bcen that his biographers and historians have approached his story with fundamental preconceived notions of him based upon a tradition established by the works examined herein; John Ross wrote of this in the nineteenth century that "tradition ...has furnished us with an ideal portrait and a romantic biography [of Wallace], on whch we love to linger even when criticism forbids us to believe."" It was this traditional 'ideal portrait' of Wallace which distinguished him for many years as "a proletarian hero"'" whose struggles were symbolic of class and industrial conflict, and whose name came to dominate the landscape of Scotland like none other, appearing in "hundreds of Wallace wells. roads, stones. hills, trees and other geographical, natural and built features."15 Knowing no political or geographical boundaries. the influence of the traditional image has been felt throughout the world, in places which the 'historical'

Wallace himself never heard of. One printed version of Wallace's story was, for example, deemed to be so potentially or actually dangerous in France that it was banned by

Napoleon,I6 while a century later his name was invoked to justify political agendas in

" King, 3 Wallace, p.xiii-xv " Ash, "William Wallace and ", p.91 '' John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.49 '' Ash, "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce", p.84 Is King, Blind Harry 's Wallace, p.xv-xvi I' kng. Blind Harry 3 Wallace. p.xi N yasaland. "

Wallace's treatment in twentieth-century historiography has not escaped from the problem Ross enunciated; after Hume Brown established his story in his History of Scoffand to the Presetif Time. published in 19 1 1, Evan Barron, undaunted by his appreciation of the fact that he was "up against the accepted theories and beliefs of cent~ries,"'~attempted in

1914 10 subject the Willlace image to revision in The Scotrish tt'nr of independence. Barron called Wallace's role in the Rising into question. demonstrating that the traditional view that he was its sole leader was inaccurate; Barron fancied that if one man Led the Scots in the

Rising, that man was , the man usually seen as Wallace's foll~wer.'~The general history which superseded Hume Brown's, W.C. Dickinson's Scotlmdfrom the

Emdiest Times to 1603, all but ignored the meticulous work Barron had done to undermine the Wallace image, however, accepting only that others may have been involved in the rising to varying degrees." Geoffrey Barrow recognized this when he noted in tribute to Barron that "it may be doubted if popular opinion has yet caught up with Dr Barron or even wishes to catch up."" Barrow's own work on Wallace in Robert Bruce and the Community ofthc

Realm of Scotland was more successful in wresting the 'historical' Wallace from his traditional image, as is evident from the significant departures from Dickinson which can be found in the Wallace story of Michael Lynch's Scotland: A New Histmy published in 1992.

Only recently, then, has Ross become obsolete in his statement that "the Wallace of the wandering minstrel has become a part of Scottish history, and it is thought to be a kind

'' Ash, "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce", p.83 E.M.Barron, The Scottish War of Independence, London: James Nisbet & Co., 19 14, p.vii lYBarron, War of Independence, p.77-78 "' W.C. Dickinson, Scotland from the Earliest Times to 1603,3rd Ed. (A.A.M. Duncan, rev. & ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, p. 155 '' Barrow, Roben Bruce, p.79 of profandon to disturb the popular opini~n."~The rise of the 'historical*Wallace has not, however, inflicted irreparable harm upon the traditional Wallace image. Through such novels as Nigel Tranter's The Steps to the Empo ntrone and 's , and the 'popular' histories of such writers as john Prebble (The Lion in the North) and Tom

Steel (Scotland ul Story), the traditional image, the formation of which is analyzed in this enquiry, has endured and been given repeated reconstitution. it is in the footsteps ol the traditional Wallace. and not the 'historical' Wdlace, that the 'Wallace Walk' - "looking at the area where William Wdlace lived, fought and sought refuge - virtually a historical toutG3

- proceeds each year to raise funds for the Leonard Cheshire Foundation for the disabled; it was also this Wallace image which was brought to the attention of a mass audience in the form of an Oscar-winning motion picture. We may rest assured that the triditional image of William Wdlace, the provenance of which we must now turn to examine in detail, has already conquered the Internet; the Wallace image which follows appevs to be safe as it enters the twenty-first century.

-79 John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.60 Tom Weir. "A Grand Endeavour" in The Scots Magazine (New Series, Vo1.117. No.4 - Oct. 1997). p.423 William Wallace: 'Chief of Brigands' The Contemporary English Images

English intenst in heaffairs of the Scots predates even these ethno-national labels: the Anglo-Saxon historian was making observations about the Picts and the of

Dalriada in the eighth century and there are earlier references to nonh Britain going back as far iu: the sixth.' The common cuiture which bound English arid Scottish Normans cnsured that this interest would continue in the large number of chronicles which were underway in

England at the end of the thirteenth century, a significant proportion of which were started or restarted about this time. Edward I seems to have re-historicized his when he demanded of them at the beginning of the that they search their existing chronicles for evidence to support his claim to supremacy over cot land;^ over the half century bounded by the Rising of 1297-1304 and the completion of Scalacronica by Sir Thomas Gray of

Heton. around 1360, two generations of contemporary English observers constructed the fiat historiographical images of William Wallace. The attitudes of the architects of this image were, of course, steeped in war-spawned enmity towards the Scottish enemy that is evident to varying degrees in each of the contemporary treatments of Wallace. The first image represents only half of the story, related, as Maxwell noted. at a time when emotions still ran high,' and their obvious, sometimes frenzied. bias against Wallace has been offensive to researchers from the fourteenth century to the present who seek an idealized

'historical' Wallace.

' A.O. Anderson, Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers, begins at 500 AD ' Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England* p.44 1-43 ' HE.Maxwell, Enrly Chronicles Relating to Scotland, p.226 U there is a measure of uniformity in the contemporary English attitudes, however, there is much less in the details they relate about William Wallace's career. The viewpoints of the architects of this Wallace image were affected by their diverse natures, their proximity to the events of the Rising, and their sources, along with the historiographical processes employed to construct the Wallace story. Process. albeit influenced by bias, was an imponvlt determinant in the construction of the first Wallace images. While there is no reason to doubt that a measure of bias-driven fact-sifting did occur among contemporary

English observers, for the most part, their treatments of William Wallace seem to have been based in understood fact, and influenced by the nature of these 'facts.' For this reason, it is unjust and misleading to speak of these contemporary English accounts generally as being

"hysterical" or "malignant caricatures,"" or indeed to assume the conspiratorial attitude of one recent observer that they "attempted to destroy [Wallace's] memory and rep~tation."~

It is preferable to speak instead of what Ross termed the "theory of the man,"6 or theories of the man, which varied according to the body of evidence available to each observer. The difference here is the difference between an outright fabrication and an educated guess - between deliberate falsehood and opinion arrived at through informed logic.

These bodies of evidence comprised in each case what an observer had come to know

about Wallace md his deeds, and appear to have differed sometimes strikingly from observer

to observer; inevitable inconsistencies resulted from these differences and the theoretical

process. The contemporary chronicle now known as Chronicon de Lmercost was compiled

John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.7 1,75 King. Blind Harry 's Wallace, p.xx John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.62 at the Augustinian priory of Lanercost in the Border county of Cumberland, which lay "on one of the highways between England and cotl land."' The was ideally situated for the collection of information pertaining to Scotland, which would have reached it sometimes in writing, and sometimes by word of mouth; while it was not always true of the chronicle throughout its history, during the period contemporary with Wallace and the Rising

Lanrrcosr was kept current.' The Lanercost community held property and maintained interests throughout the Border region,' and among the informants and observers who helped to shape the Lancrcost version of the Wallace story will have been people who experienced the horrors of the Scottish invasions of 1296 and 1297 more or less first-hand; hence its reference to the Rising as "a new chapter of ruin.'"'

Cronica Walten'clr Gyseburne (hereafter termed the Guisborough chronicle) contains another northern English contemporary account of William Wallace's career, compiled at the Augustinian house at Guisborough founded in the early 1120s by Robert de Bruce," the local lord, who about the same time became lord of the Scottish Border region of

~nnimdale." Although Guisborough was situated in north Yorkshire, and less directly threatened than Lanercost by Scottish aggression because of the protection of Newcastle, the patronage of the Bruces had conveyed to Guisborough lands in Annandde and Durham which were vulnerable to predation from both sided3 Walter of Guisborough compiled the

Wilson, Chrori. Lunercost (Maxwell), p.xxix ' Wilson, Chron. Lanercost (Maxwell), p.xvii ' Wilson, Chron. Luncrcost (Maxwell), p.xxix-xxx. The hercost community held lands in Cwlisle, , Hexhan and Newcastle, and to get to Newcastle would have traveled through Roxburgh and Berwick. "' Chron. hnercosr (Maxwell), p. I63 " Rothwell, Chron, Guisborough, p.xi " Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.20-2 1 Rothwell, Chron. Guisborough, p.xii. The chronicle records a number of English raids upon Annandde. Guisborough chronicle in the first decade of the fourteenth century.'' and appears to have informed himself about the Rising through one central written record supported by other information which reached Guisborough either in documentary form or by word of rno~th.'~

He included such documents as letters in his chronicle, and mentions, for example, that an

English messenger detained by Wallace for ransom stayed for a time at Guisborough "and described his ordeal in great d~tail."'~

Wallace. described by Lnnrrcost as "a certain bloody man...who had formerly been a chief of brigands in S~otland"'~and by Guisborough as "a common brigand."'~plysa role in the Rising which is unclear on at least two counts in these chronicles. The first problem concerns Wallace's relationship with the Scottish magnates who supported the resistance.

According to the chronicle of Lanercost, the leaders of the Rising were Robert Wishart. bishop of Glasgow ("ever foremost in ") and James Stewart." two of the original

Guardians from 1286; it was under these two men. who feared "to openly break their pledged faith to the king,"2othat Wallace operated. This allegation that Wallace's position within the

Rising was subordinate may have been more than an accusation. We have written evidence from later in the Rising (1303-1304) that Wallace was then exhorted by the bishop of St

Andrews, William Lamberton, to make war upon the ~nglish," and there is no particular reason to doubt that Wishart used similar devices to muster the resistance of 1297, evidence

Rolhwell suggests that it was compiled between 1300-1304, Chron. Guisboroirgh, p.xxxi Is Rothwell. Chron. Guisborough, p.xxvii '' Chron. Guisborough, p.296-97 I' Chron, Lunercost (Maxwell), p. 163 '"h ron, G~risborough,p.294 '"hror~. Lunercost (Maxwell), p. 163 '"Chron. hnercost (Maxwell), p. 163 " Barrow, Roben Bruce, p. 128-29 of which may have reached Lanercost. Further evidence of Wallace's subordination appears in Guisborough, which describes how Wallace joined Sir William Douglas on campaign through eastern Scotland near the beginning of the Rising, attacking the English justiciar at

Perth and driving the English south of the Forth." Walter of Guisborough does not explicitly state that Wallace served Douglas, but neither does he state that Wallace assumed anything other than the subordinate role which would have been expcctcd of him. Guisborough goes on to further create the impression that Wallace was not the leader of the Rising, describing how, as Wishart and Douglas were pretending to treat with Warenne at Benvick after surrendering to him at hine, Wallace was gathering an my,in which he appears to have been complicit with these Scottish leaders." Both chronicles record that while James

Stewart (Guisborough adds Malcolm earl of Lennox) was falsely treating with Warenne before the battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace was preparing the Scottish army for a fight, another apparent act of complicity between Wallace and the magnates." In addition,

Guisborough includes two letters issued by the leaders of the invasion of northern England. one of which names only Sir Andrew Murny as its author and the other of which names him before Wallace, creating the impression that Murray was the man in ~ornmand.~

In contrast, in its description of the Lanercost creates little doubt that

Wallace led the Scottish my:

So on [22 July] the Scots gave [Edward I] battle with all their forces at Fdkirk. Willim Wallace aforesaid being their comder, putting their chief trust, as wits their custom, in their foot pikemn, whom they placed in the first line. But the mured cavalry of

22 Chron. Guisborough. p.295 Chron. Guisborough, p.299 " Chron. Guisborough, p.300; Chron. Lanercost (Maxwell), p. 163- 164 Chron. Guisborough, p.305-306 England ...moving round and outflanking them on both sides, routed them, and, all the Scottish cavalry being quickly put to flight, there were shin of the pikernen and infantry, who stood their ground and fought manfully, sixty thousand.26

Guisborough does not explicitly name Wallace as the Scottish commander at Falkirk, but there can be little doubt that Walter of Guisborough believed him to have occupied this position: the chronicle describes a number of prior moments in which Wallace appears to act as an independent leader. According to Guisboraugh, in the first few months of the

Rising, Wallace was responsible for selecting particular forms of violence to be done against

English clerics md women in Scotland, for capturing English messengers and holding them for ransom, and for ignoring the sanctity of churches. allowing his followers to drag their clergy out to be killed." As the battle of Stirling Bridge approached. according to

Guisborough. "the multitude of Scots following him as a general or prince was growing ...[ and] even the retainers of the magnates were adhering to him."I8 Guisborough describes him as having organized and led the successful Scottish charge at Stirling p ridge," and Linercost accuses him of the crime of flaying Hugh de Cressingham in order "to make therewith a baldrick for his sword."30

Most interestingly of all, despite its inclusion of the above-mentioned letters of protection which appear to name Sir Andrew Murray as the leader of the invasion of northern

England, Guisborough nevertheless states in its narrative that Wallace was scilicet

('evidently') the leader of the invasion. Walter of Guisborough's record that it was Wallace

'"hron. Lanercost (Maxwell), p. 166; '' Chron. Guisborough, p.296-297 '' Chron. Guisborough, p.299 '' Chron. Guisborough, p.300-303 '' Chron. Lancrcost (Maxwell), p. 164. Hugh de Cressinghrun, Edward's Treasurer for Scotland, was Warenne's lieutenant and the leader of the detachment annihilated at Stirling Bridge. Chron. Guisborough, p.303 records this event but does not directly name Wallace. who threatened the town of Carlisle, spared the monastery at and punished those in his army who ignored this prohibition of violence," opens up the possibility that the chronicler suppressed his evidence indicating that Murray was in fact in command of the

Scots. Later Scottish accounts state that Murray died at Stirling s ridge," but the appearance of his name in these letters and the birth of his son in 1298 have led Barrow to the suggestion that Murray may instead have been mortally wounded at Stirling Bridge. living long cnough to be left behind in Scotland as Wallace left with their army to invade England. The Hexham letters. Barrow suggests, were then written and issued by Wallace done. but included

Murny's name out of courtesy because Wallace was not yet aware of the fact that Murray had died.33 This explanation is certainly plausible. but it is significant that Walter of

Guisbomugh wrote his chronicle a number of years after these events. By the end of 1303.

Wallace was being hunted down by Englishmen and Scots alike in a "relentless pursuitw3" which would end with his capture and execution as the embodiment of the Rising, and there is every reason to expect that Walter of Guisborough would have suppressed evidence that other Scottish leaders had been involved in the invasion in order to emphasize Wallace's guilt. At any rate, the impression is created by the northern chronicles that Wallace's relationship with the Scottish magnates was initially subordinate, but that subsequently he assumed an increasingly independent and dominant position, culminating in his command of the Scots at Falkirk. This process is not clearly described by Lrtnercost or Guisborough:

Wallace's complicity with the magnates at Stirling Bridge appears to be the last incidence

" Chron. Guisborough, p.304-306 '' see Chapter Two 33 Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.343 nl " Barrow. Robert Bruce, p. 130 of his subordination to them in either chronicle, while the invasion of northern England, thanks in part to Walter of Guisborough's treatment of his evidence, appears to be the first incidence of his assuming command.

The second problem with respect to Wallace's role in the Rising as portrayed in these chronicles has to do with his relationship with the , a problem which is unfortunately exacerbated by the intricacies of language. Ln its only reference to the nature of Wallace's following, Lanercost states that Wallace "assemble[d] the people lpopulum] in his s~pport."'~In Guisborough, however, a number of different terms are used in reference to Wallace's followers. At the outset of his career, he is described as having "gathered to him all of the [exulontes] and acted as if he were their prince,"36 while later he is described as "drawing the people [populum] together."" Guisborough also says of him, however, that "the cornmunitas terre followed him as their leader and ruler,"" and herein lies the problem. Duncan has argued that within the political language of England a distinction was made between Les hauts hommes (aristocrats) and la cornmunaute (lesser men or bone gent).3gwhile Barrow has shown how in Scotland communitns regni Scotie (community of the reaim of Scotland) referred to "the universality of its freemen,''N which is to say it was a blanket term which encompassed both les hauts hommes and la communaute as the English understood them. Barrow has noted how "the older historians were under the impression that the 'community' meant ...the commons, as distinct fmm the prelates and lords,"4' but we must

'"hrori. Lanercost (Maxwell),p. 163 '"Chrori. Guisborough, p.294 '' Chron. Guisborough, p.299 '"hron. Guisborough, p.299. The translation is Barmw's (Robert Bruce, p.85) 39 Duncan, '"The community of the realm of Scotland and Robert Bruce" in SHR vo1.45 (1966), p. 190 '' Bartow, Robert Bruce, p.16 " Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.33 ask whether the contemporary English chroniclers made a similar mistake. Duncan has described one crucial moment in the 1290s when the scribes of Edward I misconstrued a statement of the communitas regni Scotie as having come from la communaute of Scotland, and as a result recorded "that although the community had replied, the prelates and magnates had not,"" failing to appreciate that les hauts hommes were included in the Scottish coairnuizitas regni. Then: is cvcry possibility, keeping this in mind, that when the

Guisborough and Lanercost chroniclers encountered the word communitas in association with Wallace (such as within the text of the letter of protection issued to Hexham, in which

Wallace is described as having the consent of the cornmunitatis regni):"hey too were unaware of the term's specific meaning in Scotland md misconstrued the word communitas as being interchangeable with the word populus, which it most certainly was not. Whether perpetrated by this kind of misunderstanding or by observation, it is clear that these two chronicles portray Wallace as having been the fomenter and cultivator of unrest among the common people of Scotland - unrest which was not necessarily forthcoming on its own. This furnished the Edwardian Wallace with an extreme menacity: in being responsible for the unrest, Wallace was its embodiment; it follows logically that his elimination would eliminate it. This kind of logic was almost certainly central to the importance placed by Edward I upon the capture and execution of Wallace.

In an effort to provide their chronicles with an adequate description of William

Wallace, proof perhaps of Barrow's belief "that along with all the horror and hatred went a

'' Duncan, "The community of the realm of Scotland and Roben Bruce" in SHR vo1.45 ( 1966), p. 190 " Chron. Guisborough. p.306 good deal of fascinated c~riosity,'~~the northern chroniclers theorized in an attempt to come to terms with Wallace's origins and his character. The accusation that the Edwardian image constitutes a 'malignant caricature' of William Wallace is no doubt based upon the attempts of Lanercost and Walter of Guisborough to comment upon such things without direct evidence - as Lanercost put it, he was simply "a certain bloody man."J5 Guisborough's invocation of 'outla~vry.'however, would seem to indicate WWer's use of indirect evidence and n rational process to make an educated guess about Wallace's background which goes beyond mere 'caricature.' Guisborough noted both that Wallace had been outlawed many times by the chief English justicid' and that, at least as Walter of Guisborough understood it. the justiciar was only inclined to those who had no social tand ding.'^ Even accepting that Walter was certainly extremely biased, it is evident that simple logic can have led him to his conclusion that Wdlace had the ignoble origins of 'a common brigand.' The process that defined the origins and character of the Edwardian Wallace was therefore informed by the body of evidence comprised of Wallace's known activities, but bias ensured that certain details from his career would be considered more definitive than others.

The grim details of the invasion of northern England were probably most important, not just because they would assassinate Wallace's character but also because they were the details with which the communities of Lanercost and Guisborough were most familiar and with which they could most easily identify. The account of the invasion in the chronicle of

Lrtnercosr does not mention Wallace directly:

4 Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.99 ." Chron. Latercost (Maxwell), p. 163 Chron. Guisborough, p.294 " Chron. Guisborough, p.296 After [an attack on English-held Berwick] the Scots entered Northumberland in strength, wasting ail the land, committing arson, pillage, and murder, and advancing almost as far its the town of Newcastle; from which, however, they turned aside and entered the county of Cxlisle. There they did as they had done in Northumberland, destroying everything, then returned into Northumberland to lay waste more completely what they had left at first: and reentered Scotland on [22 November] without, however, having been able as yet to capture any castle either in England or cot land."^

Guisborough includes vivid descriptions of the temfied flight of the people and clergymen

of this region, which encompassed northern England "from Carlisle to Newcastle-on-

~~ne.""'and implicates Wallace in the general buming and rapine by recording that while

he was staying for two days at Hexham, he directed his myto scatter and undertake such

activity." krnercost relates further atrocities. including the buming of English-held Scottish

towns like Roxburgh and Haddington, "as well as nearly all the chief towns on this side of

the [Firth of Forth] so that the English should find no place of refuge;" so destructive was

this policy, Lunercost relates, that the Scots were able to starve the English garrisons out of

most of the Scottish castles and force an English relief army to turn back "through lack of

. pr~vender."~' hncrcost also records that "when [the Scots] had promised to the

[surrendering] English conditions of life and limb and safe conduct ...William Wallace did

not keep faith with them?'

Having decided that Wallace was a man of low birth. the English chroniclers

remained faced with the puzzle of how such a man, who would have been denied the

instruction or training in soldiering which accompanied status, had developed the capacity

to enjoy such a successful military career. The accounts in Lanercost and Guisborough both

'Thrun. Lanercost (Maxwell), p. 164- 165 Chron. Guisborough, p.304 "' Chron. Guisborough, p.304-306 '' Chron. Lanercost (Maxwell), p. 165 '' Chron. Lanercost (Maxwell), p. 165 appear to have solved this puzzle by supposing that Wallace had learned his 'trade' through a career in brigandage, a supposition supported by the evidence provided by the long list of his temble deeds while invading England. and his ransoming of English messengers. This same body of evidence was also put to work in an effort to imagine the nature of Wallace's character. Gicisborough recorded that when peace proposals were brought to Wallace before

Stirling Bridge. he stated flatly that 'kc arc not hcn: to m&c peacc but to do bartlc to defend ourselves and liberate our kingdom. Let them come on. and we shall prove this in their very beards."5% this Wallace appears exceedingly belligerent, and the chronicler of Lancrcost can hardly have described a man accused of having flayed the corpse of Hugh de

Cressingham at Stirling Bridge as anything but 'bloody.' The perception of Wallace as an unprincipled brigand. a cruel savage, a butcher of innocents, and an indiscriminate destroyer was perfectly compatible with the ideas that he had 3 low-bom origin and a criminal background. Shaped both by logic and bias, the Edwardian William Wallace emerged from the northern chronicles with no social status. a contemptible character and a murderous, criminal background. He was a successful soldier. although he employed treacherous tactics and his victims were predominantly 'civilians' (especially women and the elderly) and the clergy. Furthermore. the Edwardian Wallace owed his significance in part to his initial subordination to Scottish magnates who had begun the Rising but were too prudent or, from the English perspective, too cowardly, to join it openly themselves, and, at their instigation, was the principal cause and fomenter of resistance to English sovereignty in Scotland.

The Wallace image of the northern English chroniclers appears to have acted as a

53 Chron. Guisborough, p.300. The translation is Barrow's (Roben Bruce, p.87) filter which dictated the nature of the information about Wallace which was received by the chroniclers of the great centres of southern historiography. Chronicu Buriensis, (hereafter termed the Bury chronicle), the Fiores Historiurum of Matthew of Westminster. and the chronicle of William Rishanger of St Albans were contemporary works like Lanercost and

Guisborough which made their observations from the Benedictine abbeys of Bury St

Edmunds. Westminster and St Albms. SLAlbms perhaps owed some of its historiographical achievements to its importance as a pilgrimage site and its location upon a major route of travel,s4but it owed more to , whose Chronicu Mujora and other historical works established a lasting historiographical tradition. His abbreviation of his Clzronicci, called Flores Historiurum ('flowers of history'), was continued at St Albans by William Rishanger during Wallace's lifetime, while a copy was continued at Westminster during the same time by Matthew of Westminster." Westminster, near London, had a long tradition of regular royal contact and royal endowment beginning with Edward the

Confessor. who among other things gave the abbey the distinction of becoming the royal burial ground;56 it is a testament to its ongoing importance that it was completely rebuilt by

Henry III, the father of Edward I, in the 1250s." Matthew of Westminster owed much of his information to Westminster's importance and proximity to the royal household; the chronicler of Bury St Edmunds had similar access to the king, for like his father, Edward I seems to have held the abbey in high esteem:' perhaps because of its association with a saint

Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p. 179 55 Burton. Monastic and Religious Orders, p.200 '"Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p. 10 '' Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p. 17 Gransden, Chron. Bury, p.xii who was not only revered, but particularly martial. Being far removed from the war zone and the Rising itself. the monastic communities of Bury St Edmunds and Westminster produced observations that contained only part of the detail of their northern counterparts.

As Barrow observed. to these southern communities "Scotland seemed very remote, and the plight of their fellow-countrymen beyond the Tees touched them scarcely at all."59 Like

Lmercost and Guisborough, thcsc houses were concerned primarily with affairs of local interest; for this reason, the Scottish war was of great importance to the former, but the latter found other subjects and matters more immediate and interesting, affording the Anglo-

Scottish conflict significantly less space than their northern counterparts. Rishanger. on the other hand. provided considerable detail, influenced no doubt by the historiographical standard set for him by Matthew Paris.

In general, the narrative of the Rising which appears in the works of the southern observers is fully compatible with that related by the northern works. although there is the expected paucity of detail in some cases. Westminster, who had taken significant note of

Edward's conquest of a recalcitrant Scotland in 1296, took none of the beginning of the

Rising, about which the Bury chronicle records that:

the Scots rose against the English because they had been informed that the king of England had crossed the channel. In the clash Hugh de Cressingham, who hild previously been made treasurer of Scotland. was captured and beheaded?

Like Bury. Rishanger does not mention Wallace's name in connection with Stirling Bridge, although he describes the action in some detail?' Such departures from the accounts of the

'' Bmow, Robert Bruce, p.90 Chron, Buy, p. I4 1 "' Walluce Documents (Stevenson), I, p.6 northern chronicles are simple reflections of the remoteness, both physically and spiritually, of southern England from the events of the Border. Westminster's account of the subsequent invasion of northern England is dispassionately succinct - "the Scots wasted the neighbouring part of the and burned a large part of Northumbria, led by William Wallace, knight?" The Bury chronicle includes a slightly more vivid description:

Meanwhile the Scots, led by a certain MaIeis accompanied by William Wallace, overran nearly all Northumberland, Cumberland, Copeland and Westmoreland and laid them waste by tire curd robbery. They butchered old men and young, women adchildren. But the local inhabitants resisted and at last forced them to return to their own country. Some say that an this occasion seven hundred and fifteen towns and villages were de~astatrd.~"

In these accounts of the southern writers, we hear nothing about Wishart, Douglas. or

Stewart, or Wallace's initial complicity with them, and yet it would appear from this latter passage that evidence reached Bury St Edmunds, as it had reached Guisborough, that

Wallace was not the leader, or the only leader of the invasion." It is certainly possible, given their remoteness from Scottish affairs, that the southern chroniclers had simply never heard of these Scottish magnates, but these omissions may also be related to the matter of timing.

Unlike the Guisborough, Westminster and St Albans chronicles, the Bury chronicle was not continued after 130 1 ; this tends to suggest that for a time after the Rising began in 1297,

Wallace was seen as only one of several important actors within the Scottish resistance.

Speculation about who else may have been involved, and indeed evidence like the Hexham letters, appears to have filtered south to the chroniclers at Lanecost, Guisborough, and Bury

" Wallace Documents (Stevenson), 11, p. 18 O3 Chron. Bury. p. 142 dthough Antonia Gransden suggests that 'Maleis' is somehow a rendering of Andrew Munay's name (Chron. Bury (Gransden), p.142n), Bmow suggests more plausibly that Mdise earl of Stratheam took part in the invasion (Robert Bruce, p.93) St Edmunds.

However. while Rishmger's description of the invasion includes most of the details of the Bury account, he takes the same position as G~~isboroughand Westrninster with respect to Wallace's leadership role:

Then beginning nt Berwick, [Wallace] went around the province of the Scots and then all of Northumbria, and mde great disturbance through the counties. He plundered farms, razed cities and towns to the ground, robbed from the inhabitants all that they had - so much Are. so much depredation!'

This suggests that at some point after the Bury chronicle terminated in 130 1, probably around the time that the Rising was petering out in 1304 and King Edward was beginning his great efforts to have Wallace hunted down ilnd captured, the idea that Wallace's deeds were directed by anyone else appears to have been dropped. There would certainly have been no question of his culpability when the time came to try Wallace. If. like Walter of

Guisborough, Rishanger and Matthew of Westrninster did not make their records immediately, they may well have had the time to form the opinion that Wallace acted alone before they committed it to writing, in order to leave no doubt as to Wallace's guilt.

Among the architects of the Edwardian image, therefore. only Rishanger disputes that

Wallace was initially subordinate to the magnates who were involved in the Rising, while only Bury explicitly disputes that by the time of the invasion of England, Wallace was essentially the leader of the Rising. On the question of Wallace's relationship with the common people, the Westminster and Rishanger accounts seem to be anticipating Wallace's trial, further evidence that they may have committed the bulk of their Wallace stories to writing only after his ultimate fate was known. Unlike Bury, which does not deal with the

" Wullace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.9 question. both Westminster and Rishanger adopt the idea that Wallace was a fomenter of

Scottish unrest when they adopt an alleged speech of Wallace's to his army at Falkirk: "Hii have pult ou into a garnen. hoppet yif ye kunnet.'" In this short sentence, Wallace 'admits' both his responsibility for assembling the army and his reason for doing so. Yet Wallace is not explicitly accused of causing Scottish unrest generally, as he is in the northern chronicles; in fact thc oppositc is truc in Rishmger's statement that

the tricky and deceptive Scots, assembling their soldiers who remained, elected by the assent of all the contmrini someone of ignoble descent called William Wallace as their leader and champion, and moved again against the king of England in vain wu."

Rishanger's Wallace thus appears to be the product of Scottish unrest, rather than its producer, rendering him somewhat less menacing than he appeared to be to the other architects of the Edwardian image. As the fomenter of unrest. Wallace was its life. and his elimination was its death; if he was the product of that unrest. however. its life was derived not from Wallace but from the Scottish people (or community of the realm) themselves. and they could in theory simply replace an eliminated Wallace with another person. As if to compensate for this effect. Rishanger explicitly assigned the blame for the Rising and its ultimate consequences for Scotland to Wallace alone, stating that as a result of his

"falsehoods and fraudulences...the brutal suppression of the Scots was ~ndertaken,"~along with "his [own] destruction and the ignominious harvesting of all S~otland."~All of this has the distinct sound of having been written after the fact. The architects of the Edwardian image appear, therefore, to agree that while Wdlace may not have been the cause of an

Wallace Documents (Stevenson), 11, p.27 '' Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.8 '' WaIIace Ducument~(Stevenson), I, p.9 Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.9 unrest in Scotland which would not have otherwise existed, his efforts in cultivating and exacerbating the unrest that did exist were responsible for its having reached the intensity that it did.

