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Blind Harry's Wallace

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One of my first reactions was to value this volume as a corrective to "Braveheart" - to which it is certainly rather weakly linked. Harry's Wallace was not stupid; he did not use a wild Highland charge against thousands of Edward's men as did the celluloid creation - without armor. Thus I appreciated the poet's description of Wallace's defensive gear - not just an occasionally-worn helmet that falls off at the onset of battle (as in Hollywood's offering ) but a helmet, steel collar, coat of mail, and even steel-plated gauntlets. Viewers of "Braveheart" also tend to come away with the impression that Wallace was (essentially) a Highlander leading clansmen to battle - which certainly cannot be concluded from Harry's account (and naming of Wallace supporters). This Luath edition of the historic epic, moreover, contains a very interesting map of "Wallace Place names" (page 225) which suggests that Wallace's support was in the South (some in the North-East) of Scotland, and not the North and West where the great Highland clans were situated. There are numerous such (major) discrepancies in the popular movie but each reader may easily and instructively discover these for himself as comparisons are made. It is only fair to add, however, that the movie might also serve as 'corrective' to the poem since the film-script does warn us, on at least two occasions, of the hyperbole that results in passing on verbal anecdotes of legendary figures and the Harry version relies, at least in part, upon such anecdotes. Randall Wallace's script (understandably, since his is an audience of different sensibilities to Harry's ) is not so obviously 'racial' in its prejudices. I had the impression (reading the bard)that I was reading the Declaration of Independence one minute and Mein Kampf the next. The "blood untainted" of Harry's Scots (see page one)is, of course, nonsense, as is the demonisation of the "Picts, Danes and Saxons" that the 'Scots' historically fought. To the knowledgable, Harry's 'English' were simply a mixture of Gaelic and Germanic elements (quite like the Scots themselves) mustered by descendants of the Norman conquerors of England (Scotland was itself already somewhat dominated by such high-flying Normans, and would continue to be, especially in and through the person of Robert Bruce and his dynasty). The introduction to this edition of "Wallace" perhaps gives the key to Harry's racial preferences. Page xvii reveals that Harry's chief patron was the Scottish king himself - descendant of Bruce's Norman royal house. Obviously the poet could not have included Normans in his enumeration of Scotland's enemies (on page one) - but the 'English' (his and Scotland's historic rivals)were fair game. Burning thousands of 'English' alive in retaliation for the perfidy of her alien leaders (in "Wallace")seems a bit unfair (though Harry interestingly indicates that the nascent Commons of England actually acted as a restraint on Longshanks). It also takes away the impact of Wallace's own horrid death which Harry (at least consistently) does not dwell upon. In short I concluded that Randall Wallace and Blind Harry had both dramatic virtues and vices. "Wallace" was both better and worse than "Braveheart". Since there is a dearth of early historical sources for Wallace's life this is certainly worth a read. It may be at least as accurate a portrayal of Scottish history, at any rate, as Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and certainly illuminates the author and his audience. Personally I felt that much of it was likely to be authentic and I greedily devoured many of Harry's details.

For the person wanting to have a balanced view of Wallace, they need to include this text. Blind Harry or Blin Hary the Minstrel is believed to live from 1440-1493. Very little is really known about him. However, he is recalled for this major achievement of gathering and recording stories of Wallace. Supposedly the first written work about Wallace. He sang or recited these stories in verse form, and it is noted that he was well received at the Renaissance Court of James IV. One must recall these tales were collected well over 100 years after Wallace's death, giving plenty of time for the legend to already take root. Many of the details of Harry's epic are very accurate, some are not (but then he certainly is a lot closer than Randall Wallace!!).
William Hamilton(c1665-1751) brought Wallace back into the minds of everyone with the translation of Blind Harry's original poem.

One needs to understand this is written from a very pro Scots point of view, and tends to see Scots as the good guys and English as the bad ones, with few areas of grey. But taken on a whole, with most of the works on Wallace stemming from English records, it gives a balanced picture in studying Wallace.

One of my first reactions was to value this volume as a corrective to "Braveheart" on which it is certainly only very loosely based. For example, Harry's Wallace (unlike his celluloid counterpart) was clearly not stupid enough to lead a wild 'Highland' charge against Edward's men - at least without wearing armor. Thus I appreciated the poet's description of Wallace's defensive gear (see page 25 etc.) consisting of a helmet, coat of mail, steel collar, and even steel-plated gauntlets. In the movie Wallace, at his most prudent, wore an ill-fitting helmet that fell off in action.

Viewers of "Braveheart" also tend to come away with the impression that Wallace was a Highlander leading clansmen into battle - which certainly cannot be supported by Harry's references to Wallace's supporters. In fact in this edition of "Wallace" (on page 225) a very interesting map of 'Wallace place names' suggests that the hero's support was in the South and North-East (of Scotland)- not in the North and West where the great clans were located. There are often such (major) problems when books (like this) are 'adapted' to be popular movies, and these each reader may enjoyably discover for himself.

