What do you think of William Wallace?

Question

A great visionary and leader or a mindless slaughterer

Answer 1

The simple answer to that is that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Wallace was certainly an early promoter of the idea of Scottish nationhood. Prior to his time, Scotland was not a united land as it is today. There was almost constant civil war between opposing factions who favoured one king over another. The Western Isles were independent, ruled by descendants of the Vikings, while the Orkneys and Shetlands belonged to Norway and later Denmark, and the far north was ruled by independent earls who switched allegiance from one royal family to another on a regular basis.

At the same time as all this was going on, the English kings claimed hegemony over Scotland, and the different claimants to the Scottish throne regularly made treaties with the English and broke them just as often. It was a very complicated situation.

Wallace was fairly successful in uniting the Scots of the lowlands and midlands against the English king, Edward I.
Obviously, whenever armies oppose each other, there is slaughter on both sides.
Wallace was betrayed by Scots who did not share his sentiments, and suffered the horrendous punishment of being hung, drawn and quartered by Edward I, known as "The Hammer of the Scots."

However, he sowed the seeds of Scottish unity which eventually came to fruition under James VI who then inherited the English throne (as James I)

The movie Braveheart was very inaccurate historically and portrayed Wallace as a savage, whereas in reality he was an educated man of the upper classes of his time.

An excellent book that explains much of the detail of Scottish dynastic politics and dealings is called: The Kings and Queens of Scotland, by Richard Oram
ISBN number 13:978-0-7524-3814-X

Answer 2

I can only go on what I saw on Braveheart, but if that is a true representation of what did happen, I think he was a visionary and would have been a great leader.

Answer 3

In the time where the English did most of the mindless slaughtering. I think he brought freedom to his country and the ends did justify the mines.

Answer 4

I would have to say Wallace was a visionary. These people lived in barbaric times so the horrific things they did should be of no surprise. The torture he went through to defend his beliefs were extremely gruesome.

Answer 5

Not a lot he was just a cattle thief made famous by Mel Gibson.But then again it gave the Scots just like the Irish another reason to blame the English for what their own people did to them. Sell their countries for English Gold.

Answer 6

He was a visionary ... and a darn good excuse for Mel Gibson to make a TON of money and wear a skirt.

Answer 7

one of scotlands greatest hero's apart from robert the bruce they both contributed to the way scotland is to this day and age and that skirt as you call it is called a filabeg or filamore depending if you wore a long kilt or a short one. my son is in a band up here who dress's exactly as they did in wallaces time

Answer 8

have read some interesting thoughts about the " real " William Wallace. just don't believe everything the movie portrayed, even though I personally admire him for doing what he believed was right.

Answer 9

I'd call him a Patriot who died in the fight against the English occupying forces.Historically speaking Braveheart's a load of s***e!Mind you,since when has Hollywood bothered about the facts?

Answer 10

He was great when he played centre forward for Celtic but once he went down south to Arsenal his game suffered and he was not as prolific a gola scorer.