Matthew of Westminster's naming of Wallace as 'William Wallace, knight' appears to be a significant departure from the northern view of Wallace's origins that he was a 'chief of brigands.' If the information that Wallacc was a knight reached the southern obscrvcn. it must have reached the northern chroniclers as well, and the fact that they rejected the idea in favour of the Edwardian one appears at the outset to support the idea that the English chroniclers engaged in 'malignant caricature.' However, Rishanger provides the details which seem to reconcile Matthew with the rest of the architects of the Edwardian image, taking the notions of Wallace's ignoble birth and background in hnrrcost and Guisborough to extreme and passionate lengths:

There was in Scotland a certain young man named William Wallace, an archer of low-birth and poor descent and education, who earned his livelihood with mow and quiver... In a short time, Scots from the smallest to the greatest adhered to him, on account of which a certain outstanding count of that nation girded the said William with the knight's belt. making a knight of a robber, just like a swan from a raven."

According to Rishanger, Wallace was both a 'chief of brigands' and a 'knight.' thanks to the offensive actions of 'a certain outstanding count' in conferring upon the former the status of

the latter." The architects of the Edwardian image would thus seem to agree that Wallace

was a man of ignoble background - Rishanger is almost incapable of mentioning his name

without appending a phrase like progenie ignobilem or de infima progenie to it72- who may

have been afforded a false knighthood, but who was a knight in name only and who could

71) Wullucc Documents (Stevenson), 1, p.8 " Barrow, Roben Bruce, p.34445 (n38Brn41) suggests that this 'count' was Robert Bruce. ''!Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.8 still be more accurately characterized as a 'chief of brigands.'

With respect to the subject of Wallace's character, the southern chronicles were in complete agreement with their northern counterparts. Matthew of Westminster described

Wallace as:

a fugitive from piety, a robber. a wicked rmn, an arsonist and murderer. a looser of the cruelty of Herd and the furious rage of Nero's madness ...[ who] collected many English men and women to promiscuously dance and play the lyre naked in front of him [who] inflicted agonizing torture with scorpions and the stings and crooked wounds of whips; who disemboweled crying infants in the cradle or else at the breast; who burned young boys in great number in schools and churches: who also gathered the army of the Scots in the battle of Falkirk against the king of England. where seeing that he could not resist such a mighty force, said. "Behold. 1 have brought you to the ring. dance as best you can." And he fled from the fight. forsaking his people to the massacre of the sword."

This last accusation, which neither Bury nor Westminster had included in their brief accounts of Falkirk (neither of which mentions Walla~e)'~does occur within Rishanger's far more detailed narrative of the battle:

To compel the multitude of footmen to enter the fight tint, he said in his native tongue. "Hii have pult ou into a gamen, hoppet yif ye kunnet." as if he had said. "I have brought you into the pit and ring, dance if you can so as to be saved." He however tled away. not as a chief but as an absconder, and then the my. without its chief and ignorant of military discipline, either dissolved before the advance or fell in the same contlict."

Like the considerations of Wallace's role in and level of responsibility for the Rising,

Westminster's summary of Wallace's character appears to have been written well after the fact - perhaps copied more-or-less directly from the charges leveled at Wallace at trial in

Wallace Documents (Stevenson), II. p.27 '' Wallace Documents (Stevenson), 11, p-19; Chron. Bur).., p. 150 '' Wallace Document..(Stevenson), I, p. 10 1305." As such, the description almost certainly renders him responsible for the totality of the crimes committed in Scotland w.d northern England during the Rising and invasion, which moved Bmow to note that "it must always be a false economy to make one man pay with his blood for the deeds of a whole nation."" It was perhaps similar thinking, however, which moved Walter of Guisborough, Rishanger and Matthew of Westminster in particular to compose their Wallace stories as they did.

The perceptions of the observers of Bury St Edmunds. Westminster, and St Albans both temper and strengthen the elements of the Edwardian image which emerge from the northern chronicles. The historiographical Wallace emerges from the contemporary English works as a man of obscure and ignoble background and contemptible character, neither of which elements could be erased by his subsequent recognition as a knight by his countrymen. ilnd as a man whose agitations were key to the intensity and success of the Scottish Rising. despite the fact that he may have initially been a subordinate to the true leaders working behind the scenes. It would be premature, however, to move on to the final English perception of William Wallace considered in this enquiry without noting first Rishanger's two very significant departures from the other architects of the Edwardian image. First, while the others were content in their belief that the Scots were simply a "perfidious race""

'' Wallace Documents (Stevenson). XXVIII. p. 191-192. Wallace was charged with breaking faith and allegiance; planning crimes and sedition against the English; raising a mob; attacking English officials; killing the sheriff of ; attacking homes, cities and castles; calling parliaments and gatherings; persuading the Scottish prelates. earls and barons to adhere to him and keep faith with the French; invading northern England; killing, burning and destroying English churches and clergymen; commiting atrocities against boys and nursing babies: claiming or pursuing the English crown; and repeated violations of the peace. n Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 136 " Chron. Lanercust (Maxwell), p. 163 that naturally undertook rebellion because it knew no other way of life, Rishanger (although

he no doubt agreed) characterized the Rising differently than his compatriots. The other

architects used the word rebellare to define the Rising; Rishanger, although he accepted that

Wallace moved "in war against his outstanding lord,"79 nevertheless preferred to use the

word resisture instead." What is more. he recognized like Guisborough, although he had

no sympathy for it, that Wallace "aimed at the freedom of the scot^."^' Sccond, Rishanger

records an episode which took place in France after Falkkk, in which Wallace went seeking

the aid of the French king, who ordered him seized and offered him as a prisoner to King

~dward." This is the only instance where an English chronicler reports that Wallace did

anything notable after Fillkirk aside from being captured and killed.

Decades after the Rising of 1297- 1304. another important English account of its

events and of William Wdlace was written which bears examination here. The elder Sir

Thomas Gray of Heton was an English knight who fought for King Edward in Scotland

during the Rising; he was so badly wounded fighting Wallace himself at Lanark in May 1297

that he was stripped of his accoutrements and left to die.'3 Sculucrot~icaby Sir Thomas Gray

of Heton, Knight was composed by his son, the younger Sir Thomas, who after following in

his father's footsteps was captured by the Scots and imprisoned at , where he

began composing Scalncronica in captivity in 1355." Gray wrote in Norman French

'' Wallace Docwnrnts (Stevenson), I, p.9 '"Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.8 '' Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.8 " Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p. 1 1 X3 Scalacronica (Maxwell), p. L 8 W Stevenson, Scalacronica, p.iii vernacular rather than in and adopted a so-called 'chivalrous' historical approach, which was a venture which departed significantly from the historiography of the monastic chroniclers whose works have been considered above. Chivalrous history was a Continental development; its aim was to compose a narrative which "consisted of a record of 'noble adventures and deeds of arms performed in wars."'u5 The knightly writers of this kind of nurativr: intended their works to serve didactic purposes for prospective , guiding these young men towards an understanding of the proper lifestyle of their cla~s.'~The chivalrous approach to history was, if not unique, extremely rare in the British Isles -

Scczlocronicc~has been called the only chivalrous work which is native to them," although a case could perhaps be made for Barbour's Bruce - and as a result of this uniqueness Gray's work can be removed from its proper historiographical context and misunderstood if it is simply lumped in with the monastic or 'general* historiography which is so much more common.

There is no doubt that Gray made use of written sources while composing that part of Scdrcronic*u dealing with Wallace and the Rising. It is certain that he used

~uisboroiigh",and where Walter of Guisborough failed him he seems to have made use of

Rishanger. There is equally little doubt, however, that just as the contemporary English observers were shaped in their treatment of the body of evidence by their biases. Gray was shaped in the same process by his father's reminiscences. Indeed, some of Scalucronica's

n5 John Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 155 nb John Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 156 " John Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 154 nt Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. I40 problematic information with respect to the Rising may be attributable to Gray's reliance upon his father. the severity of whose injuries at Lanark probably left him unavailable at least for the rest of the fighting in 1297, which was probably the most important year in Wallace's career. Gray's adoption of 'eyewitness' information from a man who wasn't actually there helps to explain why he placed the invasion of England before the battle of Stirling Bridge."

Thc placcmcnt of thc capturc of Wallace some five ycm too early* may be the result of a similar problem, but may well simply have been a trick of his father's distant memory. In any consideration of Gray's source material, however. it is significant both that Gray was living in Scotland during the time he composed Sctducronicu (as a captive) and that he was writing more than fifty years after Wallace's death. There is every reason to believe that as he dealt with the story of William Wallace. Gray encountered Scottish perspectives and material which were very favourable to him. Not the least of these would have been the popular stories about Wallace which had begun to proliferate after his death - what John

Ross described as the "Wallace cult"" - and, there is no rea5on that he cannot have had access to some of the same 'Brucem' material which shaped the image of William Wallace

in the Citronica Gentis Scotoruni of Gray's contemporary, John of or dun.'?

The William Wallace of Scalacronica is almost unrecognizable from an Edwardian

perspective, except in a few narrative details. Most similar to the established image is Gray's

'' Sccrlacronica (Max we1 I), p. 1 8 '" Scalacronica (Maxwell), p.23 '' John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.76 " Gray and Fordun used a common source for heir Scottish origin legends (Ferguson, ldentiry of the Scorrish Notion, p.5 1-52) - the same source which (it is argued here) Fordun used for his Wallace image. See Chapter Two notation that Wallace was "at hand in the order of battle"93 and led the decisive charge at

Stirling Bridge, but was explicitly not the leader there. This is an interpretation of

Giiisborough, which failed to make the leadership question clear at Stirling Bridge but left no doubt that Wallace was there and played the decisive role, and so tends to follow the

Edwardian line with respect to Wallace's initial subordination. The narrative proceeds from

Lanark to the invasion of England, about which Gray says simply that "William Wallace burnt all ~orthumberland,''~once again following the general Edwardian view that after

Stiding Bridge, Wallace was an independent leader. Scnlacronicu records that Wallace was also the leader of the Scots in the pursuit of the English after Stirling Bridge, the invasion of England, and the battle of Falkirk?

Precedents for each of these points can be found in the Edwardian works, but Gray departs from them when he notes that before Stirling Bridge, William Wallace set upon hark in a surprise night attack and killed its English sheriff? A further departure occurs in his statement that before Stirling Bridge, George Wishart and William Douglas, assured the English "that they were no parties to the rising of William Wallace, albeit they had been adherents of his previously,"97 and Gray makes none of Lnnercost's accusations that at this meeting (Lanrrcost has Junes Stewart in the role of Douglas and Wishaft) the Scottish leaders were being treacherous or even insincere. These statements are inconsistent with the

Edwardian idea that Wallace was initially a subordinate, making these magnates 'adherents

"'Scalucronica (Maxwell), p. 19 'N Scalacronica (Maxwell), p. 18 '' Scalacronica (Maxwell), p. 18-2 1 'h Scalacrunica (Maxwell), p. 18 'n Smlacronica (Maxwell), p.20 [italics mine] of his' instead. and so are also inconsistent with Gray's own statement that Wallace was not the leader at Stirling Bridge. In order to make these contentions, Gray put Guisborough aside and adopted Rishanger, which had been fairly emphatic about Wallace's leadership throughout the Rising except at Stirling Bridge, and extremely emphatic about Wallace's responsibility for the Rising and its consequences for the Scots. It is unclear why Gray elected to follow Rishangcr hcrc; thc answcr may lie with his fathcr. Thcrc is nothing ambiguous whatever about Sculucronicci's account of who led the attack on Lanark. and after having been overcome by a force led by Wallace himself, the elder Sir Thomas may have had difficulty accepting whatever allegations existed of his subordination to Wishart. Stewart.

Douglas or anyone else. We must also suspect, however, that part of the reason that he chose the one source over the other was that Rishanger's account in this respect more closely approximates the Scottish perception of Wallace's relationship with the magnates. to which

Gray was almost certainly exposed and which is examined in the next chapter.

With respect to Wallace's relationship with the people of Scotland, Gray again set

Guisborough aside in favour of, or interpreted it according to. Rishanger's statement that

"William Wallace was chosen by la comune of Scotland as leader to raise war against the

English,"" choosing to speak of gem rather than of rebellion. Once again, the reason for this decision may lie with Gray's father, or indeed with Gray himself. The Edwardian idea that

Wallace was an agitator of Scottish unrest may have retained a certain appeal to Gray, who also noted from Rishanger that "it was said long after that William Wallace had brought

'Vcdacronica (Maxwell), p. 18 them to the revel if they would have danced."" However, it seems particularly unlikely that anyone who had actually fought to suppress 'unrest' in Scotland like the elder Sir Thomas

Gray, and later in the fourteenth century Scnlacronica's author himself, would have given much credence to the suggestion that Wallace was the sole agent and embodiment of that unrest. Writing in the 1350s. Gray was perfectly aware that unrest had not been eliminated with Wallace's death; it had grown. flourished undcr Robcn Brucc, and been =-born in the

1330s when Edward and Edward Balliol came north to press English dominion over

Scotland again. Time had shown that unrest in Scotland was greater than could be attributed to any one man, and Gray's own captivity must have been proof enough of that.

As z result of his chivalrous purposes, Sir Thomas Gray approached with extreme caution the subject of Wallace's origins and chardcter, a subject about which the contemporary English observers had been both clear and vociferous. The Edwardian image must have posed a difficult challenge to Gray; whether he turned to Guisborough or to

Rishanger, he was faced with a Wallace who was a common man of despicable character. apparently lacking in, or indeed devoid of. the breeding ilnd the all-important qualities of loyalty, generosity, 'ccurtoisie' and justice which were central to the knightly ideal and the writing of chivalrous history.'" The contemporary English accounts were not, however. completely without material which could be construed as favourable to Wallace.

Guisborough had noted where Wallace - unexpectedly - spared the lives of two English clerics who had been brought to him to be cast (as usual) from the bridge at Perth to drown

Scaiacronica (Maxwell), p.2 1 "" John Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 157 in the Tay,"' along with his having spared and worked to protect the monastery of Hexharn from harm. For his part. Rishanger had stated about Wallace that "he fought bravely in many parts, as is usually the case with strong men, and strove as he could for the freedom of the

Scots from the English."'" These small islands in the sea of Edwardian condemnation of

Wallace must have seemed like treasure to Gray, who may have found within such information confirmation of his own suspicions. Gray was a knight, acclimatized to fourteenth-century warfare and the sometimes ghastly elements which were involved. It is likely that he understood the realities of such conflict better than any moralistic monastic chronicler. and where the latter might linger over the list of Wallace's atrocities in appalled hostility, Gray himself must have appreciated that they were simply a reflection of the realities of war. The period between Wallace's death in 1305 and Gray's capture and captivity had been very bloody and very tragic; two generations on both sides of the Tweed had grown grimly accustomed to the atrocities associated with Anglo-Scottish war.

Wallace's alleged behaviour, set against Gray's own experiences, not to mention his own deeds, can hardly have seemed greatly beyond the pale.

If he suspected that Wallace had courage, an obvious knightly virtue and an important quality deserving of consideration in a 'chivalrous' work,''' Gray found the evidence for it in Rishanger; similarly, Guisborough's accounts of Wallace's merciful treatment of the occasioilal clergyman surely demonstrated a certain sense of generosity. 'courtoisie' and

"" Chron. Guisborough, p.296 'I" Wallace Documents (Stevenson), I, p.8 "" John Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 1 57 justice. Most importantly, in Rishanger's description of Wallace's having undertaken the cause of the freedom of Scotland on behalf of the cornmuni. Gray may well have seen in

Wallace the ultimate knightly virtue - being "a righter of wrongs by reason of a feeling of compassion."" As a result of these perceptions, Gray must have felt justified to treat the subjects of Wallace's origins and his character in a radical new way - he ignored them. We should not imagine for a momcnt that hc disbelieved the long list of Wallace's grim deeds which characterize the Edwardian historiography; he did, after all, record such events of dubious morality as Wallace's overnight ambush of Lanark, the burning of Northumbria.

Guisboro~cgh'saccount of the savage mutilation of the fallen Hugh de Cressingham at

Stirling ridge,'" md Rishanger's accusation that at Falkirk "William Wallace, who was on horseback. fled with the other Scottish lords who were present."lM The real departure in

Scnlacronicu was that Gray refused to moralize about these deeds and events and refused to speculate about Wallace's origins or character; with respect to both, he preferred to say nothing at all. While he omitted the negative moralizing and speculation common to the historiography of his countrymen, however, he also failed to explicitly acknowledge in

Wallace any of the knightly qualities he may have believed him to have embodied. He even excluded from Scalucronica Rishanger's statement that Wallace fought for the freedom of

Scotland. Gray's silence on such subjects, so extensively considered by other English chroniclers, speaks volumes about his true opinion of William Wallace, even if explicit

'Iu John Taylor, English Historical Literature. p. 157 Io5Scalacronica (Maxwell),p. 18- 19 "" Scalacronica (Maxwell), p.2 1 favour may have been too great a departure for his anticipated readership to have borne.

As Sir Thomas Gray was completing his Scallcronica,the historiographical image of William Wdlace was about to undergo its first major revision at the hands of Wallace's countrymen. The chronicles compiled at the monasteries of Lanercost. Guisborough, Bury

St Edrnunds. Westminster and St Albans had established an historiographical image of

William Wallace that had not supported the purposes of Sir Thomas Gray, and which was even more offensive to the first Scottish chroniclers who would turn their attention to the

Wallace story. Based upon understood facts but laced with patriotic bias and shaped by the inconsistencies inherent to conjecture, the Edwardian image of William Wallace constructed by his English contemporaries was doomed to suffer a fate in the historiographical tradition of Scotland similar to that it encountered in Scrrlac*roniccr - inattention and obscurity. And yet, although the idea of a William Wallace who was low-born. savage, contemptible of character. incapable of keeping his word. initially subordinate to the 'real' leaden of an illicit

Rising and u fomenter of unrest was unpalatable to his Scottish biographers, the Edwardian image nevertheless established for all subsequent historiographical images their principal concerns - William Wallace's origins. his character, and his role in the Rising of 1297- 1304. The Brucean Image of William Wallace Wallace in Fordun and Wyntoun

Even had the historiographical image of William Wallace been forever confined to its unfavounble Edwardian version. it would have been inevitable that its story of a common man of obscure origins who became important enough to lead the army of Scotland would become the stuff of popular legend, both in his own country and in England. Wailace

"enter(ed1 the popular English imagination as few individual Scots have ever done;"' as might be anticipated, however, the popular English Wallace legends were mostly derogatory.

The spectre of William Wallace became "'an ogre used by mothers to quieten their children"' in northern England. which had experienced invasion and devastation at his hands in 1297, while the chronicle of Lonercost preserves two Latin verses which help to further illustrate

Wallace's enduring place in the popular discourse of northern England:

William Wallace being made a noble, Straightaway the Scots became ignoble. Treason and slaughter, arson and raid, 0y suffering and misery must be repaid.)

The vilest doom is fittest fur thy crimes, Justice demands that thou shouldst die three times, Thou pillager of many a sacred shrine, Butcher of thousands, threefold death be thine! So shall the English from thee gain relief, Scotland! Be wise, ilnd choose a nobler chief?

Both of these poems are obviously rooted firmly within the Edwardian image, focusing upon

Wallace's ignobility and crimes and glorifying his death and the hope for vengeance.

It is something of a difficult matter, however, to isolate Wallace as a legendary figure

' Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.2 15 ' Marinell Ash, "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce" in The Myths We Live By, p.85 Chron. Lanercosr (Maxwell), p. 168 '' Chron. Lanercust (Maxwell), p. 176 in Scotland until the end of the fifteenth century, when legend began to infiltrate Scottish historiography explicitly and can be examined. It appears that within a short time following his death, if not during his lifetime, the 'cult' of William Wallace, the strongest elements within which glorified his perceived defiance of established authority and acts outside the law, took the form of a marriage of sorts with old and long-established British outlaw legends.' It was by this same pmcess that hecame wch a popular legendary hero in England at about the same time, and benefitting from the venerable and longestablished popularity of the same well-known stories in Scotland. William Wallace rapidly became a popular hero of similar, if not greater significance in S~otland.~

Historians like Bruce Webster and Michael Lynch recognize a significant change in

Scottish historiography after the Rising and the subsequent struggle for , which acted, in Webster's words, as a catalyst for "a remarkable flowering of national history."' The roots of this 'flowering' were planted in the middle of the fourteenth century by , about whom we know very little with certainty. He seems to have been a chantry priest of cathedral who began to compile a .

Chroniccz Gentis Scotorum, at about the same time that Sir Thomas Gray was working on

Scrdacronica; the chronicle was still a work in progress when he died, an event which scholars date anywhere between the middle of the 1360s and about 1390.' As was discussed in the previous chapter, the span of time between the Rising of 1297-1304 and the

M.H. Keen, "William Wallace and the Scottish Outlaws" in Outlaws of Medieval Legend, p.65-66 %.H. Keen, "William Wallace and the Scottish Outlaws" in Outlaws of Medieval Legend, p.65-66 ' Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603, p. 17; also Lynch, Scotland: A New History, p. 112- 13 ' Suggestions for the dating of Fordun's death are based upon internal evidence from his chronicle. The 'traditional*date of 1385 is rejected by D.E.R. Watt, who suggests a date of 1363 [Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.2341 while accepting [p.227] ha "there is no proof regarding when Fordun lived and died." Boardman, however, suggests a date late in the 1380s [Early Stewart Kings, p.36. n1081. composition of Scalacronica was not an insignificant one; the Border had been greatly stained with blood on both sides of the Tweed, and the English and the Scots were no longer

the mere foes they had been in Wallace's time - they had become bitter, mortal enemies. The

Scotland of Fordun's somewhat indeterminate lifetime was dominated by the wars of

independence; Fordun himself almost certainly had no first-hand experience of the Rising of 1297- 1304, and if he was alive during the most active period of Robert Bruce's struggles

with England ( 1306- 13 14) he was a child. Of much greater significance to the formation of

Fordun's outlook was the later phase of the wars of independence, in which the Scots of his

generation reaped what had been sown between England and Scotland during the earlier

struggles. In 1332, Edward Balliol, the son of the former king John, claimed the throne

which Robert Bruce had taken in 1306 and which had been bequeathed to his son David U;

the claim ushered in a new enof factiousness, civil war and war with the English under

Edward HI, who supported Balliol. This later war of independence, in which the oppression

and devastation inflicted upon Scotland by Edward III appears to have far outdone the deeds

of his grandfather and father, lasted until 1357, after which time the English continued to

occupy the principal Scottish Border castles of Berwick, Roxburgh. Jedburgh and

Lochmaben along with a corresponding 'pale' from Lammermuir on the North Sea to

Annandale on the Solway ~irth?It was probably during the uneasy peace which followed

that Fordun, like Sir Thomas Gray, carried out the bulk of his compilation and writing.

We are told by his continuator Walter ~ower,"through the preface to the Coupar

Angus manuscript of , that Fordun

Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p. 108 "hee Chapter Three went on foot like an industrious bee throughout the land of Britain and the oratories of . through cities and towns, universities and colleges, churches and monasteries, holding discussions with historians and visiting chroniclers, examining their books of annals, and conversing and debating knowledgeably with them, making a record of what he wanted. '

Bower, who was born in 1385, cannot have known Fordun regardless of which date for the latter's death is accepted, but even allowing for exaggeration on Bower's part we may rest assured that Fordun did use a great many, sometimes contradictory sources, and that during his 'research' he became acquainted with the Edwardian Wallace which had by then been well-established in English historiography. We know from direct quotation that he made use of Matthew of Westminster's Flores ~istoriurum,"and there is no reason to doubt that he perused at least some of the works of the other architects of the Edwardian image; Bower tells us that Fordun's material came "as much from [England] as in his own country."" We do not know the extent to which Fordun was aware of the Wallace 'cult,' which was well- established by the time he began his chronicle. but we do know that he was so dissatisfied with the portrayals of William Wallace he found in Flores Historiarum and the other English works that he did not use or even mention them. This worked to further the agenda of

Chrunica Genris Scotorldm, which, as a salvo in the 'war of historiography"' waged since the 1290s by English and Scottish lawyers and writers arguing the respective cases of their countries, embodies the defiant patriotism that had been developing so strongly in Scotland

I' "Introduction in Coupar Angus MS" in Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 14. For recent treatments of Fordun (focusing upon the tint five books rather than the gesta annalia) see Webster, Scotlandfrom the Eleventh Century to 1603, p.4447 and 54-55; Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p. 104- 132. For Watt's thoughts on Bower's claims in this passage, see Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.227 '' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.238 l3 "Introduction in Coupar Angus MS' in Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 13. Among the English sources used by Fordun were Bede. . , Henry of Huntingdon, Ailred of Rievaulx, and Higden's Polychronicon (Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.235). '' Goldstein coins the phrase 'war of historiography' in The Matter of Scotland, see in particular Chapters 2 and 3 after the onset of war with England.

If we can only speculate about Fordun's conversancy with the Wallace 'cult,' we know for certain that Andrew of Wyntoun was aware of it; near the end of his treatment of

Wallace's career in his Orygynalr Cronykil of Scotland, Wyntoun makes explicit mention of the "get gestis and ~angis"'~of William Wallace. Wyntoun was a of St. Andrews who, around the turn of the fifteenth century, became Prior of St. Serf monastery on he island of Loch Leven; the span of his life may have overlapped that of Fordun, as he will have been born at about the time of the earlier dating of Fordun's death. Although

Wyntoun's Scotland experienced its share of Anglo-Scottish warfare, of greater significance was the establishment of a new dynasty of Scottish monarchs - the Stewarts - and the turbulent state of Scottish domestic politics which accompanied it. When Robert Stewart became Robert LI King of Scots in 137 1, he succeeded a man in David II who had perceived him as a formidable opponent and had in consequence been favouring Stewart's political rivals for several years with royal endowmentd6 To secure his succession and establish the

Stewart dynasty, Robert I1 made his sons his principal vassals and decentralized royd authority in favour of strong regional magnates held together by blood and marital kinship.

This policy achieved its aims, but by limiting the king's personal power in important earldoms and lordships of Scotland it paved the way for strife between the Stewart kings and their increasingly powerful magnates once the political arrangements and kinship affinities established by the king gave way to jealousy and discord. This process was spearheaded by

none other than the king's own sons, who had become the most powerful magnates in

Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), V0l.V. p.3 18 Ib Boardman, &rly Stewurt Kings, p. 1-3 Scotland through their father's patronage. The king's eldest son and heir, John earl of

Carrick, emerged as the dominant Scottish magnate south of the Forth, which enabled him to assume the leading role in Anglo-Scottish relations and. after 1377, in the war effod7

This brought Carrick into close association with the southern earls of Douglas and their allies, who had initially opposed the succession of Robert II and remained resentful of the

Stewart monopoly upon the most important baronies ol the kingdom. Like Carrick, his younger brothers, Robert earl of Fife and Menteith and Alexander earl of Buchan and lord of Badenoch, had become extremely powerful under Robert U, md Alexander in particular generated a great deal of resentment in his handling of affairs in northern Scotland.'%

1384, sharing the growing general impatience with the king's support for Alexander and eager for a taste of royal authority,'' Carrick accused his father of providing inadequate leadership in military and judicial matters and seized control of Robert CI's government as guardian of the kingdom." Carrick served as for four years, but by

1388 his support had waned, largely due to his own inability to adequately control

~lexander.?' After the death of James earl of Douglas, Carrick's chief political ally. at

Otterbum in 1388, disputes arising among the successors of his various territories created a new Faction that looked to Carrick's younger brother Fife for support against the Carrick faction; when Robert II, who remained in close contact with Fife after 1384, threw his support behind the younger of his sons Carrick was forced to surrender the guardianship to

" see Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p. 1 1 1- 125 In it was as a result of his ruthless and aggressive career in northern Scotland that Alexander Stewart became known as 'the Wolf of Badenoch.' " Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.82-83. As Boardman states, "the traditional view of [John] as an unambitious and 'indolent' mincapable of, and uninterested in, the exercise of royal office is entirely groundless." 'I Boardman. Early Stewart Kings, p. 1 19- 1 24 '' Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p. 130- 135 his younger brother."

Much of this intrigue occurred while Wyntoun was still quite a young man; Robert earl of Fife and Menteith, who became duke of Albany in 1398, was the dominant figure in

Scottish politics throughout the chronicler's life, and his career will have influenced

Wyntoun greatly. Albany was a survivor and a deft manipulator of the political situation; he

managed to rctain his position as de faczo rulcr of Scotlmd for three yean after Carrick

succeeded their father as Robert JII in 1390. Although the king terminated his guardianship

in 1393. by 1398 Albany had assembled sufficient backing to push his older brother aside

once again with the help of the king's son and heir David, duke of Rothesay, who assumed

nominal control of the kingdom as lieutenad3 Dissatisfied by an increasing inability to

dominate his young nephew, Albany managed to pull apart the impressive network of

support Roben III had assembled for his son before accusing Rothesay of grave immorality

and having him seized and imprisoned in 140 1;" Rothesay died in his uncle's custody the

next year. Elevated to his deceased nephew's position of lieutenant, for the third time in

fifteen years Albany had succeeded in setting aside the duly constituted ruler of Scotland and

assuming his authority. Robert IIC, twice declared incapable of ruling his kingdom, made an

unanticipated return to public life beginning in 1404,~but only two years later, before he

could legitimately challenge his younger brother's position, he died. Shortly before the

king's death, his twelve-year-old heir James, who was on his way to France for sde-keeping,

was captured at sea by the English; with the new King of Scots both a minor and an English

" Boardman, Early Stewan Kings. p. 149- 15 1 see in particular Boardman, Early Srewart Kings, p.203-2 15 " Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.232-24 1 " Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.278-296 hostage. Albany's lieutenancy was extended. and taking control of his nephew's patrimony he governed Scotland until his death in 1420. The endless succession of political machinations by which the duke of Albany was able to maintain sufficient support to assert his personal authority over two kings - his father and elder brother - and two duly constituted guardians of the kingdom - his elder brother and his nephew Rothesay - must have clearly dcmonstratcd to Wyntoun both the blueprint by which one seemingly morc fit to mlc could establish himself above a rightful ruler, and the potential for disruption among strong magnates who chose not to support a rightful ruler; these revelations would be important to the chronicler's perception of William Wallace.

While such intrigue certainly dominated Wyntoun's Scotland. Anglo-Scottish

hostility remained significant as well. A marked period of Scottish aggression ensued after

the death of the much feared Edward III in 1377 by way of Border raiding, involving the

retinues of Border magnates like the earls of Douglas and March rather than royal armies,

and aimed primarily at reclaiming the English 'pale' from Benvick to Annandale. These

tactics brought notable success to the Scots. and the confirmation by Robert II of lands

acquired in this way demonstrite the king's support of his Border magnates, of whom his

eldest son and heir John earl of Carrick was the leading figure? Although 1384 and 1385

saw extended and destructive retaliatory English raids into Scotland, in August 1388, James

earl of Douglas led the Scots to a resounding victory over the English under Sir Henry

'Hotspur* Percy at Otterbum. As noted above. Douglas' death in this battle was devastating

to the political well-being of his ally Carrick, but ths victory created heady days of self-

'' Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.113-116. Boardm does not accept the 'traditional' view that Robert II was too ineffective to control his Border magnates, arguing that they had his full, if tacit, support. satisfaction during the truce which was established in 1389 and endured throughout the

1390s, during which time Wyntoun, no doubt influenced by these emotions. began his

Orygynale Cronykil, which he completed about 1413 and continued to revise until about

1426.'~ Things turned for the worse for Scotland after 1399, however, with an English invasion in 1400 under the new English king Henry N, who had lately usurped the throne of Richard II and had wived the claim of feudal overlordship in Scotland. Resuming their aggressive posture of the previous twenty years, the Scots were badly defeated in battles at

Nisbet Muir and Homildon Hill in 1402; in the aftermath of these reverses, Scotland was left vulnerable to English predation. limited somewhat by political instability in England and a renewed interest in war with France. Wyntoun must therefore have been further influenced in his perception of the English in Wallace's lifetime by the resentment and defiance of the

Auld Enemy which emerged during this period of Anglo-Scottish enmity after 1400.

Given the inconsistencies of detail between the Wallace stories which constructed the

Edwardian image. the extent to which Fordun and Wyntoun agree throughout their accounts of Wdlace is striking. They present the story of William Wallace in a progression through an illmost identical sequence of place and personal names; the only anomalous names appear in Wyntoun in his notations of the death of William Fraser, the bishop of Wyntoun's own diocese of St. ~ndrews,?~and the journey of Wallace to France after Falkirk,19 neither of which appear in Fordun. Even more striking than this almost identical sequence of names and events are two short moralizing passages which appear after the Falkirk episode in both chronicles. As Fordun put it:

" Boiudman, Early Stewart Kings, p. 144 Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol, V,p.3 10-3 12 '9 Chron, Wyntoun (Amours),Vol. V., p.3 18 And it is rerwkable that we seldom, if ever, read of the Scots being overcome by the English, unless through the envy of lords, or the treachery and deceit of the natives, taking them over to the other side.30

At the same place in Orygynale Cronykil, Wyntoun wrote:

And forouth than couth na man say, Na never wes sene befor that day, Sa haly vincust the Scottismen; Na yit it had nocht happinnit then, Had nocht bene falset and invy That devit thaim thm he^^.^'

These similarities indicate that the Wallace information in these chronicles was derived neither from eyewitnesses (in the case of Fordun) nor from the Wallace 'cult.' Even allowing for the unlikely scenario that contemporaries of Wallace could have been found by

Fordun (contemporaries like Robert Bruce and the elder Sir Thomas Gray had been dead for decades) there were certainly none available to Wyntoun, who wrote a full century after

Wallace's career, and so they would have been unable to produce such identical accounts.

The Wallace 'cult' certainly played an important role in how Fordun and Wyntoun interpreted their evidence pertaining to Wallace. and in particular how they interpreted the

Edwardian evidence. If it had figured significantly in their narratives, however, the Wallace stories of Fordun and Wyntoun would certainly have been very different, reflecting both natural inconsistencies within the body of Wallace legend, and the manner in which each chronicler interpreted and selected this legendary material.

It is therefore clear from these similarities either that Wyntoun copied his Wallace account from Fordun, or that they used a common written source independently. There is a lingering debate concerning whether or not Wyntoun made use of Fordun's Chronica as

'' Chron. Fordun, Annals CI, p.323 3' Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol.V, p.3 I6 a source; it was long believed that Forduds work never saw the light of day until it took the form of Waiter Bower's Scotichronicon, completed in the 1440s. hence Laing's assertion that

Wyntoun cannot have used Fordun.'* More recent work has been able to separate the works of Fordun and Bower, giving rise to the possibility that Wyntoun did use Fordun as a source, but it is equally if not more likely that the two chroniclers used as a common source for

William Wallacc "the 'Historia* of fony-one folios copied into the Great Register of St

Andrews Cathedral Priory which has been missing since the seventeenth century."33 For the purposes of this enquiry, it makes little difference whether Wyntoun copied Fordun or used his source, although it will be suggested that the latter is the case; what matters here is the nature of the Wallace image of the lost Register of St Andrews, copied whether directly or indirectly by both Fordun and Wyntoun.

The narrative of William Wallace's career which Fordun and Wyntoun preserved from the Register of St. Andrews. and which, as was suggested in the first chapter, may have influenced Sccrlrcronica's portrayal of Wallace, survived from the period of Wallace's lifetime. Its contemporaneous nature may on the surface suggest important insights into

Wallace's lifetime, as it must have done to Fordun and Wyntoun (and Gray), but in swiving the Register was subject to important later influences which, we must imagine, shaped its version of history generally and the Wallace image in particular. These influences were exerted foremost by Robert Bruce, after I306 Robert King of Scots, and the propagandists

" Ung, Chron. Wyntoun (Laing), Vol. I, p.xxxvi 33 Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9. p.245. Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603 refers to "the historical material contained in the long since lost 'Register of St. Andrews"' (p.47). See also Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.5 1-52. Watt argues that Fordun did not use the 'Register;' however a presentation of the evidence chat both Fordun and Wyntoun wdthis lost Register of St. Andrews for the period from the late 12th century to 1363 is forthcoming: Dnuvit Bmun. 'A new look at the Gestl Annalia attributed to Fordun" who supported and worked the will of this man. whose political career after 1296 involved numerous acts of questionable allegiance, legality and morality. Refusing to abandon their claim to the Scottish throne given to John Balliol in 1292, the Bruces found it difficult to support the Scottish resistance of 1297- 1304 as long as it continued to act in John's name;

Bruce's father adhered to King Edward throughout the struggle, while after joining the rcsistancc initially, Robert himself abandoned it in favour of the king's peace in 1302." In

1306. Roben began the process of usurping the Scottish throne by assassinating his principal political rival. John Comyn of Badenoch, in a church at Dumfries. and proceeded to seize a number of Scottish castles, including some that had been in Comyn hands.'5 Having been enthroned as King of Scots at Scone, Robert took arms against the considerable number of

Scots who "could accept neither the overthrow of the Cornyns nor the claims of Bruce, in their view a plain usurper;"" hostile magnates were compelled to do homage basically at swordpoint as Robert and his supporters continued to capture their castles." After having been defeated by the English near Perth, harried by his Scottish enemies and forced into exile. Robert returned to Scotland in 1307 to begin a campaign of guerilla warfare against both his English and his Scottish opponents, buoyed by r growing general support among his common subjects in response to the propaganda of what one Scottish foe called Robert's

"false preachers."'"iona Watson has described these activities as follows:

most of the country's natural leaders were eventually 'persuaded' of the 'legidmacy' of his actions not because of a genuine belief in the 'rightness* of his cause. but rather as a result of the judicious application of brute force. together with exemplary skills of diplomacy and

W Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 12 1 35 Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 148-49 Y Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 156 " Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 152 " Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 172 Robert ravaged Galloway, the stronghold of Balliol sympathy, in 1307 and moved on to make war upon John Comyn earl of Buchan and his allies the earls of Sutherland. Ross and

Atholl, achieving victory and despoiling Buchan by May 1308. Moving on to Argyll a little later that year, Robert subdued the hostile Macdougdls while his brother Edward returned ro Gallowily to continue the process of assuring Bruce of its submission "in an impetuous and savagely vengeful campaign."'1° After silencing dl but his most ardent opponents with his great victory over the English at Bannockburn in 13 14. Robert's position as King of Scots was sufficiently strong that he was able, along with his 'false preachers,' to turn his attention towards a long-standing need to re-tell the story of these events in order to justify his actions and "to make his kingship appear more generally supported in Scotland than in fact it was."41

More famous examples of Robert's subsequent fabrications of history exist.'" but the

Register of St. Andrews and its Wallace story, having survived from this period, can only have done so either because it was fabricated, or else carefully scrutinized and sanctioned. by Robert 1; in adopting it, Fordun and Wyntoun proliferated a 'Brucean'" image of William

Wallace, shaped by Robert's reconstruction of the past and imbued with his propaganda. The

most famous example of Brucean propaganda is without doubt the Declaration of ~rbroath,~

which includes the following passage on the subject of Robert's legitimacy:

our people ..did heretofore live in fmdom and peace until that mighty prince Edward. king of the English ...when our kingdom had no head... came in the guise of friend and ally to

'' Watson, 'The Enigmatic Lion" in Image and Identity, p.28 U) Barrow, Robert Bruce, p. 18 1 '" Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.8 1 42 see Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.79- 103; for a more recent consideration see Fiona Watson, "The Enigmatic Lion" in Image and Identiv. p. 18-37 "'see Goldstein's use of the modifying word 'Brucean' in The Maner of Scotiand, p.38 and 82 * Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.87-103 provides an historiographic examination of the Declaration invade them as an enemy. His wrongs, killings, violence, pillage, arson ...and yet ocher innumerable outrages... no one could fully describe or fully understand unless experience had taught him. But from these countless evils we have been set free by the help of him who though he afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most valiant prince, king and lord, the lord Robert who, that his people and heritage might be delivered out of the hands of enemies, bore cheerfully toil and fatigue, hunger and danger, like another Maccabeus or Joshua. Divine providence, the succession to his right according to our laws and customs... and the due consent and assent of us all have made him our prince and king. We are bound to him for the maintaining of our freedom both by his right and his merits ...and by him, come what may, we man to stand. Yet if he should give up what he has begun, seeking to deus or our kingdom subject to the king of England or to the English, we woufd strive at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own right and ours, and we would make other m;m who was able to defend us our king?'

Thus presented, Robert's legitimacy as king extended from four provisions: the providence of God; his being the rightful successor based upon the 'laws and customs' of Scotland; his having been the instrument of Scottish freedom. acting 'that his people and heritage might be delivered out of the hands of enemies'; and the 'due consent and assent' of Scotland.

According to the latter part of the passage. this 'due consent' could be revoked if Robert ever sought to undermine the freedom of the kingdom. This long passage from the and the political theory it spells out4' are critical to the understanding of the

Brucean image of William Wallace.

According to the architects of the Edwardian image, Wallace was initially subordinate to a group of magnates who comprised the true leadership of the Rising, and later emerged as its principal leader. The following passage from Fordun concerning

Wallace's relationship with these magnates, substantially repeated in Wyntoun, like

Scalacronica turns most of the contemporary English accounts on their heads by describing

the magnates of Scotland as having initially been subordinates of Wallace rather than the

opposite:

" Declaration of Arbroath in The Nation of Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath, p.35-36 * for a recent study of the political theory embodied in the Declaration of Arbroath. see Edward I. Cowan. "Identity, Freedom and the Declaration of Arbroath" in Image and Identity Wallace overthrew the English on all sides; and gaining strength daily, he, in a short time, by force, and by dint of his prowess, brought all the magnates of Scotland under his sway, whether they would or not. Such of the magnates, moreover, as did not thankfully obey his commands, he took and brow-beat, and handed over to custody, until they should utterly submit to his good pleasure. And when all had thus been subdued, he manfully betook himself to the storming of the castles and fortified towns in which the English ruled; for he aimed at quickly and loroughly freeing his country and overthrowing the enemy."

This passage describes a kind of coup d Ztat which, to an extent, is compatible with the works of the Edwardian architects, most of whom had noted that Wallace had been the commander of the Scots from the invasion of England to Falkirk. It also reflects the statement in Scalacronica, which may in fact have been based upon this passage in the

Register of St Andrews or something like it, that Wishart and Douglas had been 'adherents' of Wallace's before Stirling s ridge." The Brucean Wallace is afforded in this passage the distinction he had achieved in the popular mind but had been denied by even the most generous of the architects of the Edwardian image. It would have appealed to Fordun and

Wyntoun for this reason, aided perhaps by the existence of this reflection of the contemporary English works and whatever other evidence of Wallace's guardianship may have existed.J9

The effects of the manipulation by Brucean propaganda is, however, very clearly present in this element of the Brucean image, which is suspiciously similar to the account of

Wallace's trial in 1305, in which he was accused of having perpetrated such crimes against

English officials rather than the magnates of Scotland. and then of having gained the adherence of the leadership of cotl land.^^ The quoted passage is, in fact, little more than a

'' Chron. Fordun, Annds XCVQ p.32 1-22; for Wyntoun's version of this passage, see Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol. V, p.306 48 Scalacronica (Maxwell), p.20 for exam*. the letter of protection copied into Guisbomugh (p.306) or charters he issued. one of which. to Alexander Scrymgeour, survives (Wallace Documents, XVI, p. 16 L - 162) Wallace Documents, XXVIII, p. 19 1. He is charged with having consuluif the magnates of Scotland to adhere to him, which suggests a form of persuasion which may have included coercion. re-telling of the story of Robert Bruce. It was he who had 'overthrown the English on all sides' and who 'gaining strength daily' had 'by force and by dint of his prowess brough~all the magnates of Scotland under his sway.' It was also Robert who would later claim in the

Declaration of Arbroath that he had done these things, including seizing another man's throne, 'that his people and heritage might be delivered out of the hands of enemies,'" and the likeness between that phrase and Fordun's statement that Wallace acted in the nme of

'quickly and thoroughly freeing his country and overthrowing the enemy' is obvious. The end result of this passage is that the dubious elements of the careers of William Wailace and

Robert Bruce appear to mirror one another. By portraying him in this way, Robert's propagandists must have hoped to use Wallace, the popular hero who was already becoming a legendary figure, to provide Robert himself with an alleged precedent by which the king could be ensured greater favour among the masses. In the outlaw legends which were so important to the Wallace 'cult', it was surely said that he, like Robin Hood, had committed acts of dubious legality, and so making a similar claim here was certainly consistent with the

Wallace of legend. Robert may never have fully acknowledged his own indiscretions and questionable acts, but he was aware of the accusations, and by making Wallace equally

'guilty' of such things, Robert rendered them as undamaging to his own reputation as they had clearly become to Wallace's. By extension, to speak ill of Robert's actions and deeds was to speak ill of Wallace's; there can have been no more expedient way for Robert to have secured acceptance among the people than to have propagated and written into the official history that he was no more guilty of questionable deeds than the people's hero.

the nature of this justification is discussed by Edward J. Cowan, "Identity, Freedom and the Declaration of .4rbroaWTin Image and Identity, p.52-57 Equally, if not more important, Fordun's passage above also justifies Wallace's deeds using the same political theory which Robert put forward in the Declaration of Arbroath to argue his own legitimacy. In fact, what the Wallace passage represents is an illustration of that political theory put into practice, with Wallace in the role occupied Later by Robert himself. The capture, coercion and imprisonment of magnates by Wallace, the leader of a mob, which clergymen likc Fordun and Wjntoun would normally have condcmncd, is justified here by the fact that, as Fordun states, Wallace acted on behalf of "all who were in bitterness of spirit and weighed down beneath the burden of bondage,"" and the fact that 'he

aimed at thoroughly freeing his country.' Wyntoun had agreed, stating that "the Scottismen

fast till him drew that with the bglismen oft ware greiffit, and supprisit ~dre,"'~and that

Wallace "dunt talc on hand agane thare innerneis to ~tand."~Wallace is thus provided with two of the four provisions assigned by the Declaration of Arbroath to Robert Bruce in order to establish the latter's legitimacy: having acted with 'the due consent and assent of all of

us' and in order 'that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of

enemies'. These were in fact the principal foundations upon which Bruce based his own

claims to legitimacy.'' Further illustration of the Declaration's political theory occurs in

Fordun's reference to Wallace's subversion of 'the magnates as did not thankfully obey his

commands.' The implication here is that these magnates resisted Wallace's quest to fight

for the freedom of Scotland; they therefore assume the role assigned by the Declaration of

Arbroath to the wayward king who might 'seek to make us or our kingdom subject to the

52 Chron. Fordun, Annals XCVLII, p.321 53 Chron. Wynroun (Amours), Vol. V, p.304-306 54 Chron. Wynroun (Amours),Vol.V, p.306 55 Watson, 'The Enigmatic Lion" in Image and Identity, p.30 king of England' and who could be removed and disinherited for that reason, much as Bruce disinherited a number of his opponents. According to the Declaration's political theory, it was therefore only proper that the people of Scotland, under Wallace, fought 'to drive them out as their enemies and subverters of their own right and the people's' and having made

'some other man who was able to defend us (namely Wallace himselo their king.' or, in this case, 'their Guardian.'

Fordun and Wyntoun adopted this assertion of the Register of St Andrews that

Wdlace was the sole leader of Scotland during the Rising to reject the Edwardian image of

Wallace as initially having been a subordinate. and to reconcile the 'historical' Wallace. some of whose writs and charters still survived as evidence of his guardianship. with the

Wdlace of popular legend. Wyntoun may also have found the idea convincing in that twice during his own lifetime, in the reign of Robert II and the guardianship of his son John (later

Robert HI), an existing Scottish ruler was set aside due to ;m alleged inability to lead the kingdom in war with England." Both chroniclers were presumably unaware of the fact that what they were actually doing was accepting and propagating Brucean propaganda that

Robert and Wallace were kindred spirits. fighting what was essentially the same struggle, for what were essentially the same reasons, against what was essentially the same foe, and by extension supporting the claim that Roben had done nothing that Wallace had not done - that he was no greater a villain or less worthy a candidate to lead Scotland than Wallace had been.

In fact, according to his propaganda, Roben was a better candidate than Wallace. Fordun and Wyntoun only assigned to Wallace two of the Declaration of Arbroath's four provisions

'"Boardman. Early Stewart Kings, p. 1% and p. 152. The propaganda surrounding the latter event appears to have been responsible for common perceptions of Robert III as an invalid. for the legitimacy of Robert: they never speak directly of Wallace's having had the 'divine providence' (which is remarkable) or the 'right according to our laws and customs' that the

Declaration affords Robert Bruce in the passage quoted above.

In the context of the Brucean image, in which Wallace legitimately held the sovereignty of Scotland and had rendered its magnates his subordinates, indifferent or antagonistic attitudes assumcd towards him by those magnates take on a different character than they did within Scclklcronicu, which reported that Wishart and Douglas, who had been

Wallace's 'adherents', assured the English commander before Stirling Bridge "that they were no parties to the rising of William Wallace, albeit they had been adherents of his previously."" In the context of Sculacronica. which portrays Wallace as a popular champion but leaves his relationship with magnates unconsidered. the point is straightforward; there need be no expectation that the magnates would automatically support Wallace. He does not appear due more than token cooperation and support from the nobility, and if they frowned upon Wallace or even if some of them worked against him. it was understandable within the context of the Edwardian image, given his despicable character and his lack of social station.

In the context of the Brucean image, however, these actions render Wishart and Douglas as traitors to Wallace; thus, while in the contemporq English accounts Wallace's capture is simply noted, in Fordun's Chrunica it is explicitly described as an act of treacherysa

It is difficult to ascertain the provenance of the suggestion that Wallace was betrayed by some of the important Scottish magnates, which appears nowhere in the contemporary

English works and likely appears in Scalacronica because of Sir Thomas Gray's proximity

Scalacronica (MaxweiI), p.20 5n Chron. Fordun, Annals CXVI, p.332 to the Scottish view.59 It seems, however, to have been crucial to the Brucean propaganda, as discussed above, to portray Wallace as having been opposed by a significant number of the magnates in order to justify Wallace's coup d Ztat according to the political theory which

Robert placed into Declaration of Arbroath and which justified his own coup. Furthermore. having been opposed originally by much of his nobility, Robert appears to have been motivated ro understate 'for the record' thc role played in the Rising md the wars of independence by the Scottish magnates and to stress instead the role of the people? The effect of this fabrication of history was that in Robert's own time a perception was created

"that the wars with England were ...the product of a mass, rather than an elite, effort;"61at the same time "the middling to lowest classes doubtless shared in the production of national ideology."62 The Wallace story of Roben's propagandists was therefore not an exercise in indoctrination alone, but also an exercise in giving the 'middling to lowest classes' what they wanted to hex, and their perceptions as they existed in Robert's own time certainly shaped and were reflected in his propaganda. It cannot be surprising, then. that the Bruce-sanctioned

Register of St. Andrews presented a version ofthe story of William Wallace, the hero of the masses, in which the magnates appear unwilling to support him.

Despite the fact that it was unsubstantiated in the contemporary English record, the spectre of a treacherous nobility was certainly believable to Fordun, who will have been

"' a case might be made for hgtoft's chronicle, which states (in de Brunne's translation) after noting the flight from Falkirk of the Scottish cavalry, 'Tho fotefolk left don, if thei wild stand or fle JHelp had thei non, of tham ther hed suld be," and places Wallace among the infantry who were abandoned, rather than among the cavalry who fled [Wallace Documents (Stevenson), p.821. However, as Langtoft places Wallace mngthe infantry and both Fordun and Wyntoun place him among the cavalry who fled the field, it is highly unlikely that either was aware of Langtoft, whose portrayal of Wallace at Falkirk was more favounble than that presented in the Register of St. Andrews. Watson, 'The Enigmatic Lion" in Image and iderttity, p.3 1 Watson, *TheEnigmatic Lion" in Image and Identity, p.3 1 " Goldstein, The Matter of Scotlund, p.99 exposed to this popular mythology created by Robert and who lived through the political intrigues and strife of the later war of independence, when, after the death of Robert I in

1329, Edward Balliol, the son and heir of the dispossessed King John. returned to Scotland to advance a claim upon its throne. Backed by the English king Edward III, Balliol secured the support of the various Scottish magnates who had been disinherited or otherwise alicnatcd by Roben and cnjoycd considcrablc succcss, winning battlcs at Dupplin and

Halidon Hill and forcing Robert's young heir David [I into French exile by 1334. The allegations of the Register of St Andrews that a schism developed during Wallace's guardianship, resulting in il party of 'loyal' magnates fighting for Scottish independence on one side and a party of 'treacherous' magnates who accepted English suzerainty on the other, must therefore have sounded quite familiar to Fordun. It was certainly not lost upon him that even within the two 'parties,' politicai rivalries erupted which undermined the effectiveness of both sides. One of the main supporters and beneficiaries of Balliol's faction, David of

Strathbogie, deserted Balliol in 1334, only to switch sides again a year later, while at the same time the 'loyal* party became bitterly divided between the two guardians of the

kingdom, John earl of Moray and Robert Stewart, the king's nephew.63 It is uncertain if

Fordun lived to witness the 'baronial rebellion* against David II in 1363,~but if he did, and

if we accept Boardman's suggestion that Fordun was attached to David's court through the

king's ~ecretuy,6~the episode would only have reinforced his acceptance of the treachery

element within the Wdlace story. Wyntoun too must have found the idea of duplicitous

'' Boardm, Early Stewart Kings, p.5-6. see Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p. 17- 19 Boardman. Early Stewart Kings, p.36, n 108. The suggestion does not seem to require Boardman's acceptance of Fordun's death as having occwed around 1385 rather than the earlier date of L 363. magnates wholly believable due to the nature of Scottish politics during his lifetime. We

should not be surprised if Wyntoun perceived many parallels between the internal political climate of Wallace's lifetime and the successive waves of aristocratic machinations that

dominated Scottish politics in his own.

The episode in which the betrayal of Wallace by the magnates of Scotland is most

battle of Falkirk. Treachery seems to have been associated with the Scottish defeat at Falkirk

from a very early time; both Westminster and Rishanger had accused Wallace himself of

having forsaken the Scottish army there, while Scalacronicct had noted that he tled along

with some of the magnates. Even if these accusations are disregarded, however, to the

Scottish observer. for whom Wallace's activities in northern England were clearly not

perceived as the atrocities they were in the English accounts, the disaster at Falkirk remained

the greatest blot upon Wallace's reputation. Robert Bruce's greatest service to William

Wallace, though it was almost certainly a byproduct of Robert's agenda rather than a

principal concern, was to rehabilitate Wallace in this, the story of his darkest hour, by

blaming his fallibility upon the treachery of magnates. Having noted beforehand that Edward

1's army at Fdkirk included some Scottish magnate^.^ Fordun offered the following

explanation from the Register of St. Andrews for the defeat of Wallace and the Scots:

on account of the ill-will begotten of the spring of envy which the Comyns had conceived towards the said William [Wallace], they, with their accomplices, forsook the field and escaped unhurt. On learning their spiteful deed, the aforesaid William, wishing to save himself and his, hastened to flee by another road. But alas! Through the pride and burning envy of both. the noble Community of Scotland lay wretchedly overthrown throughout hill and dale. mountain and plain..And it is remarkable that we seldom if ever. read of the Scots being overcome by the English unless through the envy of lords or the treachery and deceii

Chron. Fordun, Annals CI. p.323; similarly. see Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol. V, p.3 14 of the natives. taking them over to the other side."

Accepting that Wallace had fled, this passage makes the point moot by implicating the

Comyns in the more significant treachery. A striking element of this passage is the mention of 'the pride and burning envy of both', referring to the Comyns and their accomplices on one hand and to Wallace on the other, since in Wyntoun's later chronicle the suggestion that

Wdiace also harboured 'pride and burning envy' does not appear." Clearly Wyntoun, writing in vernacular Scots for a popular audience, chose not to portmy Wallace in this way and opted for something more true to the Wallace 'cult.'

According to the Register of St. Andrews, then, the undeniable villains of Falkirk were the Comyn family; theirs is the only family mentioned by name as having betrayed

Wallace, with one important exception which will be dealt with below. The Comyns are further slandered in subsequent passages of Chronica Genris Scotorurn and Orygynale

Cronykil wherein they are singled out as the reason for Wallace's resignation of the guardianship. We may imagine that this resignation, in which he appears to abandon the

Scottish cause, had also been a stain upon Wallace's image. Wyntoun's exonerating version of Wallace's resignation is as follows:

Eftire that fecht within few dais, This ilk gud William Walls Persavit how he hatit was With the Cummyngis and thm purchas And, be sic sygnys as he had, In grct dout of tressoune stad, Beyond the wattir of Forth he Forsuke than wardane for to be Or yit that stait meto uphaid; Tak the cure hare quha sa wald. For him had levire to lif simpilly, Na undir sic dout in senyeory;

" Chron. Fordun, Annals CI, p.323 tin Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol. V, p.3 16 And the leill commonis of the land He wald nocht periss undir his hand?9

In these repeated indictments of the Comyns for their duplicity the influence of Robert Bruce upon the Brucean image of William Wallace could not be more obvious. The Comyns had been the most influential aristocratic family in the kingdom of Scots at the outset of the troubles with Edward I, and after the removal of King John in 1296. with whom the Comyns were associated by marriage, they led the establishment of an independent Scottish government at Aberdeen which ruled in John's name." In the interests of their own claim to the Scottish throne, the Bruces had been a thorn in the side of John and the Comyns for fifteen years before Robert assassinated John Comyn of Badenoch in Dumfries in 1306 and claimed the throne as his own. Thereafter, the Comyns had cooperated with the English in driving Robert into exile, and being ultimately unable to stem the tide of his growing acceptance they finally fled to England as Robert forfeited their Scottish lands and titles, transferring these to his main supporters and friends. After Robert's great victory at

Bannockbum in 13 14, the Comyns continued to agitate the English court against him and to secretly cultivate friendships and alliances among the Scottish magnates, and they would ultimately seek to restore themselves to their former status in Scotland by joining Edward

Balliol, the son of King John, in his invasion of Scotland after Robert's death.

Robert can have been only too aware of the continuing threat posed by the exiled

Comyns and their sympathizers who remained in Scotland, and the Wallace story he sanctioned within the Register of St. Andrews is clearly an attempt to tarnish his principal foes as much as possible. This may also explain the closing point with respect to the battle

* Chmn. Wyntoun (Amours), VoLV, p.3 18 '"Fiona Watson. 'The Enigmatic Lion" in Image and Identity, p.26 of Fdkirk, made in turn by both Fordun and Wyntoun, that 'we seldom*(in Fordun's words)

'if ever, read about the Scots being overcome by the English, unless through the envy of lords or the treachery and deceit of the natives.' This point may have been made by Robert to serve as both an explanation of his own later actions and a warning for the future. The unscrupulous and merciless deeds perpetrated by Robert against his political opponents were thercby justificd. sincc to have allowcd thcm to rcmain strong in Scotland was to assent to a potentially treacherous atmosphere which could result in English domination, while at the same time Robert was warning those who might support these exiles that in so doing they supported English overlordship.

Once again, Fordun and Wyntoun probably adopted this unsubstantiated element of the Wallace story within the Register of St. Andrews primarily because it was reasonably consistent with the Wallace legend, made more believable still by the course of events of their own lifetimes which appeared to mirror the past, and as such unwittingly proliferated

Brucean propaganda. Robert would seem to have suggested that Wallace's own pride and envy was not unimportant in his downfall, an idea which Wyntoun seems to have rejected.

In Wyntoun's work in particular, Wallace thus becomes an injured innocent who was blameless for his own undoing. Wyntoun no doubt could identify with the sinister portrayal of the Comyns, as a witness to the career of George Dunbar earl of March. whose actions at the turn of the fifteenth century were central to the downturn of Scottish fortunes in Anglo-

Scottish conflict during Wyntoun's lifetime. In 1400, insulted by the breaking of an agreement which would have seen his daughter married to David, duke of Rothesay and heir of Robert ID, Dunbar invoked his kinship with the new king of England, Henry IV, through the Comyns7[ and transferred his allegiances, offering Henry easy passage into Scotland should he choose to invade." This defection led to a destabilization of the Border and the renewal of hostilities between the two kingdoms after a decade of peace, and ultimately to the disastrous Scottish defeats of 1402, in which Dunbar played a crucial role among the forces of Henry IV.

As mentioned above. there was one additional figure against whom Fordun and

Wyntoun leveled charges of treacherous conduct at Fdkirk, that figure being none other than

Robert Bruce himself:

It is commonly said that Robert Bruce, who afterwards was king of Scotland but then fought on the side of the king of England, was the mms of bringing about this victory. For while the Scots stood invincible in their ranks... this Robert Bruce went with one line, under Anthony of Bek, by a long road round a hill, and attacked the Scots in the rear.73

This passage occurs in Cllronica Gentis Scotonorn after the treachery of the Comyns is explained and after the list of the notables who fell. This is significant, because in Orvgynule

Cronykii this passage dealing with Bruce appears tint:

Bot yit the le1e trew Scottisrnen, That with Wallace were fechtand then, Stude togidder uertanely, Defendand thame full mnlely, Sa that nane thiue thrill thaim mycht; Bot Robert the Bruss than with a slycht, That (hue wes than with King Edward, Set he oure king wes eftirwart, With Antone the Beik, a wickit man, And wyly bischop of Durehame than, About a hill la preve way Out of the stclure thai stall that day, And come behind the Scottisrnenis bak, And slew, iind hewit and maid fell hak, And maid alhaill discornfitoure Off the Scottis men in that stoure?

" R.C. Paterson, My Wound is Deep, p.2 1-23 P- Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.227-228 Chron. Fordun, Annals CI, p.323 '''Chron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol. V,p.3 14-3 16 Robert Bruce's actual activities at Falkirk are not known. but Barrow, who portrays him has having been firmly supportive of the Scottish resistance from the outset until 1302, suggests strongly that Robert fought on the Scottish side at Falkirk. making his way to his earldom of

Carrick when the battle was abandoned." There is, however, no doubt that Robert was in

Edward's camp after 1302, and in that capacity he was one of the leaders of an English force which attacked and muted a force led by Wallacc and Sir of Oliver Castle near

Peebles in February 1304." It may therefore have been this later episode which gave rise to an element of the Wallace 'cult' that Robert fought against Wallace at Falkirk.

Influenced as it was by Brucean propaganda, the Register of St. Andrews cannot have originally included this story; the fact that the passage occurs in different places within the two chronicles may indicate that it was an interpolation to the original text of the Register, which had cast direct aspersions only upon the Comyns - as it continued to do in the following section dealing with Wallace's resignation of the guardianship. Each chronicler would appear to have inserted the passage where he felt it best fit his narrative. resulting in one of the only significant differences in the manner in which each chronicle progresses through the events of Wallace's career. This would seem to suggest that Wyntoun did not copy Fordun, but his source. The possible provenance of this marginal note is open to question; it can obviously not have been made prior to Robert's death in 1329, and it is very uniikely to have been until the last half of the reign of his son David !I,perhaps right around the time when Fordun was at the height of his 'research.' The words 'It is commonly said thut '-the phrase leading into Fordun's description of Robert's role in the battle but which

'' Barr~w,Robert Bruce, p. 101-103. Also p. 109. '' Barrow. Robert Bruce, p. 142 does not appear in Orygynafe Cronykd - may be very significant. It need not have happened this way, but it is tempting to believe that Fordun himself, who certainly believed the accusation even though he acknowledged it was only legend. may have been responsible for appending the interpolation to the original as he copied it, and if he failed in the process to indicate that it was only 'commonly said' rather than a fact, Wyntoun would have read it as fact rather than s rumour. Whether or not Fordun made the note himself, however, it was certainly made during his lifetime (or he could not have used it) and so if we accept the earliest dating of his death cannot have been made after 1363.

The ideas that he held the sovereignty of Scotland and was betrayed by men like the

Comyns. Robert Bruce and John Menteith were only the first steps in the construction of the

Brucean image of William Wallace; there was still the matter of his relationship with the people. about which the Edwardian image maintained Wallace was an agitator and, in some cues, r popular champion. As noted above, Fordun described Wallace's followers as "all who were in bitterness of spirit 'and weighed down beneath the burden of bondage under the

unbearable domination of English while Wyntoun described them as those

Scots who 'with the [nglismen oft ware greiffit, and supprisit sire.' What is notable here

is that unlike the contemporary English works, the Register of St. Andrews does not seem

to have referred to Wallace's followers or supporters as either the cornmunitas or the populus

until Falkirk. The former, as was noted in the first chapter, had a particular political

meaning, indicating the community of the realm of Scotland. which the English observers

evidently mistook to be interchangeable with the latter; Bruceim propaganda would therefore

seem to have denied Wallace the support of the community of the realm at the outset of his

* Chron. Fordun, Annds XCVIII, p.321 career. something which Wallace himself claimed to have se~ured.'~In this way, the

Register of St Andrews preserves further likeness between Wallace and Bruce, providing that both men were subordinate to 'the due consent and assent of us all' but opposed by at least some portion of the magnates, something which Fordun and Wyntoun presumably found acceptable and preferable to the Edwardian ideas of the populus or the cornmunitas because it was in line with the outlaw traditions of the Wallace 'cult.' Once again, however unwittingly. they were putting forth Brucean propaganda.

Although they almost completely disregarded the details provided by the architects of the Edwardian image, the architects of the Brucean image of William Wallace nevertheless ensured that they dealt with these two important elements of the earlier image -

Wallace's relationships with the people and with the magnates - in order to refute it.

Furthermore, Fordun and Wyntoun used the Register of St. Andrews to address the confused and sometimes contradictory inconsistencies with respect to chronology within the

Edwardian image, establishing a firm and consistent narrative. In 1296, Wallace killed the sheriff of Lanark, rcn episode depicted in Scalncronicu, and rose to prominence through his wup d In 1297. having driven the English from Scotland and defeated their army in

September at Stirling Bridge, he invaded England from Hallowmass to Christmas. In 1298, he was defeated at Falkirk in July and resigned the leadership of Scotland, and as noted above Wyntoun says he went to France for a time, a detail Rishanger had recorded, before returning to Scotland. Wallace is only mentioned once more, being noted as the only notable man who did not submit to Edward in 1303-04, before his capture and death in 1305; this

'' Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.9 1 '' in fact, Wallace did not begin his rising until the spring of 1297 mention of a career after Falkirk, going to France and then returning and refusing to submit to Edward, is notable, but is not developed in either chronicle beyond mere mention.

Having addressed the English perceptions, which is to say their alleged misperceptions, of Wallace's relationship with the Scottish people and magnates and his role in the rising of 1297, the architects of the Brucean image also considered the other two foundations clT the Edwardian image, Wallace's origins and his character. in so doing,

Fordun and Wyntoun, whose chronology and general vision of Wallace's career are so similar, notably followed significantly different courses, each of which must be considered separately. Fordun seems to invoke the Edwardian image in his opening statement. clearly metaphorical, that Wallace "lifted up his head from his den - as it were."" On the subject of Wallace's origins, about which the contemporary English observers had emphasized his ignobility and his obscurity, Fordun states the following:

though among the earls and lords of the kingdom, he was looked upon as lowbom, yet his fathers rejoiced in the honour of knighthood. His elder brother, also, was girded with the knightly belt, and inherited a landed estate, which was large enough for his station, and which he bequeathed. as a holding, to his de~cendimts.~'

On the matter of Wallace's character, about which the architects of the Edwardian image had stated that he was a murderous cut-throat and a faithless traitor, Fordun wrote that he was

"wondrously brave and bold of goodly mien, and boundless liberality."" He also includes none of the ghastly details, such as the butchering of Cressingham at Stirling Bridge or the atrocities associated with the invasion of England, which had been so important to the architects of the Edwardian image in constructing their views of Wallace's character.

Fordun's presentation of Wallace's origins and character should be seen as that of the

'' Chron. Fordun (Skene), p.321 '' Chron, Fordun (Skene), p.32 1 a Chron, Fordun (Skene), p.32 1 Register of St. Andrews in more or less pure form, upon which Fordun may well have intended to expand or comment but was deprived of the opportunity by his death. Once he finally kgan to compose Chroniciz Gentis Scotorum after his alleged long 'research' period. he was only able to complete the first five books; the last part of his work the so-called gesta clnnalin which include that part which deals with Wallace, amount only to Fordun's notes on the htar history. He died before he had the opportunity to property develop this "nu. material for history rather than [history] it~elf."'~

It may have been this perception of Wallace's origins and character in the Register of St Andrews which shaped Sir Thomas Gray's Wallace story in the 'chivalrous' history of

Scdc~cronicu.It was argued in the first chapter that the architects of the Edwardian image were utterly ignorant of Wallace's origins and character, and made educated guesses about both based upon the facts as they understood them, understandably influenced by their biases.

The Brucean image of Wallace's origins and character as presented in Chronica Gentis

Scotorurn amounts only to rejection and simple contradiction of the Edwardian image, and we are left to wonder about the extent to which the Brucean view is anyhng more than this - the extent to which the 'truth' about Wallace's origins and character mattered to Robert and his propagandists in their goals of fabricating an 'acceptable' version of history and transmitting it to the people in order to secure their understanding and their favour is not likely to have been high. We cannot, moreover. know how well Roben Bruce knew William

Wallace; however, because of Wallace's apparent connections with the Stewarts, Robert's main supporters. it is at least possible that he learned something of Wallace's origins and character. If we accept Barrow's suggestions that Robert fought in Wallace's army at Fallcirk

'' Webster, Scotlnnd from the Eleventh Century to 1603. p.45 and was the man who knighted Wallace, we may imagine that he knew him well enough to have made the observations on his origins and character which appear in Fordun's chroni~le.~However, the idea of Wallace's respectability may also be nothing more than

Robert's attempt, perhaps drawing upon the Wallace 'cult,' to augment the propriety of his having conferred knighthood on Wallace. We cannot be certain, but a case can be made that the process by which the Register of St. Andrew constructed its image of William Wallace's origins and character was the same as that which was employed by the architects of the

Edwardian image. If they had no more personal knowledge of Wallace's origins or chancter than the English chroniclers had, Robert and his propagandists came to conclusions about them bused upon the body of evidence of the Wallace 'cult.' where the architects of the

Edwardian image had come to their own conclusions based upon the body of evidence consisting of the record of Wallace's deeds in England.

Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil was composed under circumstances quite different from Fordun's and these markedly affected his consideration of Wallace's origins and

~hancter.'~Writing in vernacular Scots verse rather than in Latin prose, Wyntoun. like John

Barbour, whose vernacular Bnu blazed the trail for Orygynale Cronykil, intended his work to be read by a popular audience vastly different from Fordun's educated and literate one.

In addition, Wyntoun lived to make significant revisions of his completed work. so that his view of Wailace taken from the Register of St. Andrews is fully developed and includes a number of extra elements. On the subject of Wallace's origins, Wyntoun states:

" Barrow, Roben Bruce, p.344-45 (n38 & n41) " for recent treatments of Wyntoun, see Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Cer~turyto 1603. p.47-49 and 53-54; Goldstein, "'For he wdd vsurpe nn fame': Andrew of Wyntoun's Use of the Modesty Topos and Literary Culture in Early FifteenthCentury Scotland" in Scottish Literary Journal. Vol. 14, No. 1. (1987). pp5- 18 focuses upon Wyntoun's self-effacing tendencies William Wallace in Clydisdaiil... In sempill stait thocht he wes then, Yit wes he cumrnyn of gentill men; His fader wes a manly knycht. And his moder a lady brycht, And he gottin in mariage. His eldare brother the heretage Had, and ioisit in his dais.86

Wyntoun has here added to the account of the Register of St. Andrews that Wallace was a

legitimatec. child. that his mother was 'a lady brycht*, and that he came from Clydesdale.

These new elements to the story of Wallace's origins may reflect some additional sources, but it is at least as likely that Wyntoun simply decided to include a certain measure of popular tradition from the Wallace 'cult* in his narrative to appeal to his popular audience.

His mention of Wallace's legitimate birth is interesting. as it suggests that somewhere there was a measure of doubt about this which must have been significant enough to demand

Wyntoun's refutation. although the Edwardian works do not mention it explicitly.

On the matter of Wallace's character. Wyntoun has a great deal more to say than had

Fordun. He sums up the Register's view that Wallace "wes stout and liberall. and wyse and happy in g~uernall."'~but adds to this that "off stature he wes strang and stout"" adthen includes a lengthy episode describing the harkincident, clearly derived from the traditions of the Wallace 'cult', which reveals important additional elements of Wallace's character.

Wallace is depicted. as he was in Guisborough, as aggressively antagonistic towards the

English. picking a fight with them. and then. after the 'luftennand* of Lanark executes his

mistress for having saved him from capture, Wallace attacks Lanark and murders the

'luftennand' in retaliation because he "for hir wes in hen sary."" This episode underlines

" Chron. Wynrourr (Amours), Vol. V, p.298-300 '' Chron. Wynroun (Amours), Voi. V,p.306 Ci~ron.Wynroun (Amours), Vol. V, p.298 " Chron. Wynroun (Amours), Vol. V, p.304; the entire episode occurs on p.300-304 important facets of Wallace's character, and indeed his circumstances, which take o prominent place within the Brucean image. Scalacronica and even Rishanger had introduced the idea that Wallace was more than a simple thief; through Wyntoun's Lanark story we see a Wallace who refuses to be a victim and becomes aggressive rather than passively enduring an English insult. This aspect of William Wallace leads to what becomes the essence of his

Brucean character, and the foundation upon which his leadership was based. As Wyntoun put it, "William Wallace ...saw his kyne supprisit haill with hglismen in gret dispite, rhare hmys sone he thocht to q~yte."~The suggestion that Wallace was motivated to undertake his bloody career against the English in order to 'quyte' the 'hmys' of 'his kyne' clearly augments the quality of his character; it resurfaces in the later statements of both Fordun and

Wyntoun that part of the reason Wdlace resigned as guardian had to do with the remorse he felt for having led so many of his followers to their deaths." The Lanark story also provides the Wallace image with another important innovation. The architects of the Edwardian works had, for obvious reasons, failed to suggest that there was anything untoward about the nature of the English occupation of Scotland after 1296. Fordun, for equally obvious

reasons, had taken the injustice of that occupation for granted when he described Wallace's

followers as 'all who were in bitterness of spirit, and weighed down beneath the burden of

bondage under the unbearable domination of English despotism,' but this important aspect

of the Brucean image is actually illustrated vividly for the first time in Wyntoun's Lanark

story. In addition to speaking about 'oppression' as a concept, Wyntoun gws further and

actually provides an example of it in action.

Chron. Wyntoun (Amours),Vol. V,p.298-300 '' Chron. Fordun, Annals CII. p.324; Chron. Wyntoun (Amours),Vol V, p.3 18 In his belief that Wallace was 'wyse and happy in gouernall,' a position which could not be substantiated, Wyntoun was almost certainly making an assumption based upon perceived parallels between the guardianship of Wdlace and the dominance of Scotland by

Robert Stewart duke of Albany throughout Wyntoun's adult life. The echoes of Albany's career within that of William Wallace as it appeared in the Brucem source material were loud md many. Xlbimy's expression of his legitimacy in terms of having provided Scotland with the "sound government and ...successes in war and dipl~macy'"~that the kingdom could not expect from the rightful king were similar to the Brucean view of Wallace's legitimacy, ilnd like the Brucem Wallace, Albany found that some of his opponents sought refuge and support in England; Sir Malcolm Drurnrnond, indeed. had turned his Scottish lands over to

King Richard II of England in exchange for safe conduct? It can only have been as a result of the failures of Robert II and Ill and the successes of Albany that Wyntoun came to the conclusion that "the ability to inspire terror was an essential and desirable part of successful king~hip,"~and Wyntoun may well have perceived such ability in Wallace's successful campaign against the magnates who opposed him. The duke of Albany had proven to be one of the most successful political figures Scotland ever produced, and Wyntoun may have imagined that since Albany and Wallace appeared to be similar men with similar acumen. the latter must also have been a successful ruler.

Wallace emerges in his Brucean incarnation as a greatly significant figure with both a background and a character defined by respectability and a measure of knightly honour, set at obvious odds with the Edwardian image. Rather than having initially been a puppet of the

'' Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p, 175 q3 Boudm, Early Stewart Kings, p. l66-167 yj Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.302 magnates, or even being independent of the nobility, the Brucean Wallace saw them essentially as enemies because they stood in his way of ensuring the freedom of Scotland, and to serve the end of this freedom he subdued them and took control of the kingdom. In so doing, he assured himself of the enduring enmity of the greatest of the magnates, the

Comyns and the Bruces, which manifested itself ultimately in his betrayal and ruin.

Although the Bruceao image contradicts thc Edwardian image at eyery turn, however. it retains the same framework as its predecessor. answering only the same questions about

Wallace's origins. chmcter, and role in the Rising, and this is the link between the two images which is otherwise impossible to detect.

Just as importantly, however. the Brucean image of William Wallace emerges as an exemplary figure fabricated and utilized by Robert Bruce to exert an influence upon contemporary politics and public perceptions. Although Fordun and Wyntoun presumably had it in their hearts only to set the historiognphicd record straight with respect to Wallace, it was hardly the principal aim of their main written source; indeed. it was hardly an aim of that source at dl. Robert I had sanctioned this story of William Wallace neither to give

Wallace his 'due' nor to set the record straight; he had done it to tell the Scottish people what they wanted to hear and to strengthen and deepen their acceptance of the king himself. It seems to have worked: by the time of Barbour's Brus in the 1370s, Robert seems to have become such a popular hero in his own right that it was no longer necessary even to mention

Wallace's name in that great work. The image of William Wallace. even at this early date, had already become more important than the 'truth;' it would not be the last time that the image would be invoked in the interests of strengthening a political or moral position.

Dealing with the subject of the 'real' Wallace, the Victorian historian John Ross wrote:

whatever exaggerations and fictions in [the] legend may veil the simple outlines of the real life, the likeness [presented by Scottish works] is truer even in its most extravagant dress than the malignant caricatures of the English

This chapter has argued that while the 'gret gestis and sangis' of popular tradition may have played n part in shaping the first Scottish historiographical image of William Wallace. that

'truer' image was nevertheless shaped primarily by the 'caricatures' (to borrow Ross' word) of the propaganda office of Robert I. We may therefore consider it as open to criticism as the Edwardian image on points of fact, but we cannot deny its greater importance as an influence upon the future. Edward Cowan has identified "an identity - or empathy - of attitude. mindset and behaviour which can be traced to the heady years of 1290- 1 320, which received its finest articulation in the Declaration of Arbroath and which also owed much to the inspirational legend of William Wallace."* It has been argued here that this complicity between the Declaration and the Wallace story was in fact a deliberate ploy engineered by

King Robert. The manufacture of the resulting Brucean image of William Wallace was, as it turned out. a preliminary exercise. Within a century, both Fordun and Wyntoun would be succeeded by works which would take their visions of Wallace in new and dynamic directions to forge yet a new Wallace image; we must question, however, the extent to which

Walter Bower and Blind Harry understood the debts owed by the Wallace image upon which they built to the judicious historical reconstruction of Robert I.

YS John Ross, Scottish History and Literature, p.75 V" Cowan, "Identity, Freedom and the Declaration of Arbroarh" in image and Identity, p.63 William Wallace: 'Hammer of the English' A 'Symbol for All Time'

The Brucean image of William Wallace monopolized Scottish historiography for more than a century, passing from the Register of St Andrews 'historia* through Fordun's

Chronica to Wyntoun's Cronykil; during the latter part of this period, in 1385, a new phase

in the deveiopment of the Wallace image began with the birth or into a

Scotland which was once again at war with the English.' During his childhood and early

manhood, the period in which Wyntoun produced Orygynale Cronykil, the vicissitudes of

Anglo-Scottish relations Bower observed must have made an appreciable impression. He

was fifteen, and had presumably not yet become an Augustinian canon in his hometown of

ad ding ton.' when Henry IV of England invaded Scotland in 1400; he was seventeen when

the Scots were crushed at Hornildon Hill two years later, and twenty-one when the English

captured Prince James in 1406 and made him their prisoner. Having grown to adulthood

during this period of Anglo-Scottish strife, becoming the abbot of the Augustinian

community of (which in 1384 had been ravaged by John of Gaunt, Duke of

anc caster)' in April 1418: Bower's antipathy towards the English and his patriotic spirit

became rooted not in the wars of independence, but in the attitudes of his own lifetime. His

was a different chauvinism, born of a different experience, than those which had shaped the

'historia' of the Register of St Andrews, Fordun's Chronica and Wyntoun's Cronykil.

Anglo-Scottish conflict produced only some of Bower's passionate views.

' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.204 ' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.204 ' R.C. Paterson, My Wound is Deep, p.5 ' Chron. Bower (Watt). Vo1.9, p.205 Throughout his abbacy, indeed from 1406 until his death in 1449 at the age of sixty-four,

England and Scotland established a series of reasonably effective tr~ces,~during which

Bower was largely concerned with Inchcolm' s legalistic property dispute^.^ A generation younger than Andrew of Wyntoun, Bower will have been influenced in his politics to a degree by the events of the reign of Robert Dl, who died when Bower was twenty-one in

1406; more significant were the years in which Robert, dukc of Albany governed Scotland during the captivity of his nephew James. Like Wyntoun, Bower probably perceived

Albany's career as exemplary of how a man more fit to rule than the existing ruler might establish himself, while also demonstrating the disruption a strong magnate who did not support the rightful ruler could visit upon the kingdom.' More important for Bower's perception of politics and William Wallace. however, was his personal participation in the reign of James I, which commenced after the king's release from England in 1424. Much as his grandfather Robert II had done in 1371, although under markedly different circumstances, James stepped into a kingdom in 1424 which had been arrayed against him by his 'predecessor,' with its principal baronies occupied by men who considered themselves the king's opponents. Robert duke of Albany, the king's uncle. who had invalidated James* father Robert m,arranged the death of lames' brother Rothesay and prolonged the king's own captivity in order to remain in power, had died in 1420, and his son Murdoch fortified himself in anticipation of the king's return from captivity, drawing support from the magnates who had benefited most from supporting his father's long and successful

Bowet*~death "in 1449 on Christmas Eve" was recorded in the Corpus Christi College manuscript of Scotichronicon, Chron. Bower (Watt),Vo1.9, pA5 Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.205 see Chapter Two tie~tenancy.~Almost immediately upon his amvd in Scotland, and even before his official enthronement, James began asserting his royal rights, restoring his revenues, arresting his most intransigent opponents and altering the balance of baronial power to reflect his own interests.' Assuring himself of the support of the powerful Douglases and Alexander lord of the Isles, the king avenged the royal line against the Albany branch of his family, and also eliminated his main political rivals, by executing Murdoch's two baronial sons, his main ally the earl of Lennox, and Murdoch himself, as traitors in 1425." Walter Bower's position as abbot merited his inclusion in the councils of James I; we know for certain that his services were elicited by the king" and he may well have witnessed the trial of the Albany Stewuts.

Powerful, energetic and able, almost certainly in consequence James I was also generally unpopular, even if Bower saw his reign as the model of good kingship. The single-minded eradication of his familial opponents sent a chilling message to the Scottish nobility and assured the king of their enduring suspicion; having alienated the allies of the Albany

Stewarts, James succeeded in alienating still more of his magnates as he worked to increase royal control and influence in areas which had been devoid of the same since the settlements through which Robert Il had secured the succession of the Stewart dynasty. The king actively undermined the personal power of his most eminent magnates, including the earls of Douglas and Mar, the principal figures in the south and north respectively, and the lord of the Isles, against whom James waged an extensive campaign from 1428 to 143 1.

Increasingly problematic for the king was his growing reputation as a greedy monarch, which

Brown, James I, p.30-3 1 ' Brown, James 1, p.42-49 "' see Brown, James 1, p.54-66 '' Chron. Bower (Wan),Vo1.9, p.206 was rooted in his initial taxation for the payment of his ransom and exacerbated by his avid pursuit of traditional sources of royal revenue and desire to provide his court with the appearance of a 'modern' monarchy; by 143 1, James' grip upon the kingdom was being undermined by increasingly strong parliamentary opposition to his taxes."

The general dissatisfaction made the king's decisions after 1430 more difficult and more subject to criticism. From the outset of James* return from England, there had been concerns in Scotland that his former closeness with the English court during his captivity would result in friendliness with the Auld Enemy and a corresponding abandonment of the

Auld Alliance with the French.I3 In 1428, however, the king renewed the as a means to apply pressure to the weilk regency of Henry VI in hopes of reducing the outstanding terms of his release from captivity,'"and made a very favourable truce agreement with the English in 143 1.Is in 1433. Bower attended an important general council at Penh convened to discuss an English proposal for a permanent peace which would include the to Scotland of Roxburgh and Berwick, both of which had remained in English hands since the last war of independence. The king was an "enthusiastic" proponent of this initiative,'' which would have seen the Scots realize the territorial objectives of the previous fifty years of Anglo-Scottish hostility, but it was ultimately rejected, and Bower himself was one of its opponents." So bitter, in fact, was opposition to the peace proposal of 1433 that once it had been defeated. the situation on the Border deteriorated rapidly and the chief

'"rown, James 1. p. 139- 140. James was even unable to raise enough money to finance a retaliatory campaign against the lord of the Isles after the royal forces were defeated in battle at Inverlochy in 143 1. l3 Brown, James I. p.29 '' Brown, James I. p. 1 10 l5 Brown, James I. p. 13 1 '" Brown, James I, p. 153 l7 Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.207 advocate of the proposal at Perth, the abbot of Melrose, was forced to recant that support."

This was a bitterness Bower must have shared, and he must have held the advocates of the peace in the same kind of contempt in which the unfortunate abbot of Melrose had been held. Bower's attitude towards the peace proposal discussed at Perth is important in understanding his perception of William Wallace. Despite almost twenty years of relative peace - indeed, of profound peace by Anglo-Scottish stmduds - it is clear thiu Bower (and others) moved perhaps by unhappy memories of his youth, harboured a continuing distrust and resentment for the English. In Bower's particuliu case, however, this contempt was the result of more than simple anti-English bias. Formal peace with England in 1433 would have constituted a betrayal of the Auld Alliance with the French and would presumably have frictured Scotland between pro-English and pro-French factions. This latter point seems to have been of great concern to Bower, who explained his opposition to the 1433 peace proposal as follows:

There was such a wrangle that support for breaking the treaty [with France] dwindled away; instead it was finally agreed that the English were trying in this matter to stir up division in our kingdom, since it was very clear that they were not really proposing to restore to us what belonged to us. l9

The advocates of peace with the English were therefore doubly offensive to Bower, not just because they favoured the hated Auld Enemy but also because by doing so they seemed to advocate an atmosphere which could only foster disloyalty, duplicity and disruption among the great men of the realm. Writing in the 1440s. Bower's expression of fears of divisiveness and disharmony may have been inspired by what he witnessed within Scottish politics after

Penh. In 1435. perceiving the growing instability in Scotland, the Enghsh attitude changed,

'' Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XV1, Ch.24, p.291 '' Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XVI, Ch.23, p.289-9 1 hostilities along the Border resumed." and the next year James I married his daughter

Margaret to the Dauphin of France and personally launched a siege of Roxburgh. This siege revealed the extensive gulf which had been growing between James and his supporters and the rest of the Scottish nobility for several years, leading to its dismal failure and the humiliation of the king." Less than half a year later, after having called for taxes to revitalize the war effort, Jamcs I was stabbcd to dcath by assassins.

Bower's general admiration for James I and his disgust at those who disrupted his kingship and ultimately participated in his murder gave rise to a burning contempt on the abbot's part for magnates who placed ambition ahead of loyalty and who would stop at nothing, willing even to commit treason or to murder a king. in order to achieve their personal gods. h 1447, some two years before his death, Walter Bower put the finishing touches on his ~cotichronicon,"a continuation of the historical narrative of Fordun's

Chronicu commissioned by Sir David Stewart of Rosyth. The work contains a Wallace image infused with intense patriotism, virulent hatred for and distrust of the English which

Bower probably developed in his youth, and contempt for treachery inspired by personal ambition, the result of Bower's view of the career of James I." The Wallace story in

Chronica Gentis Scotorum had been left undeveloped and incomplete by Fordun within the gestu annalia. and part of Bower's motivation in undertaking Scotichronicon must have been

"' Brown, lames 1, p. 161. Much as the English invasion of 1400 had been encouraged by the disaffected Earl of March [see Chapter Two], the 1435 raid was encouraged by his disaffected grandson, Potrick Dun bar. Brown. James 1, p.164-166 "-#* - for recent treatments of Bower, see Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603, p.49-50 (p.55- 56 have since been rendered obsolete by D.E.R. Watt); Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9 is an extensive treatment of the work. " that part of Scotichrotlicon dealing with Wallace (Bks.XI and XII) was composed around 1442-43, some four years before the work was completed in 1447 (Chron. Bower (Watt),Vo1.9, p.211). to expand and lend proper historical treatment to Fordun's unfinished work. However,

Walter Bower had his own axes to grind and a great deal to say on a great many issues, and this resulted in what Webster has characterized as "a great deal of long-winded and sententious rn~ralising"'~throughout the pages of his chronicle.

While Bower was working on Scotichronicon in the last decade of his life, the individual who has become best known as Blind Hary was born. probably about 1440 in or near Linlithgow." During Hary's childhood, the most significant local family were the

Livingstons of Linlithgow, who were among the most significant adherents to James II during the latter's minority. When Hary was about ten years old, the king quickly purged his court of the Livingstons, putting his comptroller Robert Livingston of Linlithgow to death and forfeiting Livingston lands." A number of possible motives for this purge have been suggested, including the fact that the king owed his comptroller over nine hundred pounds," but particularly interesting is the possibility that it was undertaken because the Livingstons, who were lesser barons, were perceived by the greater families like the Douglases to have overstepped their position, especially when James Livingston arranged to many his daughter to the lord of the Isles." The sudden destruction of the most significant local family at royal

hands for seemingly spurious reasons was probably not soon forgotten by many in

Linlithgow, including the young Hary, who would later have much to say on the subject of over-stepping one's perceived social rank.

The strongly antagonistic view of England that Bower noted within the Scottish

Webster,Scotlandfrom the Eleventh Century to 1603. p.49 " McDiumid, Hary k WaNoee, Vol.1, p.xxxiv for Hary's birth; p.xlix-l for his birthplace, which McDiarmid has isolated from internal evidence within the Wallace. 'b 'b McGladdery, James 11, p.49-50 " Macdougall, James 111, p. I5 2%cGl;tddery, James 11, p.53 government in the later reign of James I continued into the minority of James II and the childhood and adolescence of Hary; he was presumably an impressionable pupil of about fifteen in 1455 when James II, despite the existence of a truce, assembled an "intensely anti-

English"" parliament in preparation for an attack upon Berwick, held by the English since

1333. This belligerent posture may have been assumed in part in response to English vulnerability - the great English Border families had become involved in the first battle of

St Albans, the opening conflict of the Wars of the Roses, earlier in 1455 - but McGladdery has pointed out the significance of the fact that the English were also harbouring James earl of Douglas, against whose family James U had been waging a systematic campaign of destruction for several years and who had been declared a traitor in the same year." The proposed attack on Berwick amounted to nothing, but the next year James launched a six-day raid into northern England and sent a force to attack the Isle of Man, which had also been held by England since 1333. The aggression of James U ran its course in 1460, when attacking Roxburgh castle, held by the English since 1347. he was killed in the explosion of one of his own bombards. Judging from the negative view of the English evident in his

writing, we may assume that Hary was affected by these animosities of his youth, so that

while he may have shared in the general disdain for the predations of James II upon the

Livingstons, Douglases and others," he probably held the king in a certain esteem for his

aggressive prosecution of offensive war against the English.

Hary was about twenty and about this time will have begun his career, perhaps as a

'' McGladdery ,James 11, p.96 '' McGladdery, James 11, p.97 " Macdougdl, James ID,p.36 soldier in the Scots Guard of the French king, when James II was killed;" it was the reign of the slain king's son which came to figure most prominently in Hary's treatment of the subject of William Wallace. James UIsucceeded to the Scottish throne in 1460 as a minor, with his mother Mary of Gueldres in control of a regency which became bitterly split by foreign policy related to French politics and the Wars of the Roses in England. James

Kennedy. bishop of St Andrews. stood at the head of a pro-French faction which supported the Lancastrians in England, while the Queen Mother, niece of the pro-Yorkist duke of

Burgundy. "continued - arguably more ably - her husband's policy of playing off Lanclcster and in order to make territorial or diplomatic gains for S~otland."'~Mary secured the peaceful transfer of Berwick to Scottish control in 1461 by offering support to the beleaguered Lancastrians, and when the Yorkist Edward IV soon emerged ascendant in

England, she gave sanctuary to the deposed Lancastrian king Henry V1 as leverage against

Edward. Her attempts to come to an understanding with the new English king, which by

1462 included talk of marriage between Edward IV and Mary of Gueldres, alarmed

Kennedy's pro-French-and-hcastriilfl faction. which actively worked to undermine these negotiations - most notably by organizing an attack upon Northumberland in 1463 that involved a series of reverses in northern England followed by a destructive English raid into southeast cotl land." A truce between Edward IV and the French in October 1463 forced

Kennedy, who took control of the regency following Mary's death earlier that year. to reluctantly seek the very truce he had vehemently opposed only months earlier. If

McDiarrnid is correct in his belief that Hary fought for the king of France, we may assume

32 McDidd. Hary S Wallace, VolJ, p.xxviii-xlvi 33 Macdougall, James 111, p.57 Macdougall, James 111, p.60-6 1 that he shared Kennedy's pro-French disdain for this truce. Bishop Kennedy died in 1465,

and a year later the king was abducted from the care of the bishop's brother by Robert Boyd,

in an attempt to seize control of the regency.

Boyd's success was limited, and in 1469 he was forfeited as a traitor as James IlI took

control of his government. Presumably mindful of his mother's treatment by Kennedy's

faction, his own experience with Boyd and his father's successes against the Livingstons and

Douglases, the king pursued his own interests and those of his favourites with such vigour

that within a few years he began hearing complaints that he was negligent in the area of justice and misguided in the arbitmy nature of his distribution of lands and He

also encountered parliamentary resistance to his foreign policies, in which he remained

uncommitted for a number of years: between 147 1 and 1473 he contemplated both peace

and war with Edward N (who in 147 1 had just recovered from a Lancastrian coup) as well

as renewing the Auld ~lliance.'~The Anglo-Scottish truce of 1464. which had been

extended to 15 19 after Kennedy's death, was still in place. but the very thought of a fifty-five

year truce between the two kingdoms was unheard of; it was probably inspired on the

Scottish side by the minority of the king and a lack of confidence in the French and the

protective value of the Auld ~lliance.~'If his domestic situation caused him any concern,

James must have been anxious about King Edward's well-known desire to attack France in

response to Louis XI'S having supported the latest Lancastrian plot, and rumoua that he was

contemplating an attack on Scotland in 1474, perhaps as a preventative strike to discourage

" for an examination of the resentments aroused by James UI in this time, see Macdougall, James flf, p.95- 109 '' Macdougdl, Jmes 111, p.92-96 " there were rumours that during mce talks in 1463, buis XI had discussed with Edward IV the possibility of launching a joint invasion to conquer Scotland [Mrrcdougall, James Ill, p.621. the Scots from causing trouble during his French war. James*response to this tense situation was to offer the Auld Enemy an opportunity to establish security along the Border by proposing an alliance that would be cemented by the betrothal of his infant son James to

Edward's daughter Cecilia. This arrangement, finalized in October 1474, seemed to promise a red Anglo-Scottish peace for the first time since 1285 - a new era for which many Scots, including Hq,were clearly not prepared. Opposition to the Anglo-Scottish alliance may, as Macdougall has suggested, have been confined mostly to the south and southea~t.'~but it nevertheless served as a focal point for a number of significant Scots who harboured various other grievances related to the king's administration of justice and patronage. Chief among these appears to have been the king's brother Alexander, duke of Albany and earl of

March on the Border, to whom many of those alienated by James III began to adhere. forming a significant opposition faction. Among these adherents was Hary, who between

1476 and 1478'' wrote a poem called The Actis and Deidis ofthe Illusterr md Vailzennd

Campioun Schir William Wallace Knight of Ellerslie, known more commonly as the

Wallace.*

Bower's Scotichronicon and Hary's Wallace introduced to historiography a new image of William Wallace which superseded the Bmcean image constructed by Fordun and

Wyntoun, adding significant new elements to the Wallace story. Although their answers had been drastically different, the architects of the Brucean image had defined Wallace according to the same questions that the architects of the earlier Edwardian image had asked about him.

'' Macdougdl, James Ill, p. 1 18 '' McDiarmid, Hary 's Wailace, Vol.1. p-xvi " for recent treatments of the Walhce, see Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.2 15-28 1, which considers the poem not just as historiography but also as a piece of literature; see also King, Blind Harry 5 Wallace, p.xvi-mi, which is very hvoumble to the poem. Both images were established upon considerations of the circumstances of Wallace's birth, the nature of his character, and the nature of the leadership role he assumed within the Rising of 1297- 1304. The Brucean Wallace had obscure but very respectable origins which his

'betters' failed to recognize; he was chivalrous and honourable and had devoted his life to the noble cause of fighting on behalf of those who could not fight for themselves in order to rid his country of English oppression. He was the chosen champion of the oppressed folk of Scotland. and by virtue of this position had legitimately assumed the office of guardian and the sole leadership of the Rising. His assumption of such a lofty position made Wallace the object of enmity and jealousy among the most significant aristocratic families of

Scotland. leading ultimately to his betrayal by them and his subsequent ruin.

The sources upon which Bower and Hqdepended for their significant revision of the Brucean image are difficult to ascertain with any certainty. Watt suggests that Bower probably made use of the libraries and archives of Dunfermline and his former ecclesiastical community of St. Andrews (including the university):' but he notes that Scotichronicon

"was composed remarkably q~ickly,'"~which casts a certain amount of doubt over the extensiveness of his 'research' beyond his appropriation of Fordun's Chronica. For his material on the Great Cause and the beginning of the wars of independence, Bower appears to have relied upon Fordun's gesta annalia. the Register of St Andrews from which Fordun and Wyntoun adopted their Brucean image of Wallace, official documents from the 'war of hi~toriognphy,'"~and a Latin verse history which he copied into the beginning of his

'working copy' of Scotichronicon (among others), and which, Dauvit Broun and A.B. Scott

j' Chron. Bower (Watt),Vo1.9, p.207 " Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.208 " listed by Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.247-248; for the term, see Chapter Two. have argued, was written between 1304 and ~306,~perhaps just about the time of Wallace's execution. Bower copied the final section of this verse history, albeit broken into two parts,

into the main text of his Wallace story, which is particularly notable because for the rest of

Scotichronicon it is clex that he used this verse history "only occasionally as a source."J5

These lines state that "the Scots adopted a stout heart at the instigation of William Wallace,

who taught them to fight," notc thc datc and outcome of the battle of Stirling Bridge ("a

celestial gift to the faithful Scots") and the wasting of England (&'of such a kind and

magnitude as the northern regions have never experienced the like") and claim that at

Stainmore, the English promised to meet the Scots in battle but fled instead.'16 The 'battle'

of Stainmore episode also appears in Bower's namtive, from which it was adopted by Hary,

along with, McDimid postulates, episodes describing equally unsubstantiated battles at

"Black ironside" and Perth which have since gone missing from Scotichronicon (Chapters

32 and 33)." At first glance, it appears that Bower based his narntive upon this verse history

written during Wallace's lifetime, conferring tremendous reliability upon the Stainmore

story, and increasing the credibility of the supposed Black Ironside and Perth stories, but in

fact Broun and Scott have suggested that Bower wrote this final section himself. The

Stainmore episode is dmost certainly based upon an account in Lanrrcost which stated that

while Edward was in France, an English army had come north in response to Wallace's

invasion, but "was soon compelled to return to England through lack of provender" caused

by the razing of the Scottish countryside by the ~cotsyPerhaps questioning the veracity of

Broun and Scott. introduction to "Liber Extravagans", Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.57-59 '' Broun and Scott, introduction to "Liber Extravagans," Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.61 Chroa Bower (Watt), B kXI, Ch.29. p.87 and 9 1 -93; cited from "Liber Exuavagms," Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.83 " McDidd. Hary 's Wallace, Voll, p.lxiii Chron Lnnercost (Maxwe1 I). p. 165 the English view of these events, or perhaps adopting other verse material:9 Bower invented the Stainmore version of this story. This episode serves notice that the copious amount of unsubstantiated Wallace material in Scoticllronicon must remain historically problematic.

Further controversy with respect to the sources for this new historiographical image of William Wallace is concentrated upon Hq's many references to an alleged Latin biography of Wallace written by Master John Blair, Wallace's companion and chaplain, which Hary claims to have followed in producing the ~ullace." The existence of this source was rejected by the Scottish historian John Mair in 152 1:

There was one Henry, blind from his birth, who, in the time of my childhood, fabricated a whole book about William Wallace, and therein he wrote down in our native rhymes - and this was a kind of composition in which he had much skill - all that passed current man the people in his day. I however cm give but a partial credence to such writings as these. R

The implications of this accusation that Hary was 'blind from his birth' were that HY~could not have been familiar with written sources of any kind. McDiivmid has argued convincingly that Hary was certainly sighted for most of his life, going blind due to advancing years sometime after the Wallace was ~ritten,~'but grave doubt remains regarding the existence of Blair's biography of Wallace, or indeed Hq's use of any other written sources which have since been lost. McDiarmid largely dodges the issue by stating that "the book's existence can only be maintained along with the opinion that Hary rejected its nmtive almost entirely,"53but the lack of irrefutable evidence one way or the other has left the existence of Blair's biography a matter of faith which continues to affect perceptions of the 'truth* of not only the Wuilace, but of Bower's Scotichronicon as well (since if the source

'' "Liber Extravagans" in Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 1 18-1 19n "'such as Bk.XII, p.121-I22 Major, History, p.205 52 see McDiarrnid, Haty 3 Wallace, Vol.1, p.xxvi-xxxvii 53 McDimnid. Hary 's Walloce, Voi.1, p.lx-lxi existed, Bower may also have had access to it). Mair stigmatized the Wallace for its perceived reliance upon popular tradition: three centuries later John Ross would write that the poem "gathered all that harvest of popular legend about Wallace which had been ripening for nearly two centuries."" There continues to be an argument that Hary derived the majority of his unsubstantiated material from the Wallace 'cult' - usually, ironically, to augment rather than to question the reliability of the ~Vdlucras hi~tor);.'~Therc is liule doubt that popular tradition, the body of 'gret gestis and sangis' about which Wyntoun wrote, did play a role in the composition of the Walkice, as Keen observed and McDiarmid somewhat grudgingly

Hary may have, in addition to general folklore, made use of Wallace family traditions, since he notes that Sir William Wallace of Craigie, who claimed descent from

Wallace himself, lent a hand in the writing? The inclusion of traditional elements within his poem would have maximized the acceptance and appeal of the Wallace for a general audience, which one assumes would have enjoyed discovering familiar tales within the work; this was a consideration which also seems to have influenced Wyntoun's presentation of

Wallace in his Cronykil.

If there is little doubt that he made use of tradition, there is equally little doubt that

Hary, being both sighted and literate, made use of written sources (other than the dubious

Blair biography); much as Bower began with Fordun's gesta annalia and added his own

" John Ross, Scottish Histoq and Literature, p.76 55 see for example Mackay, William Wallace: Brave Heart, p. 1 I and King. introduction to Blind Harry 3 Wallace, p.xx 5h Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, p.73; McDiarmid, Hary 5 Wallace, Vol.1. p.lxviii-lxxiii, in which he states that tradition constitutes "a notably small, though admittedly important, part of the poet's narrative." McDiarmid, Hary 5 Wallace, Vol.1, p-li-lii. Appendix B to Wallace Documents (Stephenson), ("Genedogie of the Illusnious and Ancient Family of Craigie Wallace") mybe an example of this material (committed to writing). continuations, Hary began with Barbour's ~ruce,~'Wyntoun's Cronykil, and Bower's

Scotichronicon. Hary's debt to Bower will be considered throughout the remainder of this chapter, but it is notable that he also adopted Wyntoun's account of the Lanark incident,59 which appears nowhere else within the prior historiography, although he altered the tale slightly, and made a number of references to the Bru~e.~While Hary's familiarity with written sources likc Scorichronicon and the debt hc owed them cannot be questioned, however. it is equally clear that Ross was correct when he observed that "we do not suppose that [Haryj was at all scrupulous in his treatment of [his sources], or that he shrank from contributing his quota to the general sum of patriotic fi~tion."~'Just as important to the

Wulbce as tradition and source documents, however, was Hary's "teeming and unrestrained imagination;'"' in this respect Bower too was guilty in his use of his own poetry about

Stainmore, if not in other parts of his Wallace narrative. In some cases, we may imagine that

Bower and Hay introduced imaginary elements in order to maximize the appeal of their stories, but in many instances there was a political agenda behind such novel detail. Walter

Bower established a Wallace story which was a masterful enterprise in image-construction. and which was a tremendous influence on Hary. While Hary appended considerable detail and embellishment to the established historiography, he was very careful to remain within

Bower's framework; there are fewer differences between the Wallaces of Hary and Bower than exist between those of Bower and the Brucean works.

'' for Hq's indebtedness to Barbour's Bruce, see Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.276-278 '' Wallace,Bk.VI, p. 1 12-1 16; see also Chron. Wynroun (Amours),Vol.V, p.300-304 "' these however had little impact upon his Wallace image, since the Brus does not mention Wallace. Instead, Hary's reference to Barbour were attempts to link the two works together as two parts of one story. '' John Ross, Scottish History and Literature. p.76 Keen, The Outluws of Medieval Legend, p.72 Rejecting Fordun's phrase (which had recalled the Edwardian image) that 'William

Wallace lifted up his head from his den,' stating only that Wallace "raised his head."" Bower introduced him as "the famous William Wallace, the hammer of the English, the son of the noble knight Malcolm Walla~e."~This trumpeting overturned the Brucean suggestion that

Wallace rose from obscurity or 'sempill stait,' which was further achieved by the elimination of Fordun's statement that Wallacc 'was looked upon as lowborn.' Bower stated instead that

"he came from a distinguished family with relatives who shone with knightly honour"6s and referred to the pre-Rising Wallace as a rnilicie (young knight)." These origins were adopted by Hary, who added that the Wallace estate was Ellenlie and made Wallace's family

'distinguished' not only on his father's side, but illso on his mother's. by making her a

Crawford attached to the sherrifdom of ~yr.~'Bower's points here appear to be little more than dressing, but Hary's are presumably a blend of imagination and Wallace family history.

The Wrrlluce goes on to include the first historiographical exercise in providing Wallace with a youth and upbringing, which included the claim that his father and older brother began fighting the English before Wallace was old enough to join them and was still at school in

D~ndee.~"Accordingto Hary, Wallace began murdering Englishmen when he was eighteen,b9 and had become a fugitive from English justice7' when he was captured and imprisoned in , but escaped when he was mistaken for dead and his 'corpse' was

'' Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.28, p.83 Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.28, p.83. Watt places the name 'Malcolm Wallace' here, but notes that most of the manuscripts of Scotichronicon say instead 'eiusdem nominis' (of the siune name), Chron. Bower (Watt),Bk.XI, Ch.28, p.82 " Chron. Bower (Watt), BkX, Ch.28, p.83 nn Chron. Bower (Watt), BkXI, Ch.28, p.83 '' Walface, Bk.1, p.2 " Wallace, BkJ, p.6 Wallace, Bk.1, p.6 '"Walface, Bk.1, p.8-9 discarded outside the prison.71Thereafter, Hary's Wallace was joined in his adventures by a band of followers consisting mostly of fiends and relatives. earning increasing infamy and moving against increasingly important targets until the Lanark incident. These novel details are congruous with and illustrative of Bower's conception of the fifteenth-century image of

Wallace, and were included to strengthen what Goldstein calls "the dramatic interest of the

Bower was at his imaginative best when he turned his attention to the matter of

Wallace*s bearing and appemce; almost certainly beginning only with Fordun's description of Wallace's 'goodly mien* and Wyntoun's statement that he was 'strang and stout*. Bower constructed the following description of Wallace:

He was a tall man with the body of a giant, cheerful in appearance with agreeable features, broad-shouldered and big-boned, with belly in proponion and lengthy flanks, pleasing in appearance but with a wild look, broad in the hips, with strong anns and legs, a most spirited fighting-man, with all his limbs very strong and firm. Moreover the Most High had distinguished him and his changing features with a certain good humour, had so blessed his words and deeds with a certain heavenly gift, that by his ap earance alone he won over to himself the grace and favour of the hem of all loyal Scots.43

This lengthy description of Wallace's appearance and manner appears substantially unaltered in the Wallace as follows:

Wallace statur, off gretnes and off hycht, Was Iugyt thus be discrecioun off rycht, That saw him bath dischevill and in weid. Ix quartaris large he was in lenth indeid, Thryd part that lenth in schuldrys braid was he, Rycht sembly, strang and lusty for to se; Hys Lymmys gret, with stalwart pais and sound, Hys bnwnys hard, his armes lang and round; His handis maid rycht lik till a pawrmr, Off manlik d,with nales gret and cler. Proporcionyt lang and fair wils his wesage, Rycht sad of spech and abill in curage;

'' Wallace, BkJI, p.20-26 " Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.253 Chron. Bower (Watt), BkXI, Ch.28, p.83 Braid breyst and heych, with sturdy crag and gret; His Lyppys round, his nos was squar and tret; Bowand bron hqton browis and breis lycht. Cler aspre Eyn lik dyarnondis brycht."

It is possible that there is an element of the Wallace 'cult* in this description which expands markedly upon the Bmcean image, but there is no reason to doubt that it is entirely the product of Bower's imagination. Bower's statement that 'the Most High*was with Wallace and had conferred upon him 'a certain heavenly gift*appears to have profoundly influenced

Hary, and the extent to which God and "our lady off hir grace"7swere with Wallace emerges as one of the most important elements of the fifteenth-century image. Hary likened the plight of the Scots under Edward I to the plight of the Israelites in Egypt under Pharaoh, from which "god abowyn has send ws sum ra~nede"~~in the form of Wallace. To further this

Wallace-as-Moses metaphor. Hary made Wallace the subject of messianic prophecies -

"Inglis clerks in prophecys thai fandlhow a Wallace suld putt tharne of [ie. offl Scotland"" - including one assigned to Thomas the Rymer." Hary also borrowed Bower's description of a hermit's vision which proved that Wallace was admitted to Heaven without having to endure Purgat0ry,7~leading him to state that "Scotland he fred and brocht off thri1lage;lAnd now in hewin he has his heretage."" The idea that God was on the Scottish side with respect to Anglo-Scottish conflict was undoubtedly not a novel one, but Bower and Hary were the first to make it an explicit part of the Wallace image.

Bower put his imagination to work again to expand upon Fordun's mention of

'' Wallace, i3k.X. p.38-39 '' Walface,B k.VII, p. 1 76 7h Wallace, Bk.1. p.7 Wallace, B k.1, p. 13 '' Wallace. B k.lI, p.29 " Chron. Bower (Watt), BkXn, Ch.8, p.3 17. For Hary's version see Wallace, Bk.m, p. 1 16-1 17 '' Walluce, B kXII, p. 1 15 Wallace's 'boundless generosity' in an effort to define his character:

he was most liberal in his gifts, very fair in his judgements, most compassionate in comforting the sad, a most skillful counselor, very patient when suffering, il distinguished speaker, who above all hunted down falsehood and deceit and detested treachery; for this reason the Lord was with him, and with His help he was a man successful in everything; with veneration for the church and respect for the clergy, he helped the poor and widows, and worked for the restoration of wards and orphans bringing relief to the oppressed. He lay in wait for thieves and robbers, inflicting rigorous justice on them without any reward. Because God was very greatly pleased with works of justice of this kind, He in consequence guided all of his activities."

Hary described Wallace's "get rychtwisnes"" dong similar lines, noting throughout the

Wtdlace the various episodes where, as he levied his brand of justice on the English, Wallace

"sparyt nme that abill was to wer, bot wemen and preystis he gart thilim ay forber."" Hq's

Wallace dispenses the spoils of war to those in need" and even frowns upon the needless slaughter of English soldiers, suggesting that the English leaders are the real enemies of scotland." Where the Brucean image of Wallace as noble and chivalrous had been mostly implied and demonstrated through the record of his actions, in the fifteenth-century image these aspects of Wallace's character becarne explicit and detailed at great length.

Interestingly, the fifteenth-century image of Wallace became the antithesis of the Edwardian image, although neither Bower nor Hary may have had access to the works of Wallace's

English contemporaries; nevertheless, Bower's list of Wallace's characteristics constituted a point-by-point rejection of the accusations of the architects of the first historiographical image of William Wallace. The Edwardian Wallace was traitorous; Bower's Wallace

'hunted down falsehood and deceit and detested treachery.' His English contemporaries

'' Chrorr. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.28, p.83 Wallace, Bk.11, p.22 " Wallace, Bk.II1, p.40; see also Bk.IV, p.56; Bk.IV, p.63; Bk.V, p. 104; Bk.V, p. 107; Bk.VI, p. 134; Bk.VII, p.170; Bk.I?C, p.248; BkX, p.3, Bk.X, p.16, Bk.X, p.21; Bk.X, p.26; Bk.XII, p.106 " for example, after his victory at Loudon Hill (Wallace, Bk.m, p.41) Wallace, Bk.V, p. 101 contended that Wallace inflicted particular atrocities upon their clergy and religious houses and slaughtered women and children; Bower answered by noting Wallace's 'veneration for the church and respect for the clergy' and how he 'helped the poor and widows, and worked for the restoration of wards and orphans,' while Hary repeatedly noted instances where he spared women, children and clerics. According to the Edwardian image. Wallace was a false knight who had once been 3 thiet Bower replied that 'he lay in wait for thieves and robbers.

inflicting rigorous justice on them.' The Edwardian Wallace was unspeakably depraved and evil; the fifteenth-century image of Wallace was 'guided [in] all his activities' by God, and so favoured by Him that Bower contends at the end of the story that Wallace's soul was

permitted to enter Heaven without having to linger in Purgatory.

The extreme purity of Wallace's character created a problem for the architects of the

new image which had existed for neither the architects of the Edwardian image nor those of

the Brucean image. The Wallace of Scotichronicon, for the first time in the evolution of the

Willlace image, became incapable of the atrocities of which the English had accused him and

which the Wallace 'cult' embraced. Without denying Wallace's 'gret rychtwisnes' or

invalidating Bower, Hary envisioned chmcteristics in his version of Wallace which tended

to undermine this purity in favour of a more 'realistic' hero capable of these darker deeds.

This different approach to character between Bower and Hary is almost certainly a

consequence of audience: Bower was a monk writing for the educated clergy, while Hiuy

may have been a former soldier and was writing for a popular courtly audience. As a result

of his single-minded devotion to his cause, Hary's Wdlacc is exceedingly reckless, as is

apparent in the following speech:

"I lik bettir to se the Sothren de Than gold or land that thai can gift' to me. Trstis rycht weyll, of wer 1 will nocht ces Quhill cyme that I bryng Scotland in-to pes Or de tharf~r"~~

This recklessness causes Hary's Wallace to ignore warnings, appeals to be reasonable and pleas for peace from both friends and foes. "In-to pes he couth nocht lang endur," Hary said of Wallace, "Wncorduall it was till his natur."" It also makes him unable to keep himself from falling in love with Marion Bradfute. even though he is mindful of the fact that past mistresses have suffered for their involvement with him," an element of the poem which foreshadows her fate. But the most striking manifestation of his recklessness, placing

Wallace at greatest odds with the fifteenth-century image, occurs when, while fleeing English hounds. Wallace is described as having killed an exhausted companion who could not continue. This action. explained by Hary as having happened because if the slain man had been "fals to Enemys he wald gil,/Gyff he war trew the Sothron wdd him sla,"" was obviously not irreconcilable in Hary's mind with Bower's view of Wallace's lofty character. demonstrating that the audience of the Wallace would have understood it to have been a necessary or proper deed under the circumstances. In addition to recklessness, Hary imbues his Wallace with vengefulness not to be found in Scotichronicon, and although like Bower he adopted the Brucean idea that Wallace was motivated to act by his desire to free his countrymen, at every turn he nevertheless provided Wallace with personal motivation in the form of a desire for revenge. Wallace's fiat significant victory over the English at the head of others is presented as an act of vengeance wherein he defeated the same leader whose

Wallace, Bk.V. p.85 " Wallace, Bk.IX, p.245 " Wallace, Bk.V, p.92 '' Wallace, B k.V, p.76 army had killed his father and brother." Like Wyntoun. Haty described the attack on hark, the event which attracted an army to Wallace, as having been precipitated as an act of vengeance resulting from the execution of Marion Bradfute." Hary's Wallace is moved to incinerate five thousand English soldiers while they slept in the barns of Ayr, an action worthy of the Edwardian image, to avenge the lynching of his uncle, Sir Ranald crawford?'

Revenge dominates when Wdhcr summarizes his rnotives for the English queen at St

~lbans,"and after the death of John Graham at Falkirk, he swears that "thi dede sail be to

Sotheroun full der sauld./Martyr thow art for Scotlandis rycht and me.A sall the wenge or ellis tharfor to de."" Hary's introduction of a personal desire for vengeance to his consideration of Wallace's motivation certainly did not render Wallace any less admirable to Hary's audience, but the effect was to describe Wallace in more base terms than Bower had done.

As a consequence of his heightened 'humanity,' Hary's Wallace is subject to great suffering which is at odds with Bower's statement that he had 'a certain good humour.' In the W~dloce,Wallace is haunted by visions of the companion he killedY5and given to liunentati~n.~in the last days of his career, foreshadowing his find fate, Hary tells us that

Wdlace began to blame himself for the suffering of Scotland. saying to himself, "I ask at god thaim to restor agayn./I am the caus. I suld haiff all the ~ayn."~~Like a hagiographer. Hary put forward the view that beyond his good works as deliverer of Scotland, Wallace's

"' Wallace, B k.IU, p.36-39 "' Wallace, Bk.VI, p. 1 12- 1 16 * Wallace, Bk.VII, p. 138- 153; see also Wallace's oath, motivated by these events, Bk.Vn, p. 149- 150 '' Wallace, Bk.Vm, p.2 18-2 19 * Wallace, Bk.XI, p.58 '' Wallace, Bk-V, p.79; see also Bk.VIII. p.219 'M see, for example, Wallace, Bk.V, p.84-85 V7 Wallace, Bk.Xn, p.96 suffering "mekill payne" to that end earned him a place in Paradise?' Mindful of Wallace's various miseries as he had portrayed them, Hary preferred to compliment him as "sad of contenance," meaning steadfast or unmoveable, and "bathe auld and ~ing,"~describing a combination of energy and wisdom, rather than as having had 'good humour.' Hary's vengeful. reckless and suffering figure of William Wallace therefore falls shon of the moral standard Bowcr sct for the fifteenth-century image. md yet as 3 result of its heightened

'realism' and 'humanity' was presumably no less admirable or heroic to Hary's audience than the Wallace of Scotichronicon was to Bower's.

Bower, whose Wallace was not provided with such characteristics, attempted to reconcile his Wallace with the more violent aspects of Wallace's career, which had since the

Edwardian image been centred upon the invasion of England, by describing the invasion as

tls he season of autumn [ 12971 approached there was il threat of tl rnajor dearth and shortage of food in the kingdom, since there was a shortage of grain resulting from the inclement weather. On this account, once the crops had been brought in to the yards and bms, [Wallace1 ordered the summans of dl and sundry Scots who were capable of defending their hornland to invade the country of their enemies and find their substance there. and to sgnd the wintry part of the year there so as to spare their own very limited food supplies.'

The invasion of northern England, Bower maintained, was not the act of an aggressive, vengeful Wallace but of a noble Wallace determined to alleviate the suffering of a starving, desperate Scottish population by taking as many of them as he could to England to preserve the meagre stores of the Scots. Hary, having described a reckless and vengeful Wallace, had little need of this invention of Bower's and quite eagerly described the invasion of England

"'Wallace, Bk.MI, p. 140- 142. Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.250, 252,267-269 dso recognize hagiographiczll elements in the Wallace- YY Wallace, Bk.1, p.8 "" Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk. XI, Ch.29, p.87 in almost Edwardian terms:

The worthy Scottis amang thar Enemys raid. Full get distruccioun mngSotheron thai maid, Waistit about the land on athir sid. Na wemn than durst in thru way abid. Thai ransoun nme bot to the dede thaim dycht, In mony steid maid fyris braid and brycht. The ost was blith and in a gud estate, Na power was at wald mak thaim debate; Gret ryches wan off gold and gud thaim till, Leyffyng enewch to tilk at thar awn will. In awful1 fer thai trawaill throuch the land, Maid byggynis bar that thai befor thairn faand.'"

The belligerence that is particularly evident in this part of the W~lllaceis perhaps the most recognized facet of the work, and may well have been the most important factor determining its enduring popularity.'" At any rate, it renders Hary's Wallace fantastically bloody as compared to Bower's, and yet, in a paradox somewhat difficult for the modem audience, no less noble.'" Hary was careful to note when he could that women and children were spared during the invasion.'lY but also stated that "off presonaris thai likit nocht to kep./Quhom thai our-tuk thai maid thar freyndis to ~epe."'~~He did not, ultimately, completely reject

Bower's notion of famine having influenced Wallace's invasion, using it to explain why the

Scots proceeded from Yorkshire into more southern parts of England.lM Despite his acceptance of the violence of the invasion, however, Hary, perhaps moved by Bower's perspective, felt it necessary to transfer the culpability fot the destruction from Wallace to

Edward I, making it plain that the real reason for the continued advance by the Scots was a desire to cause England such harm that it would force Edward to meet Wallace in battle,

l'" Wallace, B k,VIII, p.2 13 I" Goldstein, The Mutter of Scotland, p.2 19-220 'IU Goldstein explores the 'bloodiness' of the Wallace as a literary device in The Matter of Scotland, p.215- 249 I" Wallace, Bk.VIII. p. 196; also Bk.VIII, p.200; Bk.Vm, p.209-2 10 Wallace, Bk. VUI, p. 193 "'Wallace, Bk-VIII, p.207-208 where Wallace expected to win by God's grace.'" In this way, the extent to which England was devastated becomes commensurate with the cowardice of Edward.

The 'hammer-of-the-English' view of Wallace's character. then, served a number of purposes for Bower and Hay, providing explicit detail to bring the historiographical image of Wdlace in line with his image within the Wallace 'cult.' with Bower focusing primarily upon his oobility while Hiuy fwusd primarily upon his punishment of the English. It also served literary purposes, attempting to wash Wallace's hands of culpability for the savage invasion of northern England, through Bower's suggestion that it was caused by famine and

Hq's contention that none of it would have been necessary if King Edward had just had the courage to face Wallace in battle, and through Hary's attempt to bring Wallace 'down to earth.' by giving him the 'human' chmcteristics of recklessness, stubbornness, and vengefulness, and noting that he was not incapable of suffering. Finally, the fifteenth- century view of Wallace's chmcter also served contemporary political and social purposes, milking his cause, and thus Scotland's, favoured by God, which will have had obvious meaning to those readers who continued to fight the English.

Having founded the fifteenth-century image upon the notion of Wallace's unassailable background and character. Walter Bower and Hary utterly rejected the Brucean idea that Wallace had used his position as the chosen champion of the oppressed violently to assume the guardianship of Scotland in a coup d 2tut. Bower stated quite clearly that

Wallace "did not get the upper hand through aggressive val~ur,"'~'and he described

Wallace's assumption of the guardianship as follows:

"* enunciated most clearly in WalIace, Bk.MI. p.217 "" Chron. Bower (Watt), BW,Ch.28, p.85 When William had been appointed guardian of the realm and was destroying the English on all sides and daily gaining ground, he in a short time subjected all the magnates of Scotland willy nilly to his authority. whether by force or the strength of his

This violence against the Scottish nobility had been portrayed by Fordun and Wyntoun as the means by which Wallace had assumed supremacy in Scotland, while his status as champion of the oppressed justified these deeds, which would otherwise have been illicit. Bower, however. described this violence as having happened after Wallace had ulready assumed legitimate supremacy; Hary was in full agreement with Bower on this point, describing how

Wallace, having been made 'warden' of Scotland, received the "fewte" of various important

Scots md how "quha wald rebell and gang contrar the rychthe punyst sar. war he squier or knycht" in the manner of a legitimate monarch. Through this process. Hary stated. Wallace

"put rycht wisly to thar awin" those Scots "that lang had beyne o~rthrawin.""~The position of the Brucean Wallace as champion of the oppressed had therefore been transformed, no longer justifying illicit actions but making those actions the legitimate actions of a legitimate ruler. The Brucean Wallace required the acquiescence of the magnates to govern Scotland, coerced though it may have been, but according to Bower and Hary, the support of the oppressed Scottish people, even without the support of the establishment, was all Wallace needed in order to become the legitimate ruler of Scotland. For Bower, this seemingly radical political perspective is almost certainly rooted in his disdain for the duplicities and disloyalties of ambitious magnates, embodied in the fears he enunciated at Penh in 1433 that these ills would lead to destructive divisiveness, and his feelings towards the murdered James

I. As such, Bower was not advocating popular sovereignty - the very idea would have been

"'Chron. Bower (Watt), BkX, Ch.28, p.83 ' I" Wallace,B k.W, p. 166 anathema to him - but was instead condemning the magnates of Wallace's time for their failure to champion the oppressed folk of Scotland who supported Wallace. For this reason we find Bower speaking very favourably of those magnates during Wallace's career "whose attitude was sounder and leaned more towards the public interest,""' an element of his

Wallace story which would become extremely important to later manifestations of the

Wailace image.

This contempt for aristocratic ambition and blindness to the common welfare shaped the Wallace of Scotichronicon; in a number of passages exemplary of what Webster considers 'long-winded moralizing,' and typical of his work as a whole."' Bower's presentation of William Wallace became a sermon, with the magnates of his own time as his intended audience. One such passage is found before the narrative turns to the subject of

Falkirk:

Why is covetous envy so much in control in Scotland? How sad that it is natural for Scots to detest not only the happiness of other people, but also the happiness of their own countrymen; and this out of respect for inferiors, in case they are made equal to themselves, and respect for their superiors, because they are not equal to them, and respect for their peers, who rue made equal to them. In this there can be seen a likeness between Cain who envied Abel his prosperity, and Rachel who envied Leah her fertility, and Saul who envied David his felicity, and, let me say it. a Scot who envied Wallace his magnanimity.'"

Another such passage appears later, during Bower's discussion of Wallace's death:

I judge that there are three kinds of men in this age who take different attitudes to their fame and the honouring of their [good] name. Some ostentatiously make their name great for show... some scandalously make it cheap so that they are abhorred ... others virtuously make it worthy so that they are an inspiration to others, like Willim Wallace. The first set a value on their name and fame; the second carelessly despise their name; the third show a proper respect for their name. The first are ineffectual and worldly men, whose only aim and intention in their activities is to gain a great name and notable reputation among men ... Secondly, there are some who scandalously make their name cheap; of this kind are those traitors and crafty renegades. Such men cause great offence to their neighbours by offering simpler souls the opportunity for treachery and destruction by their utterly

I" Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.3 1, p.93 It' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.3 19 'I3 Chron. Bower (Watt), B k.XI, Ch.33, p.93-95 detestable example. Nowadays treachery spreads so widely that ...even the magnates cannot hide from its heat ...Thirdly, there are some who virtuously make their name worthy. Such a man was William alla ace.'^^

Through all of this, it was very clearly Bower's intention to use the fifteenth-century Wallace

image to set an example he hoped would be followed, in particular by kings, magnates and

men of similar power and influence. These hopes were adopted a generation later by Hary.

who wrote on the subject of envy:

Lordis, behald, Inwy the wyle dragoun, In cruel1 fyr he bymys his regioun; For he is nocht that bonde is in Inwy, To sum myscheiff It bryngis hym hrtistely. Forsaik Inwy,thow sall the bettir speid. Heroff as now I will no forthir reid.'I5

As Bruce and his propagandists had done to produce the Wallace image of the 'historia' of

the Register of St. Andrews, Bower manipulated the image of William Wallace. infusing it

with what he believed were ideal aristocratic characteristics, in order ro advance his own

socio-political ideology. This agenda may indeed have influenced how he chose to describe

Wallace's character, which could be read as an example he expected all leaden to emulate.

It is clear that Hary was equally guilty of performing this kind of manipulation of the Wallace

image, but, ironically, he did so to advance the very kind of political intrigue that Bower

found so contemptible.

Hqwas involved in the machinations which undermined the reign of James III and

supported his brother Alexander, duke of Albany; McDiarmid has suggested that Albany

"was very much in [Hary's] mind when he set Wallace before his readers as a model of what

a governor of Scotland should be.""6 As a result, we find Hary attacking James' policy of

'I" Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XII, Ch.8, p.3 15 'I5 Wallace,BkXII, p.86-87 'Ib McDiarmid, Haryk Wallace, Vol.1, p.xxiii peace with England in the Wallace. After describing how the English lured eighteen score

Scottish barons and knights to Ayr and then lynched them, Hary stated "yhe nobill men that ar off Scottis kind,/Thar peteous dede yhe kepe in-to your mynd,""' lamenting that the pro-

English policies of James III were doomed to make the Scots victims of similar treachery.

Further, he claimed that Wallace's invasion of England went as far south as St Albans, and thcn hd the qucen of England meet Wallace to sue for pea~e,'~~emonstratingthrough this allegory that peace is a 'womanish* ideal and calling into question therefore not just his sovereign's foreign policy, but his very manhood. This view of peace with England may in fact have been rooted in Sc:otichronicon, where Bower had Wallace refer to the reprobate

Bruce who had accepted the peace of Edward I as smtivir ("half-a-man") and eflfernin~tu."~

Hary's political agenda was, however, much more insidious than Bower's simple protests against the treatment of James I and exhortations to his readers that they heed the lessons of history. The fullness of Hary's attitude becomes evident in a speech he assigns to Sir John Graham after Wallace had issued him orders and then apologized for having overstepped his social position. Graham replies:

"Do way," he said, "tharoff 3s now no mar. Yhe dyd hll rycht. It was for our weyl far. Wysiu in weyr ye ar all out than I. Fadir in armes ye ar to me forthi."'"

This passage embodies an important political tenet of Hary's which became more fully developed in the following passage which occurs later in the poem:

Wallace a lord he mybe clepyt weyll,

'I7 Wallace, Bk. VII, p. 145 'InWallace, B k.VIII, p.2 13-222 "'Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI. Ch.34. p.95. Goldstein. The Miner of Scotland, p.274 argues that Bower saw Bruce as "improperly gendered' until Wallace moved him to "become a complete vir." "'Wallace, Bk.V, p. 102- 103 Thocht mryk folk tharoff haff litili feill Na deyme na lord bot landis be thar part. Had he the warid and be wrachit off hart He is no lord as to the worthines. It can nocht be but fredome, lordlyknes. At the Roddis thai mak full mony me Quhilk worthy ar. thocht landis haiff thai nane.'''

This idea that it takes more than land to make a lord, which Goldstein suggests came from the "courtly-chivalric literature""' which influenced Hq's writing, would have been shocking to the elites of Wallace's time, and perhaps even to Wallace himself (if we accept

Bmow's idea that he was very conser~ative).'~~There was more than 'courtly-chivalric' literary convention at work here; the tenet is influenced to a much greater degree by Hary's memories of how the Livingstons of Linlithgow had been treated by James II due to their having overstepped their traditional position, and by Hq's intimate connections with magnates who were extremely unhappy with James UI."' It requires no great leap of interpretation to appreciate that Hary was suggesting here nothing less than that in the case of the unpopular James, 'it takes more than birth to make a King.' and that his hero Albany. better suited to rule, would have legitimate grounds to challenge James for the kingship. It is interesting that after coming to blows with James in 1479, the exiled Albany began to style himself King of Scots and undertook to wrest Scotland from his older brother with English assistance, a task in which Alexander ultimately failed?

The fifteenthcentury view of Wallace's rise to power and legitimacy was therefore obviously greatly influenced by the somewhat contrary politics of the two architects of the new image, and the same was true of how Wallace's guardianship itself was portrayed.

I?' Wallace. B k.VII, p. 150 '=' Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p.259 Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.9a-92 Iz4see McDidd, Hary 5 Wallace, Vol-I, p-xvii-xx Goldstein, The Marter of Scotland, p.280 Wyntoun had, perhaps because he identified Albany with Wallace, contributed to the

Brucean image that Wallace was "wyse and happy in g0uernal1,"l'~ the only Brucean reference to his governmental activities; as Bower described it, Wallace passed one all- encompassing statutum. This statute, which Bower admits was actually a "substitute for law.""7 basically conscripted the entire Scottish population and imposed upon it a vast rni1itu-y hierarchy, ut the top of which was Wallace, its unniduc~rel cumpiductor - an absolute dictator."' To modem sensibilities, it may be difficult to resolve Bower's noble and chivalrous Wallace with the man he describes as having ruled with an iron fist. enforcing his dictatorial decrees and military orders "on pain of death"'" and setting up gallows "not only in every barony but also in every sizeable township""' to terrorize the population into answering his summonses to war. What may seem inconsistent to us, however, must have seemed completely consistent to Bower; Scotland as he described it under Wallace's rigid

.miruturn, where the disobedient were punished with death, was clearly fortified against the kind of division and disorder which had led to the death of James I and which caused Bower such concern. Like Wyntoun, and probably just as influenced in his beliefs by his exposure to the political career of Robert duke of Albany, Bower believed that "the maintenance of royal power and public order dike depended on the vigourous intimidation. and in some cases the outright destruction, of those, no matter how great, who opposed or obstructed the king's will and laws."'3' Bower was therefore convinced that Wallace's dictatorship, like

Albany's ascendancy, was a success:

''"hron. Wyntoun (Amours), Vol. V,p.306 I" Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.M, Ch.28, p.85 ""hron. Bower (Watt), Bk,XI, Ch.28, p.85 '" Chron, Bower (Watt), Bk. XI, Ch.28, p.85; also Bk-XI, Ch.30, p.9 1 '"' Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.29, p.89 "I Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, p.302 Scotland by the shrewdness of was making a surprising, in fact a successful recovery, since every man remained safely on his own pro rty and cultivated the land in the usual way and very often triumphed over his enemies. !3P

He was careful to note, however, that Wallace's statuturn, and thus his dictatorship, was to be kept only "until the succession of a legitimate king."'" Hary, remembering perhaps James

II's seemingly unwarranted attack upon the Livingstons of Linlithgow and living under a king who he believed to be tyrannical, seems to have had some trouble with the idea that

Wallace acted as a dictator; omitting Bower's details about the statutwri, Hary stated only that, after peace had been secured. "Scotlande atour fra Ros till Soloway sand/[Wallace] raid it thrys and statut all the land,"IY and he notes explicitly that Wallace ruled with the help of a "parlyment."'f' Having thus altered the presentation of Wallace's guardianship, Hary eagerly adopted Bower's contention that it was both successful and provisional:

Gud Wailas than fuil sadly can dewys To rewill the land with worthi men and wys. Captans he maid and schit'feffis that was gud, Part off his kyn and off trew othir blud... Scotland was fre that tang in bail1 had beyne, Throw Wallace won fra our fals enemys keyn. Gret gouernour in Scotland he couth ryng, Wayttand a tyrne to get his rychtwis

Taking this further, Hary also claimed that Wallace was offered the Scottish crown himself during the invasion of England and refused it."'

The architects of the Brucean image had defined William Wallace within a framework established by those of the Edwardian image. dealing with his origins, character, and role in the Rising. While these elements remained important to the fifteenthtentury

13* Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.3 1, p.93 133 Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.28, p.85 IM Wallace, Bk.VIII, p.226 '" Wallace, Bk.Vm, p. 178 "Wallace, B LVII, p. 1 77 I" Wallace, Bk.Vm, p. 197- 198 image, as outlined above, Bower and Fordun introduced a number of innovations which greatly expanded the parameters of the historiographical image of William Wallace. It is clear from the politics of both Bower at Perth and Hary that they were supporters of the Auld

Alliance; Hary in particular admired the aggressive James II, opposed the conciliatory foreign policy of James III, and supported political closeness with "the rycht blud off ~rance.""' It is evident that these views influenced how the architects of the fifteenth-century image described the significance, or the legacy, of Wallace. Fordun and Wyntoun had established for the Brucean Wallace an importance that far outweighed the Edwardian image, but it was confined to Scotland; the fifteenthtentury version of Wallace assumed a significance beyond the borders of his homeland. Bower contended that Wallace's Rising, which had forced

Edward I to return to Britain from France:

gave very great comfort to the French. For in the judgement of some, if the Scots had not recalled (Edward1 from France b their efforts in battle, the greater part of the lineage of France would have been at risk. I 3Y,

Not content with the indirect nature of this idea, Hary adopted it1" but also had Wallace actually make war upon the English in Guienne, leading to subsequent successful French campaigning, both before and after Falkirk."" The fifteenth-century version of Wdlace

therefore became more than the hero of the Scots - he became the hero of the French as well,

and by introducing this element to their image of Wallace, Bower and Hary must have hoped

to deepen the extent to which their readen would perceive the interdependence and common

purpose between the Scots and their 'Auld' French allies.

The significance of the Brucean Wallace had also been confined to Wallace's

Wallace, Bk.Vm, p.211 "'Chron. Bower (Watt), B kXI, Ch.30, p.89 I"' Wallace, Bk.X, p.36-37 '" Wallace, BkJX, p.245-249 and BkX, p.70 lifetime, but Bower and Hary chose to expand their image in this regard as well. It was argued in the second chapter that the Brucean idea that Robert Bruce had fought for Edward at Falkirk and been crucial to the English success had been interpolated onto the Register of

St. Andrews. probably based upon a traditional story. Bower expanded upon the Brucean conception of this episode in top imaginative form:

Pursuing thcm from the other side. Robert dc Bruce ... is said to have called out loudly to William, asking him who it was that drove him to such arrogance as to seek so rashly to fight in opposition to the exalted power of the king of England and of the more powerful section of Scotland. It is said that Wiliiilm replied like this to him: 'Robert, Robert, it is your inactivity and womanish cowardice that spur me to set authority free in your native land. But it is an effeminate m even now, ready as he is to advance from bed to battle, from the shadow into the sunlight, with a pampered body accustomed to a soft life feebly taking up the weight of battle for the liberation of his own country, the burden of the breastplate - it is he who has made me so presumptuous, perhaps even foolish, and has compelled me to attempt or seize these tasks.' With these words William himself looked to a speedy tlight ...On account of dl this Robert himself was like one awakening from il deep steep; the power of Wallace's words so entered his hem that he no longer had any thought of favouring the views of the English. Hence, as he became every day braver than he had been, he kept all these words uttered by his hithful friend, considering them in his hean.'"

Hary fully adopted this passage in the Wallace, except where he wrote that the forces of

Wallace and Bruce fought, during which Bruce wounded Wallace and Wallace's greatest supporter, John Graham, was killed.14"fter escaping, Hay's Wallace accuses BNC~of

"falsheid" and destroying his "awn off-splyng." and although he calls Bruce "our rycht king" he vows to him that he will never recognize his 'rycht' so long as Bruce is "in pece and hdd off Eduuard king."lu Hary then wrote of Roben's response that:

Sadly the Bruce than in his mind remordyt Thai wordis suth Wallace had him recordyt. Than rewyt he sar, fra resoun had him knawin At blud and land suld all lik beyn his nwin. With [the English] he was lang or he couth get away, Bot conmScottis he faucht nocht fn that day.lJ5

'." Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.34, p.95-97 Wallace, B k.XI, p.49-5 1 Wallace, BtXI, p.54-57 '.'' Wallace, BkX, p.57 Hary claimed that Bruce and Wallace met again in secret, at which time Bruce informed

Wallace that the latter's words had influenced him, and the poet summarized his view of

Wallace's influence upon Bruce in the following speech assigned to Edward Bruce after

Wallace's capture:

Lat mumyng be. It mymak na rerneid. Ye haiff him tynt. Ye wld raweng his deid. Sot for your caus he tuk the wer on hand, In your det'ens, and thrys ha!! tied Scotland, The quhilk was tynt fra ws and all our kyn. War nocht Wallace we had neuir entryt IdJ6

Scotichronicon and the Wdiace therefore make Wallace the impetus which motivated Robert

Bruce to undertake his own career, making Wallace ultimately responsible for the liberation of Scotland which Bruce finally achieved. As has been discussed in the second chapter, the connection between Wallace and Bruce, which was enthusiastically adopted by the Wallace

'cult,' had in fact been an invention of Bruce himself; we may be most certain that Robert

did not anticipate the way in which that connection would be portrayed by the architects of

the fifteenth-century image of William Wallace.

Scotichronicon, containing the nanative of Fordun's Chronica, thereby fully adopted

the notion of the treachery of the magnates which was so central to the Brucean image and

so offensive to Bower, as has already been discussed. As Bruce had intended. a later

historian like Bower had completely accepted that the Cornyns were worthy of particular

mention for this treachery and had even more fully condemned them, describing how "the

magnates and powerful men of the kingdom, intoxicated by a stream of envy, seditiously

entered a secret plot against the guardian under the guise of expressions of virgin-innocence

Wallace, Bk.XII, p. 1 13 but with their tails tied together."'" Hary too adopted this Brucean notion that the treachery of the Comyns and others brought about Wallace's downfall. He added a story of how John

Comyn of Buchan refused to cooperate with Wallace's men after the battle of Black Ironside as a result of "auld in~y"'~'and wrote that the Stewarts and Comyns argued with Wallace at Falkirk because they questioned his right to command, offending him enough to move him to abandon them and so to miss the battle, whereupon the Comyns subsequently abandoned the Stewarts and left them to be o~ercome.'"~By this, Hary hoped to remove from the

Wallace story the stigma of the loss at Falkirk. In addition, Hary described how John

Menteith was recruited by ~dward,'~'and how Wallace became the object of envy and treachery in France, leading to bloody clashes and attempts on his life there?

The notion of duplicity hampering Wallace's career is rather more complex than this

in the Wdluce, however. running through the entire story as a theme rather than arising only at the end. This phenomenon is perhaps based upon the following passage of

Scotichronicon, in which Bower summarized Wallace's career after Falkirk:

[In 1304) all the magnates (except the noble William Wallace and his followers) one by one in succession submitted to him [Edward []...For the noble William was afraid of the treachery of his countrymen. Some of them envied him for his uprightness, others were seduced by the promises of the English, and others with torturous machinations and infinite cue prepared traps for him, hoping thereby for the favour of the king of England. In addition, persuasive arguments were offered to him by his immediate close friends that he like the others should obey the king of the English, so that they might thus obtain peace. Besides, others were sent by the king himself to persuade him to do this, promising him on the same king's behalf earldoms and wide possessions in England or in Scotland... He despised all these approaches. and speaking for the liberty of his people ...he is reported to have answered: 'Scotland, desolate as you are, you believe too much in false words and are too unwary of woes to come! If you think like me, you would not readily place your neck under a foreign yoke. When I was growing up.1 leaned from a priest who was my uncle to set this one proverb above all worldly possessions, and I have carried it in my heart: I tell

'j7Chron. Bower (Watt), Bk.XI, Ch.3 1, p.93 '41 Wallace, B k.X, p. 18 '" Wallace, B k.XI, p.44-48 I"' Wallace, B kX,p.7 1-73 Is' Wallace, S k.XII, p.82-87 you the trrith, freedom is thefinest ofthings; tiever live under a servile yoke, my son. And that is why I teli you briefly that [even] if all Scots obey the king of England so that each one abandons his liberty, I and my cornpmions ...shall stand up for the liberry of the

This interesting passage seems to combine popular tradition, Barbour's Brus ('I tell you freedom is the finest of things...'), the thinking of the Declaration of Arbroath ('even if all

Scots obey the king of England...'), and Bower's own politics. He had. after all, opposed the idea of peace with England in 1433, and the idea here that Wallace's followers who advocated peace with Edward I 'believed too much in false words*and were 'too unwary of woes to come' is an expression of the position Bower took at Perth. Hary, however, seems to have focused upon the statement here that 'persuasive arguments were offered to

[Wallace] by his immediate close friends;' throughout the Wallucr, he was portrayed as having ignored the advice of friends and relatives that he should assume a peaceful life, despite warnings that 'Sone, thir tithingis syttis me sor, and be it knaw in thow may talc scaith tharf~r."'~~Hq's Wallace therefore became increasingly alienated from his protectors, beginning with his mother. and appears betrayed to an extent by his relatives and friends.

Later in the story, he is also betrayed by a mistress, who succumbed to the temptations of the

English authorities hoping to capture him."'

in addition to these innovations concerning Wallace's legacy and an expansion of the notion of the treachery which dogged him throughout his struggle, Hary introduced a great weight of additional narrative to the Wallace story. His account of the battle of Biggar, for example, bears mention here not for its description of this encounter, but for its description of how Wallace was chosen to be guardian of Scotland "at a consaill iii dayis soiomyt

15' Chron. Bower (Watt), BLXII, Ch3, p.299 Wallace, Bk.1. p. 15 '" Wallace, Bk.IV, p.70-72 thar"'55 - the first historiographical attempt to describe the elevation of Wallace to the guardianship in any detail. Hary's narrative also introduces another significant element to the fifteenth-century image in the form of a succession of new places associated with

Wallace's life and career; as McDiarmid has noted. Hary simply tended to set the events of the poem in those parts of Scotland with which he was himself far~1i1iar.l~~However, the effect of this was to render Wailace more wide-ranging than in any prior image; with Hilry's help, Wallace became a truly national hero, appearing throughout Scotland from Ayr to

Aberdeen and from Berwick to Ross and the Highlands instead of being confined to the

Border. On a related point, Hary also introduced dozens of new characters to the Wallace story, and in order to "please his influential friends"157he seems to have inserted glorious roles for their known or imagined ancestors into the Wullace.'" Furthermore. Hary expanded upon the details of the oppression inflicted upon the Scots by the English, which Wyntoun had introduced to the Brucean image:

Quhen Saxons blud in-to this Realm couth ring Wyrkand the will of Wuurrrd, that fals king. Mony get wrrrng thai wrocht in this Regioune; Distroyed our lordys and brnk thar byggynys doun; Both wiffis, wedowis, thai tuk all at thru will, Nonnys, rnadyns, quham thili likit to spill. King Herodis part thai playit in-to Scotland Off yong childyr thar thai befor thairn fa~d.''~

Interestingly, in the same way that Bower's description of Wallace's character appears to be a point-by-point refutation of the Edwardian image, this passage seems to turn the tables on the architects of that image as well, echoing the accusations they had leveled at Wallace.

'5"allace, Bk.VI, p. 132 Is' McDiarmid. Hary k Wallace, Vol.1, p.xlix-I; McDiarmid believes that the settings of the poem indicate that Hqwas native to the environs of Linlithgow. '" McDiMd, Hary S Wallace, Vol.1, p.lix Is' for McDiarmid's discussion. see Hary 5 Wallace, VolJ, p,xx 15' 15' Wallace, Bk.1, p.6-7. See also Bk.III, p.33 Much of the scholarship which has been devoted to the Wallace has focused upon its historical reliability. and in particular upon the question of the existence of Blair's Latin biography. The result has been a prevailing opinion voiced by the nineteenth-century historian John Ross, rejecting the notion of Blair's work and stating that the Wallrce should be considered a "farrago of impossible fictions." albeit one in which, as Keen observed,

"the is a residue of history."'" Against this prevailing attitudc thcrc continues to bc a small but sometimes vociferous counter-argument represented by James Mackay. who argued that the poem's historical problems "have tended to blind scholars to ...[ its value] as an historical source."16' llnd Elspeth King, both of whom argue that Blair's work did exist.I6' These arguments, although they are concerned with the Wcillucr. may with some qualification be applied to Scotichronicon as well; schoius have been careful about founding too much of the 'historical* Wallace upon Bower's imaginative presentation of him. Historical veracity is. however, an issue which beus no further mention here; regardless of its historical reliability, there can be no denying the significance of the fifteenth-centuiy image in shaping the Scottish conception of William Wallace, as will be demonstrated in the following chapter.

Scotichronicon realized widespread popularity, albeit in abridged forrn,16' while the

Wallace was "for centuries the most popular version of the wars of independence,"lH largely

IM' Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval trgend, p.64 '" John Ross, Scottish History and Lirerature, p.48-49; Mac kay , Wifliam Wallace: Brave Heart, p. 1 1 . For recent work on the veracity of the Wnlklce, see Goidstein, The Mutter of Scotland, p.250-28 1 '" Mackay, William Wallace: Brave Heart, p. 1 I; King, Blind Harty 3 Wallace, p.xx '" see Chapter Four. The fint printed edition of any version of Scotichronicon occured in 169 1 ; the first printed edition of the 'full* work occured in the middle of the eighteenth century. Until Watt's recent edition (1987-98), this was the only such printed edition of the 'full' Scotichronicon. (Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p.2 15-225). '" Webster, Scotland front the Eleventh Century to 1603, p.50. The p~puli~rityof the Wallace has been summarized most recently by King, Blind Harry S Wallace, p.xi due to William Hamilton of Gilbertfeld's having 'modernized' it in 1722.16' For example,

Hugh Miller wrote the following in the nineteenth century:

I first became thoroughly a Scot in my tenth year. My Uncle James had procured for me...a common stall-edition of Blind Harry's Wallace ...1 was intoxicated with the tiery narratives of the blind minstrel, with his tlerce breathing of hot, intolerant patriotism, and his stories of astonishing prowess, and, glorying in being a Scot, and the countryman of Wallace, I longed for a war with the Southron, that the wrongs and sufferings of these noble heroes might yet be avenged ... the recollections of this early time enable me, in some measure, to understand how it was that, for hundreds of years, Blind Harry's Wallace ...[ was] the Bible of the Scotch people.[w

The fifteenthtentury image of William Wallace established a Wallace whose superhuman physique. character, and deeds. unassailable legitimacy. and tragic betrayal were, in

Goldstein's words, "a symbol for all time, a moral absolute."'" Its symbolic nature was notably significant in the development of Scottish identity in the fifteen century, influencing

Scots to think of themselves in terns which, Mason has argued, were ''essentidly martial and chivalric in nat~re."'~'Hence, a Scot like R.B. Cunninghame Graham could write that

"Wdlace made Scotland. He is Scotland; he is the symbol of all that is best and purest and truest and most heroic in our national life.""9 The influence of the fifteenth-century image was significant not just 'for all time' but also abroad; a twentieth-century American was able to reflect upon how his "blood still stin" when he remembered from his childhood a novel based upon the ~allacc.'~~After having been shaped by the political agenda of Robert I in the establishment of the Brucean image, the Wallace image underwent not one, but two,

Ifis Also Goldstein, The Marter of Scarland, p.218. Hamilton's 'translation' was published in a new edition in 1998. '"O quoted in Ash, "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce", p.89-90 Goldstein, The Marter of Scotland, p.2 18 '" Mason, "Chivalry and Citizenship: Aspects of National Identity in Renaissance Scotland" in People and Power in Scotland, (Roger Mason & NomMacdougall, eds.). Edinburgh: John Donald, 1992; p.57 'w quoted in King. Blind Harry 5 Wallace, p.xvi I"' quoted in Ash. "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce", p.92 subsequent intensive formative processes rooted in the advancement of a contemporary political agenda in order to assume its fifteenthtentury form. Three times the Wallace story had been re-translated into the present from the past, with each translation having been built upon that or those which had been performed before it; Wallace had "transcend[ed] his historical rn~ment."'~'and these precedents ensured that this kind of translation from

'yesterday' would remilin practicable in future 'todays'.

"I Goldstein, The Matter ofScotland, p.267 William Wallace and 'the Public Interest' The Sixteenth-Century Historiography

Even as Blind Hary was expressing his fully-expanded version of Walter Bower's fifteenth-century image of William Wallace, that image was, for a variety of reasons, being subjected to compression and reinterpretation elsewhere. As Bower had taken the text of

Fordun's Chronica Gentis Scotorurn and subjected it to his own additions and editing, so did the continuators, copyists and editors who came after Bower treat Scotichronicon and, by extension, the fifteenthcentury image. This process of revision was actually given its initial momentum during Bower's own lifetime, and by none other than Walter Bower himself. It would appear from the preface to his own abridged version that the great breadth and weight of his complete Scotichronicon, which in D.E.R.Watt's most recent edition consists of eight volumes, proved unwieldy and unacceptable to its prospective contemporary copyists and readership:

because brevity is welcome to fastidious ears, and excessive length is disagreeable, I have for this reason omitted from this shortened Scotichronicon various events and notable arguments, digressions and exernpla clearly serving different purposes that are insetted there, and plan a style which in some places runs to greater length, and in others is shorter so as to provide a summary and lighten the load of those transcribing and wishing to copy what follows ...'To write more than one needs to is vanity; to suppress what is necessary shows disdain.' So that I may avoid the infamy of the first fault, and not neglect criticism arising from the second fault ... 1 set my hand joyfully to valiant deeds so that i my be able to complete this work successfully.'

Bower may have been moved to compose his abridgement of Scotichronicon to respond to his critics; fully aware that few scribes would bother to copy his work in full, he was attempting to exert a measure of control over how Scotichronicon would be edited rather than leaving the process up to the whim of the individual copyist. Although abridgements

' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 15-17 seem to have been Far more popular, we must imagine that Bower would be pleased to learn that at least a few complete copies were produced.' Bower's own 'lost exemplar' abridgement has not survived, and most scholars agree that the so-called 'Coupar Angus' abridgement, made about 1480,' is the most faithful copy extant. Among other considerations, those Scottish historiographers who copied out Wallace's story from Bower's narrative, or, in time. encountered it in printed form, bcgan to bc influcnccd in their interpretation by the increasing number of important intellectual, social, religious and political movements which would characterize the Europe of the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Reinterpretations of the Wallace image gradually began to increase in their distance from the fifteenth-century image of Walter Bower and Hary; John Mair and

Hector Boece, writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, subjected the image to criticism in various forms. and their work provided later sixteenth-century historians like

John Lesley and George Buchanan with a narntive framework within which each worked to mould the image of William Wallace into one which embodied the new outlooks of this important century.

The extant abridgements of Scotichronicon all appear to have been copied from the

Coupar Angus manuscript, with one notable exception. Like the other abridgements of

Bower's work, the one which was housed at the Valliscaulian abbey at Pluscarden constituted not just an abridgement, but also a reorganization. continuation and expansion of ~cotichronicon?The extra work in this case appears to have been begun around 1461 by

Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 186-192 discusses the five known complete copies which were made between Bower's death and 15 i 0. see Chron. Bower (Watt),Vo1.9, p.2 12 '' Chron. Bower (Watt), Vo1.9, p. 196- 198 Maurice Buchanan, who was connected with the royal household and well-informed on

French affairs and Franco-Scottish relations, and whose principal contributions to the work lay in these areas.' Ferguson has argued that Buchanan's chronicle was then copied and continued further down to 1489 by , and founder of the university there, and that the manuscript which has since been published as Liber

Piuscardensis is in actuality 'Efphinstone's History' which was copied from Buchanan's

Pluscarden chr~nicle.~As 'Elphinstone's History'. Pluscarden w;ls the abridgement of

Scoticlu-onicon which formed the basis of 's great history,' about which more will be said later. Maurice Buchanan. about whom we know little, and William Elphinstone, were both contemporaries of Hary. Opposition to the peace of 1474, to which Hqwas giving a passionate voice, brought a significant group of disaffected men together, mostly from south of the Forth and led by the king's brother Alexander duke of Albany and by

Archibald Douglas earl of Angus. Macdougall has suggested that these two magnates had begun raiding northern England in violation of the peacen when Elphinstone, after a successful career in law, was recruited by James CII to serve in his body of legal counsellon at Edinburgh in 1478.~Although the king indicted his brother for treason in 1479, forcing him to flee to France, James was too late to save a peace for which Edward N was rapidly losing interest.

After a number of years of increasingly heavy Border raiding on both sides, during

Skene, Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p.xxv; Ferguson, ldentity of the Scottish Nation, p.52 ' Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.61-62, Leslie Macfarlane [William Elphinstone. p. 197 n 1061 mentions that the MS of Liber P!uscardensis edited and printed by Skene (and used in this work) "is traditionally believed to have belonged once to Bishop Elphinstone" as his History of Scotland and provides the 1489 date. ' Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.6 1 Macdougall. James 111, p.129 Wac fatlane, William Elphinstone, p.78 which time Elphinstone, clearly a favourite of James UI, rose to the See of Ross in 148 1. only three years after his having first arrived in Edinburgh, in 1482 the largest English myto cross the border since Walter Bower's boyhood invaded Scotland and captured Bewick, which has remained English ever since. This army was led by Richard duke of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV, and the exiled Albany, who had travelled from France to England carlier in the year and become King Edward's iiegeman. Albany supported the invasion as a means to seize his brother's throne, promising Edward that he would render homage for

Scotland, abandon the Auld Alliance and surrender Berwick and a 'pale' like that of Edward

III to the control of the English.'' While preparing to meet this advancing army. James tII was arrested by a group of his dissaffected magnates, including his half-uncles the earls of

Atholl and Buchan and Archibald earl of Angus, and imprisoned at , while a number of his unpopular courtiers were murdered. Gloucester and Albany were bought off through a substantial sum of money and the restoration of the latter to his Scottish lands and offices, and Macdougall suggests that Albany, the king's captors and James III himself then came to a mutual understanding through which the king was able to secure his release."

James was able to regain control of his government within a few months, and when he charged Albany with treason once again in 1483, the latter renounced his allegiance dong with Buchan, Angus and other supporters. and transferred it to Edward IV. William

Elphinstone, who remained a firm supporter of James III throughout this crisis, was transferred from Ross to the See of Aberdeen later in 1483, soon after which Edward IV died

"' Macdougall, lames III, p. 153 '' Macdougall, James 111, p. 171. Albany was confinned in his restoration and given the earldom of Mar, white the captors were presumably promised a greater share in government and patronage; the arrest and captivity of the king was also 'officially' accepted by James as an attempt to reconcile him with Albany rather than as treason. and was succeeded by his son Edward V. a minor, whose throne was soon seized by Richard

III. Elphinstone served as a regular witness to royal charten after 1483, except when he was on ambassadorial missions to Richard HI and after 1485. Henry W;as such he was not consecrated as bishop of Aberdeen until 1488.'' Elphinstone was therefore very close to

James III during the last years of his reign. After he resumed control of his kingdom, and mindful of his own continuing unpopularity and vulnerability evidenced by the coup and the threat of English aggression, the king's immediate approach to his fonner captors, Albany's supporters and Albany himself was to treat with them. albeit sternly, rather than to attack them. But Albany, refusing the king's terms, was forfeited for the second time and fled in

1483, and over the next few years, having reached a tmce with Richard III and renewed the

Auld Alliance, James forfeited a number of his brother's former associates. causing concern in parliament." The crisis of 1482-83 appears to have made the king more distrustful of his magnates than he had been before, and so less inclined than ever to extend his favours beyond a fairly small circle of trusted supporters like Elphinstone, and throughout the 1480s the resentment which had led to the coup continued to escalate. It was exacerbated by dissatisfaction with the king's propensity to remit crimes for fees instead of levying the usual punishments, which was perceived as laxity on crime adfailure to uphold justice, as well as by the continuing unpopularity of his peaceful approach to Anglo-Scottish relations in the south and, ultimately, by the decision of his fourteen-year-old heir James duke of Rothesay to join the disaffected in February 1488. Throughout that year, two increasingly hostile but

"narrow" factions'" fonned in the midst of a political community which remained neutral for

Macdougall, Jmes Ill, p. 197 I' Macdougall, James Ill, p.20 '' Macdougall, Jmes IV, p.58 the most part: one supporting the king, who was forced to abandon Edinburgh and retreat into the north to ensure his safety, and the other opposing him and based in the south. Civil war erupted after the failure of negotiations, adon 1 1 June 1488 James III was killed in a skirmish at Sauchieburn at the hands of the rebels, who included his own son and a number of his oldest opponents like the earl of Angus, despite the fact that Rothesay forced his confederates beforehand to swear an oath against doing violence to the king.15 It would appear to have been within the next year that William Elphinstone, finally consecrated as bishop of Aberdeen and unwelcome for the moment in the government of the men who had slain his royal patron. came into possession of his copy of Maurice Buchanan's abridgement of Smtichronicon, the Pluscarden chronicle. l6

The Pliismrden narrative of Wallace's career was taken from Scorichronicon and follows Bower's progression through the events with little variation. including the battle of

~tainmore,"which Bower had, it has been suggested in the third chapter, invented; although

Buchanan and Elphinstone made a certain number of changes to their presentation of the

Wallace story, the Wallace image of Pluscarden is undeniably the fifteenth-century image, albeit an abbreviated version of it. In Pluscctrden, Wallace retains Bower's attribution to him of notable birth, remaining "the son of a noble knight,"" along with continuing to be a model of physical and moral perfection:

He was very till1 of stature, of great bodily strength, pleasant and merry of countenance, of kindly seeming to all his friends but terrible to his foes, bounteous in gifts, most righteous in judgment. Being a meScot, he loathed the English nation and their ways ... he was a man

l5 Macdougall, James 111. p.259 and James IV, p.49 '" Madarlane, William Elphinstone, p. 197 11106provides the 1489 dating of the Skene's fiber Pluscardensis MS " Chron. Pluscarden (S kene), p. I 19- 120 '' Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p-117 of wonderful courage and daring. of knightly origin.'9

The reference to Wallace's hatred of the English as signifying him as 'a true Scot* is interesting. and would seem to support Mason's argument that the Wallace image (along with the image of Robert Bruce) had begun to have tremendous influence upon Scottish perceptions of their own identity by the end of the fifteenth century." There were a few additions made to Bower in Plitsrnrden that further developed the impeccability of Wallace's character, including the contention that after Stirling Bridge, Wallace distributed treasures from among his men." and the statement that after Falkirk, Wallace "nearly went out of his mind" because he had survived, "wishing rather to throw away his life with honour than to live most wretchedly in bondage."" These addenda are similar to those Hary made in the Wallace. The Wallace of Pliismrckln also retained Bower's notions of famine in

Scotland justifying the invasion of northern England," and of Wallace's having been

"supported by the help of God and aided by the assistance of Saint Andrew and Saint

C~thbert."'~While Pluscarden contains an abbreviated version of Bower's description of

Wallace's statutum, by which Wallace had set himself up as a dictator. Bower's allegation that Wallace actually implemented the death penalty in Aberdeen by hanging some recdcitrants is omitted. It is tempting to attribute this omission to Elphinstone, who would presumably have been eager to suppress the suggestion that the natives of his Aberdonian diocese were remiss in their support of Wallace. As in Scotichronicon, the Wallace of

Pluscarden was such an effective and successful ruler that "during the time of [his] rule, the

'' Chron. Pluscarden (Skene),p. 1 17 "' see p. 1 15 above " Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 1 19 " Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 1 2 1 " Chron. Pluscarden (Skene). p. 1 19 " Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 12 1 kingdom of Scotland prospered wonderfully in happiness and in manifold ways; and everyone dwelt in safety with his own, and agriculture began to thrive everywhere.""

Pluscarden's Wallace also retained through Bower the Brucean notion of a treacherous

nobility, similarly singling out the Comyns and Robert Bruce in particular, along with the

fifteenth-century idea that Bruce and Wallace met after Falkirk and had a profound conversation. by which Brucc "thcnccforth kept himself from all unmanly and contemptible

pursuits. aiming at higher things, and elevating his spirit.""

Piuscarden went so far in its debt to Walter Bower as to adopt the latter's 'long-

winded moralizing' with respect to the duplicities of the Scottish magnates, albeit using

different words and allusions:

The envy of the devil, by whom death came into this world. and who has a spite against good reputation and is the foe of humen happiness, was hard at work against the good luck and prosperity of the said warden William, through no fault or deserving of his, but by means of the magnates of the realm, among whom it had been lurking as yet undisplayed; and this greatest of evils is constantly and inextinguishably at work in Scotland to this very day ...In spite, however, of all his good deeds and des[s]erts in the interests of the state and the independence of the crown, certain sons of wickedness and imps of the devil conspired and devised mischief against him, framing ties and backbiting him behind his back while speaking fair to his face, and meditating treachery, saying within their hearts, "We will not have this man reign over us." ...So the death of the guileless lamb was devised by those envious haters of the happiness of mankind; and hard upon his death there followed struggles, the shipwreck of the clergy of Scotland, the ruin of the people, the downfall of the kingdom and the destruction of the state."

This kind of moralizing had been used by Bower to speak to his contemporaries, hoping to

use history to influence the politics of his own lifetime. The two writers of Pluscarden also

adopted this element of Scotichronicon, as is explicit in the following consideration of

Wallace's statuturn:

Would that our princes nowadays would take care to adhere to such an arrangement in matters of justice and war, for it is well known to be of the highest importance to a general

Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 120 '' Cltron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 12 1-22 Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 120-2 1 in war. or to a king or guvernor of the kingdom'8

This may be nothing more than an explicit statement of something that Bower had only implied, but Elphinstone at least may have intended it as a criticism of his late sovereign

James III, who in matters of justice had been "compassionate and merciful to the point of f~olhardiness,"~~allowing for the remission through fines of capital crimes. There is some cvidcncc to suggest that Elphinstone, whose legal career was long and distinguished, advocated this kind of mercy when it was ~ilrranted,~'but this passage would seem to indicate a belief that James would have done better if he had demonstrated Wallace's liberal use of the gallows against those who made up the disaffected faction which had ultimately killed him.

On the whole, then, it is difficult to characterize the Wallace image of Pluscurden, which retains from Scotichronicon its notions of Wallace's birth and character, of the favour shown to him by God, of his fully legitimate and very successful sole guardianship, of his

significance to the future in the form of his discussion with Bruce, and of the malignance of

the envy and treachery which brought him to ruin, as anything more or less than the fifteenth- century image. The only addition of significance within Plurcnrden is a further development

upon the theme of treachery in the allegation that the treachery of the magnates was not the

product of their envy alone, but that Edward I, aware of it, exploited it and engineered

treachery against Wallace through secret means." Although aspects of the frameworks of

the Edwardian and Brucean images which affected Bower were adopted by Pluscarden. it

'' Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 1 1 8 " Macfarlane. WibElphimtone, p. 1 15 '' Macfarlane, William Elphinstone, p. 1 14 3' Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 12 1 is clear that its image of Wallace owed much to the imagination and political agenda of

Walter Bower.

There was one particular element of the fifteenth-century image adopted by

Piuscardm which would become increasingly important to later images: the statement that

Wallace was a man of the people, of whom "the lower orders and the populace were exceedingly fond ...as were dso u good many of the older ilnd wiser of the great men of the k~ngdom."~'This sentiment was included by Bower in Scotichronicon. but the heroism of the fifteenth-century version of Wallace was expressed in terms of his unassailable personal characteristics and the virtues of the cause of independence. and the malevolence of his betrayal was described accordingly. The vestiges of this element of the previous image can be found in the Pluscarden chronicle's statements that Wallace was betrayed 'through no

Fault or deserving of his,' being a 'guileless lamb,' but his characterization as a man of the people and a defender of what Bower called "the public interest"" grows in importance in the later work, if only marginally, altering the nature of Wallace's heroism. The crime of the magnates who opposed Wallace begins to take a few steps beyond the betrayal of a good man who deserved their support on that account and on account of his motives; it is exacerbated by the accusation that this betrayal also constituted an abandonment of 'the lower orders and populace,' and the suggestion that the will of this group - the 'public interest' - is something of importance. This idea may have seemed particularly apt to William Elphinstone, who almost certainly held this perception of the actions of the magnates who had rebelled against

James III, and this may serve to explain why &er lurking beneath the surface of the fifteenth-

32 Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 120 s3 Chron. Bower (Watt), BkXI, Ch.3 1, p.93 century image, obscured by seemingly more important aspects of the crime of Wallace's betrayal, the view that the magnates did not just betray a man or the concept of freedom, but also betrayed the public will and. by extension. their duty "to snatch [the people] from the snare of the fowler'*w looms more significant in Pluscarden.

It was the fifteenth-century Wallace image, then, whether in the form of Bower's

Scoticlzronicon. one of its abridgements likc Pluscarden, or Hq's Wallace, which dominated Scottish historiography about Wallace at the outset of the sixteenth century. This is further evident in 's dialectic poem The Flyting of Dicnbur and Kmnedie, in which Kennedie, attacking Dunbar's ancestry, refers to the story of William Wallace:

Quhen Bruce and Balioll differit for the croun, Scattis Lordis could nocht obey Inglis lawis; This Corspatrick betrasit Berwick toun, And slew sevin thousand Scottisrnen within thy wawis, The battall syne of Spottismuir he gart cause, And come with Edwart Langschankis to the feild, Quhair twelve thowsand trew Scottismen wer keild, And Wallace chest, as the Cornicle schawis,

Scottis Lardis chiftanes he gat hald and chessone In tirmance fast, quhilf all the feild wes done, Within Dumbar, that auld spelunk of tressoun: So Inglis tykis in Scottland wes abone, Than spulyeit [hay the haly stane of Scone, The Croce of Halyrudhouse, and vthir jowellis. He bimis in hell, body, banis, and bowellis, This Corspatrik that Scotland hes vndone.

Wdlace gart cry ane counsale in to Penh, And cailit Corspatrick vatour be his style; That dampnit dragone drew him in diserth, And sayd, he kend btWallace, king in Kyle: Out of Dumbar that theif he rrr;lid exyle Unto Edward, and fnglis pndagane: Tigris, serpentis, and taidis will remane In Dumbar wallis, todis, wolffis and beistis ~yle.~'

The 'Cornicle' which Dunbar cites as his source here is actually the Wallace, in which the

Chron. Plwcarden (Skene), p. 120-121 35 The Poems of William Dunbar, VoLII, p.20 figure of Patrick (or Corspatrick), Earl of Dunbar, engaged in the described a~tivities.'~

Dunbar's poem also adopted from Hary, in addition to his narrative, the fifteenth-century notion that God had favoured Wallace and his cause, manifest here in the conviction that

Patrick his enemy 'birnis in hell, body, banis, and bowellis' for having derided and opposed

Wallace. Pluscarden had stated that "being a true Scot, [Wallace] loathed the English nation and thcir ways,"" and thc antipathy towards England which was so important to the fifteenth-century image remained central to Anglo-Scottish affairs as that century came to an end.

Within months of Sauchiebum, the government of James IV (who was still a minor) negotiated a three year truce with Henry VII, hoping thereby to be able to concentrate their full attention upon consolidating the position of the young king, who was in every respect a usurper. as well as a patricide and a regicide. There was a significant rebellion against the usurper in 1489, but by the expiration of the three-year Anglo-Scottish truce, the new king's security at home was sufficiently assured that his govemment had renewed the Auld Alliance with France rather than having pursued any kind of pro-English policy. Hary himself was welcome at the court of James IV in the early years of his reign," at which time the king appears to have adopted Hary's pompous fifteenth-century belligerence towards the Auld

Enemy. Nevertheless, the pro-English Elphinstone had become a member of the king's privy council, which is illustrative of the spirit of inclusiveness and compromise which

Macdougall describes as having been important to the vulnerable regency of James IV in the

-" Wallace, Bk.VLI, p.171 to Bk.MI, p.190 " Chron. Pluscarden (Skene), p. 1 17 " Macdougall, James 1V, p.9 1 years after Sau~hiebum.~'In 1495. the king became involved with supporting Perkin

Warbeck, the latest Yorkist pretender to the English throne, perhaps simply because he was looking for any excuse to open hostilities with Henry VII." and from September 1496 until the summer of 1497 James IV led a number of raids into northern England. The truce which brought these hostile years to an end, however, developed into a peace treaty which took effect in 1502 and which involved the marriage of Jiunes N. who had for years been unsuccessful in finding a better marriage arrangement, and Margaret, the eldest daughter of

Henry VII in 1503.

As had been the case when James III finalized his Anglo-Scottish peace of 1474, this policy of 'Perpetual Peace' between Scotland and England was probably reasonably unpopular in Scotland,'" despite the fact that it seemed to promise to ease the burden of taxation which had been required to support lames W's active foreign policy and Anglo-

Scottish warfare in the . Unlike his father, however, James IV was a popular and respected sovereign who had every reason to expect to succeed in this policy where James

IIl had failed, and the challenges to the Perpetual Peace were quite different than those which had undermined the peace of 1474. Even before the marriage of lames IV and Margaret had taken place, Henry W raised the issue of the Auld Alliance, which was up for renewal, and urged James to abandon it?' The King of Scots was thoroughly unwilling to oblige the

English in this matter, however, and this became central to the ultimate breakdown of the

Perpetual Peace as lists of unredressed grievances began to grow on both sides of the Border

'' Macdougdl, James IV. p.83-86 "' Macdougall, James IV, p. 122 '' for Macdougall's discussion of the evidence of the unpopularity of the treaty, see James IV, p. 149 and p.249. The treaty appears to have been equally unpopular in England. '' Macdougall, James IV, p.250 and the English grew increasingly sure that the Auld Alliance would be renewed. In 1508,

Thomas (later Cardinal) Wolsey was sent to Scotland by Henry VII to discuss the French treaty with James IV, and returned to London convinced that a renewal was

Henry VEI was crowned upon his father's death in 1509, and while both he and

James N promptly renewed the shaky Perpetual Peace, it was further undermined by the new

English king's aggressive posture towards France. French interference in northern Italy had inspired the papacy to assemble a Holy League against them, to which Henry VUI had committed his kingdom by 15 1 I, and the imminence of Anglo-French conflict forced James

IV into a balancing act, with the Auld Alliance on one side and the Perpetual Peace on the other. In 15 12, after a long period of deliberation during which the English parliament resurrected the dimof English feudal overlordship in Scotland, lames finally renewed the

Auld Alliance, hoping. Macdougall argues, to prevent Anglo-French war either by acting as a mediator between the two enemies or by forcing Henry VIII to suspend his invasion plans in response to the Scottish threat? These hopes amounted to nothing, and after Henry entered France with an army in June 15 13 the King of Scots led an invasion of northern

England in August, at the head of "the grandest myScotland had ever seen.""' On 9

September. that army was obliterated, and James IV killed, upon Rodden field by an English force under the Earl of Surrey.

John Mair (or Major) was born around 1469 and went to school at Haddington. the birthplace of Walter Bower; Boece (whose family name was probably Boyis) was born around 1465 and was educated at Dundee. From Haddington, Mair moved on to Cambridge

Macdougall, James IV, p.254 Macdougall, James IV, p.258 45 Paterson, My Wound is Deep, p. 134 and Paris; he was one of the most esteemed Scottish academics of his day and taught theology at the universities of Paris, Glasgow, and St. Andrews. Among Mair's pupils were the future historian George Buchanan and, perhaps, ? Boece too attended the upon leaving Dundee, and returned to Scotland in 1497 to become the fmt principal of Aberdeen university. which had recently been founded by Bishop Elphinstone.

As children and adolescents, both men had witnessed thc sundering of the Scottish political community in disagreement over the Anglo-Scottish peace of 1474 and further similar initiatives undertaken by James III after 1482. After 15 13, as men commanding great respect, they witnessed the aftermath of the disaster of Flodden, which had sweeping psychological effects across Scotland, and may, like Goldstein, have blamed it on "the kind of thinking presented by Blind Hary's fantasy.'*47The virulent flames of fifteenth-century confidence had been suddenly extinguished in the blood of ten thousand Scottish dead; the new king, James V, was only eighteen months old, and the Scottish future seemed "dark and uncertain.'"' These attitudes were bound to shape the historiographical image of William

Wallace as it was presented in the two great achievements of Scottish historiography of the first half of the sixteenth century, Mair's Historia Maioris Brit~nniae;'~published twelve years after Rodden in 1521, and Boece's Scotorum historiac a prima gentis origine published in 152f~.~OLike James IV, the Wdlace who had become the embodiment of the anti-English chauvinism which had disrupted and ruined Scotland from 1474 to 1513 was

'"erguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.69 " Goldstein, The Maner of Scotland, p.284 " Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.59 '' for recent treatments of Mkr, see Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603, p. 18-19 and 22 1-222; Ferguson, Identity ofthe Scottish Nation, p.68-75 "I for recent treatments ofBoece, see Webster. Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603. p. 19-20 and 22 1-222; Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.56-68 left on Flodden Field, an obsolete relic of a by-gone era.

Despite being contemporaries and having led somewhat similar careers, John Mair and Hector Boece were very different in their intellectual development, their politics and their visions of history. Boece was a noted humanist. part of whose agenda was to produce a history of Scotland which abandoned the medieval Latin models of Fordun and Bower in favour of the classical Latin historiagnphical style of the great Roman historian Lily;" even his most recent apologist accepts that Boece may have been "more concerned about good

Latinity than about sound historyw5' Mair was not interested in humanism and embraced the

'medieval* scholastic sensibilities and historiographical models Boece found so

unacceptable; he was also a theologian by trade, and admitted that he was only an "amateur

hi~torian."~'John Mair's solution to the bleak attitudes which followed Flodden was

unionism. as the title of his Historin implies, and this enabled him to look upon the Wallace

story from an entirely new perspective which was critical of the established historiography, especially when it seemed to be aimed at exacerbating English and Scottish divisions.

Boece, however, was not a unionist; he possessed both Bower's spirit of the continuator and

Hary's understanding of what the public wanted after Rodden, which was "to be reminded

of its heroic past and the patriotic deeds that had won and secured its national

independence."s' In what Webster has characterized as "a deliberate riposte'*55against Mair's

Historia, Boece set about redefining patriotic Scottish historiography according to the

classical Roman model of Livy, who had written the history of Rome from its origins until

Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.57 Ferguson, Identity oj'the Scottish Nation, p.68 53 Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.69 Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation. p.60 55 Webster, Scotland from the Ekventh Century to 1603, p.221 his own time and made use of legend and tradition when his sources were lacking.56

Scotorum historiae has always been a very controversial and much disparaged work, especially when set beside Mair's Historia, for its lack of credibility, Boece's alleged credulity, and its alleged invention of nonexistent sources, leading to accusations that Boece was not a historian but "simply a teller of tall tales."n It was nevertheless from Boece and ncjt from Mair that subsequent sixtcenth-ccntury Scottish historiography would spring, thank in particular to John Bellenden, archdeacon of Moray, who published an English translation of Scotorurn historiae in 153 1. In fact, Ferguson has pointed out that Mair's Historia 'died' before he did5' in 1550, a fate which is almost certainly attributable to the lack of popularity of his unionist tendencies. However. as support for unionism grew in later years, Mair had the last laugh on Hector Boece.

Mir began the Wallace story in his Historia by rejecting the current English version of the story of William Wallace as "a mass of incoherencies" and as "silly fabrication^,"^^ detecting within it the kind of chauvinism which was so characteristic of the Edwardian image and so counterproductive to his unionist agenda. He then embarked upon a Wallace narrative which was based for the most part upon Scotichronicon, or perhaps more likely, upon an abridgement of Bower's work; despite the fact that he worked at cross-purposes with and "made no use of Mair."" it is clear that Boece also based the bulk of his Wallace story in Scotorum historiae upon an abridged version of Scotichronicon. If we accept the

5Verguson, identity of the Scottish Nation, p.5 8 57 Ferguson. Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.62. On the subject of Bocce's credibility, see p.62-66. 5' Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.69 " Major, History, p. 194. Mair's reference is to William Cructon, a contemporary of Hary's who, living and working in the second half of the fifteenth century, printed versions of the two most popular 'universal' English histories, the Brut and Higden's Polychronicon, along with his own revisions adcontinuations [Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranuff Higden, (Oxford: Clmendon Press, l966), p.2-3 & 140- 14 11. Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.68 argument that Liber Pluscardensis is actually Elphinstone's own copy of the Pluscarden chronicle, we know for certain which abridgement Boece consulted. It is of particular note that both Mair and Boece adopted the innovative accusation of Piuscurden that the envious

Scottish magnates became involved in some kind of a conspiracy with Edward I to bring

Wallace to ruin.6' and the emphasis upon the fact that Wallace's support included. in Mair's words. "the universal acclamation of the conunon or. in Boecr's (Bellenden's), the "general vocis'"' and "the thre estaitis of S~otland."~

Hector Boece appears to have made a number of additions to Pluscarcienbsnarrative from the WaNace, the first printed edition of which appeared around 1508." He noted that

Wallace "was of sic incredible strenth ...that he vincust oftymes iii or iiii hglismen at anis in singulare battall,"M and described him as having cleared northeast Scotland of the English before Stirling Bridge, naming a succession of castles allegedly captured or attacked, a list which, however, differs from the alla ace^' reflecting perhaps Boece 's understanding of the important strongholds of the northeast, his home region. Like Hary, who described the event as having happened after the battle of Biggar which followed S tirling Bridge. Boece had

"mony Scottis send[ing] thair ambassatouris to Walla~e'~after Stirling Bridge. Boece also adopted Hary's story of the argument before Falkirk "betuist the Stewart, Cumyn and

" Major, History, p. 199; Boece. History (Bellenden), Bk.XIV, Fol.UW " Major. History, p. I96 " Boece, History (Bellenden),Bk.XTV, Fol.UVT. Bellenden's translation of Boece is not without its problems. certainly, and yet its rendering of Scotorurn Historiae into the more accessible vernacular is probably more important in the development of the Wallace image. 64 Boece, Hiitor). (Bellenden),BkXIV, FoL.LLVII King, Blind Harry 's Wallace,p.xi Boece, History (Beilenden), B k.XIV, FoL.UVI '' Boece, History (Bellenden). BkXIV, Fol.LLVI "n Boece, History (Bellenden),BkXIV, Fol-LLVI Wallace,"69along with the deaths at Falkirk of the English "Freir ~rtangis'"*and the Scottish

John Graham, "quhais deith was richt displesant to Wallace.""

Mair's treatment of Hary and the Wallace is very interesting. Having set aside accounts riddled with English biases. he proceeded from his rejection of Caxton to attack the

Our nativc cbniclers, who have witten in the English tongue. extol this William Wallace to the skies, and relate of him that he had never need to strike a second blow. For so great was his bodily strength, as well as his courage, that no murcould smd against his sword. This and much else, that I confess I reckon among the things that cannot at least be proved, I will pass over."

The reference to 'the English tongue' would tend to include Wyntoun in this criticism. but the subsequent commentary makes it clear that it is to Hary that he is rekrring. Mair attached a great deal of importance to discrediting Hayry.and his well-known rejection of the

Wullace as a fabrication to which he gave "but a partial credence"" has already been noted in the third chapter.74 Despite these strong condemnations, however, it is quite clear from

John Mair's Wallace story that 'but a partial credence*actually meant that while he rejected

Hary's passionate anti-English sentiment as contrary to his unionism, he generally accepted

Hay's history. As a result, Mair actually adopted more of the Wallace in his Historiu than did the 'credulous' Hector Boece. He placed Wallace's origins "in the land of Kyle near to

~yr'"~and stated that most of his early career took place in the same region,'6 both of which were prominent only in Hary's poem. Like Boece, Mair adopted from the Wallace the claim

Boece, History (Bellenden),BkXIV, Fol.LLVII "' Boece, History (Betlenden), Bk.XIV, Fol.UVn '' Boece, History (Bellenden),Bk.XIV, Fol.UVn " Major, History, p. 195 Major, History, p.205 '.'see p.88 '' Major. History, p. 195 '"ajar, History, p. 195 that Wallace "dreaded not with a handful of men to scatter and put to open rout the best equipped battalions of the Engli~h,"~but he also borrowed a number of other characteristics of Wallace which only Hary had described. He noted that Wallace was "partly melancholy; his temper. therefore, quick and haughty,"78 qualities Bower had never assigned him and which, like his statement that Wallace's "hatred of the English was as a spur that allowed him no rest fmmfighting,"79 seem to recall Hq's portnyal of Wallace's enduring suffering and his recklessness. Similarly drawn from the Wallace were the burning of the barns of Ayr epi~ode.'~Wallace's alliances with John Graham and Robert Boyd. the idea that Wallace

"deprived of their lands those Scots who had been obstinately favourable to the English rule, and at his own pleasure conferred the same upon those who had done good service to the

Scottish commonwealth,"" and, as in Boece's history, Hq's account of the battle of

Falkirk. Mair, however, borrowed more than Boece from the Wallace in his retelling of

Falkirk, adding "how [Stewart] likened Wallace to an owl."'2 Mair further took from Hary the name of 'Odomar Valancy' in the story of Wallace's capture.')

It is clear from the foregoing that the Wallace images in Historia Maioris Britunniae and Scotorurn Historiae contained many of the elements of the fifteenth-century image. For

Mair and Boece, Wallace remained a man with outstanding physical characteristics, character, and morality, with unassailable legitimacy as leader, and a man who was the instrument of Robert Bruce's 'conversion* to the cause of Scottish independence and

Major, History, p. 196 '' Major, History, p. 195 Major, History, p. 196 "' it was noted in Chapter Three that Hary's editor believed this story to have been originally contained within Scotichronicon and subsequently lost. '' Major, History, p. 198 '' Major, History, p. 199 '' Major, History, p.203. The historical figure referred to here was Aymer de Valence. wrongfully betrayed by an envious nobility. Boece added about this final point: "sic invy hes ay bene and is yit in Scotland, that na nobyll man may leif in it bot outhir be me treason or othir finaly distroyit."" Both men made additions to the Pluscarden version of Wallace which harmonized further with the fifteenth-century image. Mair added, perhaps but not necessarily influenced by Hay, that "like Hannibal or Ulysses [Wallace] understood [how] to dnrv up an myin order of battle, while like another Telmnian Ajax he could carry on the fight in open field."" Boece added that Wallace decided not to attack Aberdeen because

"it mycht not be takyn but [by] gret murdir of pepyll,"'6 an explanation which may have been influenced by the Wallace or the fact that he wrote in Aberdeen. Mair attempted to deepen the connection between Wallace and Bruce by having the former warn the latter to "beware those all-powerful Curnrnings;"" Boece wrote that Wallace would not remove English clergymen from their Scottish posts until it was sanctioned by the bishop of St ~ndrews."

Both Mair whose Historia contains a general grave concern about disobedient subjects and belief that a ruler should rule strongly," and Boece accepted that Wallace had actually

implemented his statutum through in Aberdeen, something which had been omitted

from ~l us~arden,~and about which Boece added parenthetically that the deed "war

repugnant to his perc~arnation."~'

Other additions were particular to the agenda of the individual historian. Boece

included in his account the claim that, whatever ills Wallace may have initiated while

Boece, History (Bellenden), Bk.XIV, Fol.WX Major, History, p. 196 nn Boece, History (Bellenden), B k.XIV, Fol.LLVI '' Major, History, p.20 1 -202 '' Boece, History (Bellenden), B kXIV, Fol.UVI " McGladdery, James 11, p. 13 I '' Major, History, p. 197 " Boece, History (Bellenden), BkXIV, Fol.LLV1 invading England in Edward's absence, he had only undertaken "as king Edward tuke on

Scotland, quhen he fand that samyn destitute of me heid?* This is exactly the kind of tit- for-tat posturing which was abhorrent to Mair's unionism, and no such statement exists in his Historia. In fact, Mair described the invasion of England in the most sanitized fashion to date, mentioning no details whatsoever of the atrocities which had so dominated the contemporary English accounts and prcscnt, although of thc later Scottish images:

[Wallace]had a tirm footing in England on the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mother of Christ; for though he had been attacked by the English milny times both by night and by day, not once - such were his unfailing vigilance and his courage - had he suffered defeat. At length, after three months of such il life as this, he led home his army, rich in the fortunes of war and laden with English spoil. During all that time his army had suffered no disaster. Towards unwarlike persons, such as women and children. towards all who claimed his mercy, he showed himself humane; the proud and all who offered resistance he knew well to

This departure from the established historiography can only have been motivated by Mair's

unionism, which moved him to omit the details of the invasion in hopes of putting aside old grudges. A similar motive may lie behind Mair's novel contentions that after Falkirk, the

Guardians and Wallace would have been able to work together if they could have put their

pride and differences aside:" and, even more notable, that by 1303 Edward I "could not do

otherwise than admire the immoveable spirit" of William Wallace.95 In these cases, Mair

appears to attempt to portray some of the great paragons of implacable enmity - Wallace. the

magnates and Edward - in a conciliatory light, suggesting perhaps that if there was hope for

an understanding among these historical figures (although they did not realize it) there is

hope for understanding between England and Scotland in Mair's time. These ideas were not

* Boece, History (Bellenden), Bk.XIV, Fol.UVU V3 Major, History, p. 197 YJ Major, History, p.202 Major, Histow, p.203 accepted by Boece in his subsequent work. Mair also tried to achieve some kind of understanding of the way in which Wallace was perceived by the nobility, not entirely abandoning the moralizing of the fifteenth-century image but nevertheless looking upon the situation with a certain sobriety:

The Scottish nobles did not relish this arrangement [Wallace's regency]. Yet were they powerless to find a remedy ...With few of them was he on a familiar footing. Nor is this to be wondered at: for it would have been no easy matter for Wallace and for them to take common action on my point ...It may be that the nobility looked upon William as aiming at the royal power, and that they preferred English rule to William's. That is a feature of nobles generally - to prefer the yoke of cr superior to that of an inferior. 1 fancy too that they aimed thereby at weakening the power at once of Edward and of William - which done, the government of the kingdom would reven to them?

Boece on the other hand wanted nothing to do with such a level-headed approach to the nobility, preferring instead the indignation of Bower and Hilry on this point. He also introduced a novel tlavour to accusations against the nobility in his statement that they "rais gret seditioun in Scotland, specially be the Cumyngis and Rokn Bruce. quhilkis invyit hym maist."" This, for the first time. explicitly places the treacheries of Bruce, introduced in the

Bmcean works and expanded upon by Bower and Hary, on a level equivalent with those of the Comyns.

In other cases, both Mair and Boece made significant omissions of fifteenth-century details. while Mair for his part was openly and explicitly critical about certain aspects of

Wallace as portrayed by Bower and Hary. As has been noted above, Boece excluded from

Scotorurn his~oriarmuch more of the Wallace than had John Mair, including such things as the barnssf-Ayr episode, the claim that Wallace, in Mair's words, "proved himself a better ruler, in the simple armour of his integrity, than any of the nobles would have been,"98and

ya Major, History, p. 198- t 99 * Boece, History (Bellenden), Bk.XIV, Fo1.UVII '' Major, History, p. 199 the details of the insults leveled at Wallace by the magnates at Falkirk. Both men seem to have rejected the fervent fifteenth-century claims that Wallace was favoured by God and that

God was on his side, except where Boece included Bower's story that Wallace was spared

Purgatory because of the righteousness of his cause,% a story which Mair brought up but about which he was openly very skeptical, noting that "true repentance will sift, as it were, all sins, ilnd make them as if they had not been [and] I will not insist on the point whether in his resistance to Edward [Wallace] acted aright."lm This change in the way Wallace was viewed must reflect the cynicism which followed Flodden. Hary had imagined that if the

Scots could just face the English in a duly constituted battle with a united and concerted will.

God would ensure that Scotland would prevail. Flodden was, to say the least, evidence to the contrary.

Mair was also openly critical of the stubbornness attributed to Wallace as 'hammer- of-the-English,' shown in his refusal to yield to the leadership of the magnates at Fakirk''' and his reluctance to come to terms with Edward "for a time ...so he might shelter himself from the designs of his [Scottish] foes."'" Like other aspects of Mair's Wallace story, this criticism would seem to be rooted in his unionism, which demanded that old grudges be set aside in the interest of peaceful coexistence. His outright rejection of the suggestions of

Wyntoun and (especially) Hary that Wallace went to France after Fallcirk, ostensibly because there was no mention of it anywhere else1'-' (demonstrating his ignorance of Rishanger among other works), may also have been influenced by Mair's unionism, or more

'JY Boece, History (Bellenden),Bk.XIV, FolU "" Major, History, p.2W "'I Major. History, p. 199 ''' Major, History, p.204 ltUMajor, History, p.204-205 appropriately. his bias against France. Unlike Bower and Hary, Mair had little love for

France despite the fact that he earned his reputation and his living there for many years;lW he may well have blamed the Auld Alliance for the failure of the 'Perpetual Peace,' which was crucial to unionism. Whether he realized that the idea of Wallace's French connection was rooted in Bower's and Hary's obvious affinity for the Auld Alliance, or whether he simply fclt that it undcrmincd his unionist agcnda, Mair would haw nonc of it. Boccc excluded Mair's explicit criticisms from Scotorurn historiae; he passed over the subjects of

'our native chroniclers, who have written in the English tongue' and Wallace's alleged

sojourns in France in silence, without attacking Mair's conclusions or defending the old

historiography. Moreover. Boece omitted Historin Maioris Brittuniae's criticisms of

William Wallace himself; indeed, in praising Wallace for the fact that "thocht all othir

Scottis randerit baith thame self and thair cuntre to servitude of Inglismen. he wald nevir be

subdewit. bot ay losing the auld liberte of Sc~tlmd,"'~~Boece took explicit exception to

Mair's critical view of Wallace's stubbornness and intransigence.

While the image of William Wallace in Mair's Historia and Boece's Scotonim

Historiur recalled the narrative details of the fifteenth-century image, at the same time the

image constructed by John Mair and Hector Boece had changed appreciably from that

constructed by Walter Bower and Hary. For the most part, these changes involved the

attitudes conveyed by the image - the emotions it embodied and evoked from its readers -

rather than its narrative detail. They demonstrated that the story of William Wallace was not

inviolate: for the first time in Scottish historiography, the Wallace story involved more

If" Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.7 I "* Boece, History (Bellenden), B kXN, FolU editing and pruning of the established one than it did expansion and addition. The most important consequence of the development of this new image, resulting from Mair's explicit criticisms and the omissions both he and Boece made from the Wallace, was the departure of the historiographical Wallace from the Wallace of the Wallace 'cult. ' They had been brought together by the architects of the Brucean image, but after the work of Mair and

Bocce. thc two would ncvcr again meet as intimately they had in the fifteenth-century image.

Beginning with Mair and Boece, the image of William Willlace began to move through the subsequent centuries in two different forms - that of the Walluce, based firmly in the spirit of the Wallace 'cult,' and that of 'history,' which had begun to find the Wallace of the 'cult' unacceptable. Gone even from Boece were the virulent anti-English rhetoric of the fifteenth- century image and its suggestion that Wallace was doing God's work in his punishment of the Auld Enemy; instead, the sanctity of Wallace's deeds was becoming increasingly rooted in his having acted as the instrument of the 'public interest,' and this last point would become central to the image of William Wallace in the historiography of the later sixteenth century.

Between the historiography of the and the next great Scottish historiographical achievements in the last twenty-five years of the century, the character of Anglo-Scottish affairs was extensively transformed, as indeed was Scotland itself. Both proceeded according to the old familiar pattern for some time after the disaster at Flodden Field in

September 15 13, except that Scottish enthusiasm for the Auld Alliance, the instrument of that disaster, began to wane somewhat, aided by the influence of a growing pro-English faction headed by Margaret Tudor, the widow of James N,regent of Scotland during the minority of James V, and sister of Henry Vm. For a generation, the leadership of Scotland vacillated between yielding to the various overtures of the English and French kings, but ultimately upheld the Auld Alliance despite the pro-English faction and the growing displeasure of Henry VIII. But the Alliance had changed. After Scotland had been dragged by the French into armed conflict with England in the 1520s and 1530s, the thought of again invading England to benefit France or even, after the English reformation, the Catholic

Lcaguc or Church, was anathema, and Scottish aggression was limited to Border skirmishes.

In 1542, a beleaguered and hostile Henry VIII ordered an invasion of Scotland, in response to which the Scots crossed the Border and were annihilated at Solway Moss; within a month,

James V had died, leaving his daughter Mary, one week old. as his only heir. Henry VTII hoped to establish Anglo-Scottish peace through a milrriage between his son and heir Edward and the baby Myy, Queen of Scots, a proposal which was supported by the pro-English (and. increasingly, Protestant) faction in Scotland but which was generally opposed. In order to force his opponents to see things differently, in 1544 Henry initiated a bitterly destructive campaign of Border and seabome riding, invasion and instigation of pro-English insurrection against Mary's regency - the so-called 'Rough Wooing' - which would continue on and off for seven years. being continued after Henry's death in 1547 by his son's regent,

Somerset. Intransigent despite such calamities as the burning of Edinburgh, the destruction of the Border abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, Jedburgh, and Kelso (none of which was ever restored), and the defeat of the Scottish army at Pinkie, the Scots instead sent Mary to France to many the Dauphin in exchange for French help, with which they managed to end the

'Rough Wooing' by 155 1. Anglo-French conflict again brought Scotland into war with

Englanci in the 1550s, but the Scots were less inclined than ever to put themselves at risk to advance French interests. Growing increasingly embittered by perceived French interference in their kingdom, Scotland entered its reformation era.

The . aided by English military support. changed Anglo-Scottish affairs irrevocably. affording the English and Scottish kingdoms unprecedented common ground and common cause through religion, and bringing to a sudden end an Auld Alliance which hild been built upon a succession of understandings and agreements extending back at lcast to 1195. It also polvizcd Scotland internally into those who supported the Catholic

Queen Mary and those who supported the Protestant ascendancy, religious and political positions to which many clung as firmly as the architects of the fifteenth-century image had once clung to their hatred of the English. For and George Buchanan, the authors of the two great works of Scottish historiography which followed the reformation near the end of the sixteenth century, it was Scottish internal politics. rather than Anglo-Scottish affairs. which would exert the greatest influence upon their conceptions of William Wallace. john Lesley, bishop of Ross, was a fervent supporter of Miuy and was removed from office when the queen was forced to 'abdicate* her throne in response to the pressure exerted by her predominantly Protestant subjects. '" A passionate royalist. Lesley wrote the first history of

Scotland to be published after the reformation, De Origine: Moribus et Gestis Scotorurn. which was published in 1578, eleven years after Mary's downfall in 1578, and published again in 1596 in James Dalrymple's translation. Shortly after Lesley's De Origine, George

Buchanan published in 1582, the year of his death, what Webster calls "the final expansion of the tradition according to Fordun and ~owef"" - Renun Scoticarum Historia; Buchanan was a kinsman of the Pluscarden chronicler and a noted humanist, political theorist, and

"" McGladdety, James 11, p. 137 "" Webster. Scotlardfrom the Eleventh Century to 1603, p.20 Protestant who had studied under John Mair in St Andrews and Paris in the 1520s and 1530s. becoming a distinguished Latin poet who caught the attention of James V.lo8 After being imprisoned in Scotland for his reformist views, Buchanan escaped and bided his time teaching md writing in France and Portugal, returning to Scotland early in the 1560s.

Originally a supporter and tutor of Queen Mary, Buchanan turned against her after the

Darnley-Bothwell affair which was thc final straw lcading to her 'abdication' in 1567;'" hc became the tutor of James V1, Mary's son. an outspoken Protestant advocate, and a supporter of Jmes Stewart, Earl of Moray, the chief figure of the Protestant ascendancy. Buchanan's conception of Scottish history, which like Lesley's was built upon the historiographical tradition founded by Hector Boece, became the most widely-read and authoritative for centuries; as such Rerum Scoticurum Historia is a sensible and convenient place to end the current enquiry into the development of the historiographical image of William Wallace.

In his account of the career of William Wallace, "onn quhais schuldiris was laid the moderatioune of the hail realme,""o john Lesley preferred to abridge, sometimes markedly,

Boece's narrative. The accounts of Stirling Bridgel'l and ~alkirkl''in De Origina followed

Boece. but were shon enough to be encompassed in single sentences; after adopting Boece's list of castles subdued by Wallace before Stirling Bridge, Lesley stated "in the meane tyme

I latt passe quhat he did ... in uthiris places, mony preclare and notable actes. the ennirnies all chaist or slane.""' Lesley's only addition to Boece's narrative was a resurrection of the

'IM Ferguson, Identity of the Scottish Nation, p.80 "FJ Ferguson, ldentity of the Scottish Nation, p.82-83. Darnley, Mary's husband, was murdered, and her subsequent hasty marriage to the earl of Bothwell led to accusations of her complicity in Damley's murder. 'lo Lesley, History (Ddlymple), Vol .I, p.346 'I' Lesley. History (Dalrymple), Vol.1, p.346 'I' 'I' Lesley, History (Dalrymple), VolJ, p.345 Lesley, History (Dalrymple), Voi.1, p.346-347 fifteenth-century idea, ignored for the most part by Mair and Boece, that Wallace was surpassingly blessed by God, an idea which was perhaps influenced by Lesley's clerical background:

[Wallace's] duchtie deidis, sa lube succes, appeiris rathir to proceid of sum divine grace and special gifte of God, than to be done throuch ony strenth of body, of mychte of rnan. Ffor quhair danger hes beine mist deip, quhair all hes beine in despare, their with il rnervellous spirit bauldlie hes he onsett, butt feir: nethir succeidet warr quhat he tuik on hand nor the nobilitie of his spirit was seine to be.'14

Buchanan, on the other hand, elected to reproduce the totality of Boece's narrative, making the occasional addition which presumably reflected his other sources. From earlier Scottish historiography, he added the age-old detail that W ailace "was descended from an ancient and honourable family, but born and educated in rather indigent circumstance^.""^ something

Boece had omitted. Probably from Mair's Historia rather than from his own reading of the

Edwardian historiography, Buchilnan noted that the English chronicles referred to Wallace as "a vagabond robberqWH6and also seems to have adopted from Mair the following consideration of the envious magnates:

His enemies ... widely disseminated rumours that he was beginning openly to aspire to the crown. At which point, the nobles became indignant, particularly Bruce and Cumin, who, belonging to the blood royal, thought, if they must be subjects, it was more honourable to be so to a great and powerful king than to an upstart, whose dominion would not be less base than dangerous; ilnd therefore, they determined, by every method, to undermine the authority of wallace.' l7

Buchanan has here implicated Bruce and the Comyns to an equal degree as Boece had done.

Omitting the idea, taken from the Waflaceby Boece, that Wallace routinely defeated large

groups in single combat, Buchanan appears to have replaced it with a passage based upon

Lesley's statement that Wallace "in strenth of body was sa strang, and sa stout of mynd, and

Lesley, History (Ddrymple), Vol.1, p.347 'Is Buchanan, History (Aitken), Bk.Vm, Ch.XVIII, p.4W1 'I6 Buchanm, History (Aitken), Bk.VIII, ChXIX, p.402 lL7 Buchanan, History (Aitken), Bk.Vm, ChXXII, p.405 couragious, that quhat battell he began, althocht hindiret with hard difficulties. quhen the sarnyn batteil he wann nochtwithstandeng al dainger and adversitie:""'

While quite a youth he slew a young English nobleman who haughtily insulted him For this deed he was forced to become a fugitive and a wanderer, and passed myyears in various lurking piaces. By this methad of life, his body was hardened against dl changes of fortune, and by being often exposed to danger, his mind became strengthened for deeds of greater daring. At length, tired with his unsettled kind of life, he determined to attempt something nobler, however h~ardous.~l9

In heir narrative Ltilils, the truncated Wallace story of Dr Origilir and the expansive

Wallace story of Rerum were therefore quite different, and both were also different from

Boece's treatment of the subject. but these differences of detail do not appreciably render the

later Wallace images divergent from the historiography of the earlier part of the century.

What really mattered to Lesley were not the details of Wallace's career, but the nature of his

achievement. Like Boece, Lesley stated that Wallace was "with all consentis. ..chosen cheif

capitane to defend his nati~une"'~~and put himself "sa oft ...in danger for that ungrate

Nobilitie, sa dour unthankfull, and for his hail peple;"121 but Lesley appears to have found

it particularly significant that Wallace did these things despite the fact that he was "bot me

privat penone,""' a point upon which he dwelt:

He drew till him na men of weir throch landis and rentis, as the rnaner uses to be with ws, because he was bot of the mid ranck of nobles, a knichtis secund sone; nethir throuch stipend. quhen his ryches was bot small; nethir throuch ony publick office, he being bot me privat persone; bot only throuch his venue, his mychtie spirit, his zele, and hett fervour in him to defend his cunuie, and throuch his mervellous maniris baith noble and notable.'23

Lesley emphasized, therefore, that Wallace's achievement was that he managed to fill the

role expected of a magnate, a wealthy man. or an official, even though he was none of these

'In Lesley, History (Ddrymple), Vol.1, p.346 Buchanan, History (Aitken), Bk.VUI, ChXVIII, p.40 1 la' Lesley, History (Ddrymple), Voi.1, p.347 IZL Lesley, History (Dalrymple), Vol.1. p.348 '" Lesley, History (Dalrympie), Vol.1, p.347 '" Lesley, History (Ddrymple), Vol.1, p.347 things; it was presumably the fact that this class of natural leaden was unable or unwilling to do its pxt that moved Lesley to note that before Wallace Scotland "suirlie had uttirlie dekayet and cum to nocht."12' This idea that the nobility had let the 'public interest*of

Scotland down in the Rising of 1297-1304 had been growing in the historiography since

Scotichronicon, but it became centnl to Lesley's image of William Wallace, perhaps because of lingering bittcmcss over the way in which the Protestant ascendancy had treated May,

Queen of Scots. Lesley's consideration of Wallace's resignation - or abdication - of his guardianship was probably similarly influenced by this kind of bitterness, leading him to spend more time on this aspect of Wallace's career than he afforded to most of its other aspects. ksley must have seen much that was familiar between Wallace's predicament and that which had faced his sovereign in 1567 when he wrote that despite the fact that Wallace

"with dl piete had govemet'*l3 he was moved to resign his position "to eschue the rancour of sum."'" and that this rancorous and treacherous group had become so "because thay hard him commendet in defending his cuntrie"'?' and because Wallace "stoutlie frome servitude had delyverit it.""' When he attached to Wallace's betrayal and resignation the proverb "a man verie valyeant, ryche, or prudent can nocht weil defend him selfe amang sum peple,"'" which recalls a phrase of Boece's, we must imagine that he had come to realize the 'truth* of the phrase as a witness to Mary's tribulations.

George Buchanan also emphasized the idea that the nobles let the 'public interest' of Scotland down, stating that "the nobility. in general, appeared to have neither heart nor

'" Lesley, History (Drllrymple), Vol.1. p.346 IzsLesley, History (Dalrymple), Vol.1, p.347 '" Lesley, History (Dalrymple), Vol.1, p.347 "'Lesley, History (Dalrymple),Vol.1, p.347 "'Lesley, History (Dalrymple),Vo1.1, p.347 '2~Lesley, History (Dalrymple),Vol.1, p.347 inclination for undertaking any great enterprise"lm and speculating with regard to their envy of Wallace, that

his praises appeared to reproach the high and powerful chieftains, either with cowardice t'or not daring, or with treachery for being unwilling, to attempt what a gentleman in low circumstances and destitute of every advantage of fortune had not only bravely undertaken, but successfully accomplished.13'

Buchanan summarized this point in his epitaph for Wallace, stating that Wallace "stood alone unsubdued and free, and neither could rewards induce, nor terrors force him to desert the public cause which he had once undertaken.""' One supposes that as he wrote this about

Wallace, Buchanan very probably had in his mind his hero James Stewart earl of Moray, who must have seemed to Buchanan to have steadfastly maintained 'the public cause' of

Protestantism against the pressures of his half-sister's supporters, who had successfully organized his assassination in 1570. For Lesley and Buchanan. Wallace's example ceased to be so much about his patriotism (although that element remained important) and became at least as important for what it said about his spirit of public service.

Throughout the sixteenth century, the historiographical image of W i1lia.cn Wallace took greater and greater steps away from the fifteenth-century image. Mair and Boece. even though they retained much of the narrative provided by the architects of the prior image. nevertheless divorced it from the historiographical image and set both images upon independent paths. The fifteenth-century image was not destroyed; it continued to enjoy tremendous popularity as what might be called 'popular' history, and it remains popular at the present.I3' In the first steps of its departure from the fifteenthsentury image. the

Buchman, History (Aitken), Bk.VIII, Ch.XVIII, p.40 1 'I' Buchanim, History (Aitken), Bk.VIII, ChXXI, p.404 '" Buchanan, History (Aitken), Bk.VIII, Ch.XXIX, p.4 14 see King, Blind Harry 5 Wallace, p.xi historiographical image of William Wallace was given a new attitude which accepted that

Wdlace was fallible and his story open to criticism, and which had come to terms with the fact that fifteenth-century views of Anglo-Scottish relations. and by extension those of

Wallace himself, had become obsolete. In its later stages, the historiographical image of

William Wallace began to develop an element which condemned the magnates of Wallace's lifetime for their inactivity and their abandonment of both the people and the 'public interest' in their hour of need. This 'public interest' element became so entrenched in Scottish historiography that it has continued to affect it to the present century; thanks in particular to the popularity of Buchanan's Rentm Scoticarum Historiu, it became and remains, as Byrow describes it, "one of the hardest-dying half-truths of Scottish history."'3J

IW Barrow, Roben Bruce, p.80 Conclusion The Hardestdying Half-truths of Scottish History

The Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry displayed twenty-four separate printed editions of Hary's Wallace along with the one known manuscript of the poem,' and Elspeth King informs us that between the first 1508 edition and 1707 the Wallace was printed in twentythree different edtions.' This tremendous popularity, surpassed only by that of the Bible in Scotland, was maintained despite the poem's dismissal by historians from Mair onward, illustrating the general disregard for 'scholarly' opinion on the subject of William Wallace that the Scottish public maintained throughout these centuries. It was perhaps a very similar public disinterest in the 'truth' about Wallace's career which allowed

Robert Bruce and his propagandists, like any good providers of bread and circuses. to fabricate an image of Wailace which dismissed the accounts of his English contemporaries in favour of a popular tale that was largely fantastic. Jmes Mackay, Hary's most recent fervent apologist, has protested about the Wallace that "deliberate falsehoods [would have been] capable at the time of immediate refutation,"' but this assumption that Hary's readership was at all interested in the integrity of the 'truth' is ill-advised, and we should not for one moment expect that Robert's subjects exhibited any measure of hostility to the

'deliberate falsehoods' the king propagated about Wallace. To illustrate this point, we need do no more than dnw attention to the tremendous modem popularity of ','

whether in literary or cinematographic form, and note the singular lack of popular outrage

19 1 1 Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art & Industry, Puke of History: Catalogue offihibits. Glasgow, Edinburgh and London: Dalross, 19 1 1, pp 463,478-8 1 ' King, Blind Harry 's Wallace, p.xi ' Mackay, William Wallace: Braveheart, p. 1 1 that results when liberties are taken with history in such instances. The problems with the

Brucean and fifteenth-century fantasies lie in the fact that they were later read as the 'truth' by writers of history.

The tone of Wallace scholarship in the twentieth century was set by Professor Evan

Barron, who recognized within the established historiography of the wars of independence

"the carelessness md partisanship of historical writen.'"' in hs attempt to revise the Wallace story, Barron's attack upon the prevailing opinion that Wallace was the sole leader of the

Rising was an assault upon a foundation of Wallace's image which Robert Bruce had invented and which endured as late as Hume Brown's general history of Scotland published in 1 9 1 1 .5 Barron rejected the idea that famine was the cause of the invasion of England, invented by Bower to reconcile the invasion with his morally-pure fifteenth-century Wallace. and which Hume Brown had acceptedO6Like John Mair, Banon made an attempt to come to terms with the activities of the magnates during Wallace's career, refusing to accept the

Brucean idea of treachery without an examination of how the nobility should reasonably have been expected to behave.7 Barron's impressive and stimulating work was the first attempt to counteract the effects of the Brucean and fifteenthcentury images upon the writing of

Wallace's history since John Mair, but like Mair, objections to his greater agenda - for Mair unionism and for Barron the desire to demonstrate the importance of the north in the Rising - and conclusions affected how his work was received.

The Scottish War of lndegendence was succeeded and surpassed in 1%5 by Professor

'' Barron, War of lndependence, p.vii see Barron. War of independence, p.68-79 for his perceptions of the roles played by Andrew Murray and Robert W is hart. "mn, War of independence, p.82; Hum Brown, History of Scotland, p. 1 19 Banon, War of lndependence, p.7 1-84 G.W.S.Barrow's first edition of Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland, which was followed by subsequent editions in 1976 and 1988. Barrow's project was to explore the political development of Scotland from the end of the reign of Alexander III in

1286 to the end of the reign of Robert Bruce in 1329. Like Bmon. he argued that for a time during the Rising "Wallace's primacy of leadership could not be ~hallenged,"~but that at the same time Wallace was never the sole leader of the ksing. Barrow introduced from contemporary documentation a long sequence of names of leaders through which he demonstrated that the Rising of 1297- 1304 represented the concerted effort of the community of the realm of Scotland rather than the effort of one man. As such, like Barron he completely rejected the idea, which runs through the Brucean, fifteenth-century and sixteenth-century images of Wallace, that the Scottish nobility betrayed Wallace and

S~otland.~The notion was, Bmow believed (as noted above), 'one of the hardest-dying hdf- truths of Scottish history.' The veracity of Barrow's statement was proven quickly after he made it, as it would not be until 1992 and Professor Michael Lynch's Scotland: A New

History that a general history of Scotland was published within which the nobility is described as having played a strong role in the Rising."

In the meantime, Nigel Tranter had written in his historical novel The Steps to the

Empty Throne, published in 1969, that although Wallace interacted with the magnates upon occasion," his generally independent agenda was misguided and nave because it was not

"Barrow. Robert Bruce, p.85 9 Barrow, Robert Bruce, p.80 "' Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History, (London: Pimlico, 1992), p. 119 " Lynch, Scotland: A New Hisrory, p.84-86 being supported by the nobility.I2 In 1971, John Prebble's ?"he Lion in the North stated that

"the great lords of Scotland stood aside, or took their swords into [the English] camp, where chivalry was better served and honoured,"" while in 1984 Tom Steel wrote in Scotland 5

Story that the Rising was "Wallace's campaign to rid Scotland of the English," in which "the

Scottish barons and earls stood aside."" Since Lynch's New History, James Mackay has written in William Wallace: Bravehean about "the self-serving, double-dealing nobility, some of whom had changed sides so often that it is difficult to keep track of their momentary al~egiance."'~Peter Traquair, who published Freedom S Sword in 1998, states that "the magnates remained uneasy with their unaristocntic commander"16and suggests that Wallace was pushed into fighting at Falkirk despite the unfavourable odds because "guerrilla campaigns meant little to the nobility and their continued cooperation needed a fresh victo~y."~'It is clear from ail of this that despite the trends of historical scholarship, the

Brucean, fifteenth-century and sixteenth-century images of William Wallace which have been explored and examined within this enquiry remain influential in the writing of

Wallace's story to the present day.

With the assistance of the diverse body of biographers investigated in this work, including a king and his propagandists, two , three monks, three academics, a secular clergyman and a dissident ex-soldier, William Wallace assumed an enduring posthumous significance greater than anything he enjoyed in life. As his historiographical image

" Nigel Tranter. Roben the Bruce: The Steps to the Empty Throne. (London & Edinburgh: Hoddler & Stoughton, 1969), p.84-94 l3 John Prebble, The Lion in the North, (Toronto: Penguin, 198 1), p.78 I" Tom Steel, Scotland's Story, (London: HarperCollins, 1994). p.44 ''Mackay, Willitam Wullace: Braveheart, p. 173 '' Peter Traquair, Freedom 5 Sword, (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p.80 l7Traquair, Freedom 5 Sword, p.83 developed over the first three centuries following his death. it was manipulated and employed to provide an example to strengthen the kingship of Robert Bruce, fuel the flames of medieval Scottish patriotism, criticize selfishness and ambition among Scottish nobles. condemn the murderers of James I, raise opposition to the unpopular James ID, comment

upon the deposition of Mary Queen of Scots and extol the virtue of civic dutifulness.

Throughout these peregrinations, the image of William Wallace has made a permanent

impact upon the Scottish identity. as Mason argues. and has also continued to entertain and

inspire audiences both within and, ultimately, beyond the borders of Scotland. After the

publication of Buchanan's Rerum Scoticcirum Historia in 1582 and beyond the scope of this

enquiry, the Wallace image was further employed in ways such as these. and in very recent

years incidents of its continued manipulation and application to the worlds of politics and

entertainment have occurred. The transition of the image from literature to Oscar-winning

film did not merely entertain; it was also put to use by the Scottish National Party, which

disseminated its literature at screenings as part of a recruitment drive." As the Scots look

forward to a new century of devolution and the word 'independence' has returned to the

language of public discourse, we can only assume that the historiographical image of

William Wallace will continue to be as significant in the future as it has been in the past and

continues to be today. In that event, it has surely been instructive to have explored its

origins.

'' Traquair, Freedom 's Sword, p.7 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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