It is only fair to add, however, that the movie could also be seen as a corrective to the book. Randall Wallace's script does warn us (at least twice) of the hyperbole that results when verbal anecdotes of historical and legendary figures are passed on, and there is clearly a great deal of this reflected in Harry's epic (since he relied partly on just such anecdotal evidence). Moreover the film-script (understandably because of the sensibilities of a modern audience)is not so shockingly racially-prejudiced as "Wallace".

I had the impression (reading the bard) of alternating between the 'Declaration of Independence' and 'Mein Kampf'. The "blood untainted" of Harry's Scots (such references begin on page 1 of the book)is, of course, nonsense, as I think is his demonisation of the "Picts, Danes and Saxons" that the 'Scots' historically fought. To the knowledgable, Harry's 'English' were simply a combination of Gaelic and Germanic elements (quite like the Scots themselves) mustered by descendants of their Norman conquerors (Scotland itself was filled with many Norman aristocrats and was to be ruled by a largely Norman dynasty in the person of Bruce and his descendants).

The introduction to this edition of "Wallace" perhaps fittingly holds the key to Harry's racial preferences. Page xvii reveals that Harry's chief patron was the Scottish king himself - descendant of the Norman royal house of Scotland. Obviously the poet could not have included Normans in his enumeration of Scotland's enemies (as a Saxon might have done) - but the 'English' (his and Scotland's historic rivals) were fair game. Burning thousands of 'English' alive (see, for example, page 90) in retaliation for the perfidy of England's alien rulers seems not a little unfair (though Harry interestingly indicates that the nascent Commons of England actually acted as a restraint on 'Longshanks'). It also takes away the impact of Wallace's own horrible death which Harry (at least consistently) does not dwell upon.

Since there is a dearth of early historic sources for Wallace's life this is certainly worth a careful read. I devoured greedily many details that seemed to me to be authentic. It may be at least as accurate a portrayal of a part of early Scottish history as Shakespeare's Macbeth, and certainly illuminates the author and his audience. In short I concluded that Randall Wallace and Blind Harry had both dramatic virtues and vices; consequently "Wallace" was both better and worse than "Braveheart".

Blind Harry wrote over a hundred years after Wallace was executed, but to this day his history is the most complete life of Wallace. Some dispute the extent of the recorded adventures and argue it is folk lore or fable, but fact is often stranger than fiction. I first encountered the 1800's reprint of the manuscript in the rare books section at Sydney University Library some twenty years ago, and having my own personal copy now is a rare treat indeed. Forget Braveheart. The movie could never encompass a fraction of Blind Harry's description of the deeds of Wallace. A word of caution to those who claim descent from Wallace. It is recorded that he died without issue. So I am of his family, but none are of his lineage.

Read it for the drama, and the poetry of the legend. Or read it out of respect for the world's first, and best, guerrilla fighter.

I learned about this written account of Wallace's Scottish patriotism when I visited the Smith Museum in Stirling over the summer. This is a fascinating read!

This heroic ballad, some will say epic, concerns a Scot who left behind him a trail of courage, fame and blood all wrapped up in Scottish nationalism defeated mind you by the English King Edward I. The Stirling Battle is by far best known, though when you visit the bridge, it looks so small. The book has two interests. the first one is that it became a legend as soon as it was published, because among other reasons it was continuing some kind of oral or written tradition, and it has inspired the Scots through all the centuries of their being submitted to the English Crown, though we will forget the four Stuart Kings who did not exactly impress onto history a very positive mark. But Scottish nationalism never died and is still alive after devolution. The legend of that warrior is interesting, including in its cinema career. Mel Gibson was a nice Wallace but the film, Braveheart, is a very much tamed down version of the man. Though the poem is even tamer as for the end of the hero who was dragged through London, hanged and brought down still alive, emasculated, eviscerated, dismembered, quartered and beheaded, his head presented to the crowd so that its eyes could see it in their last seven seconds of vision in Smithfield on the day before the Bartholomew Fair to be held there. The second interest is the description of the feudal society that is behind. William Wallace is not a nobleman, is not a knight, not even a feudal soldier of any kind attached to the service of a nobleman. He is a plain simple free person in those days, living on and around small towns and villages and making some kind of a living hiring himself to various masters for some kind of service, including fighting. That was his real handicap. He could not in any way pretend to be a "leader" of Scotland. Even when he was knighted later on, that did not give him any legitimacy in that line. Blind harry is very careful about that detail and insists over and over again on the fact Wallace does not want to become King of Scotland, or whatever. His life, the way it is depicted, is that of a warrior, someone who becomes a warrior, but he is independent. He does not depend on any one in particular, not even the Bruce who is the legitimate candidate for kingship in Scotland. He is at the most a captain, a man responsible for armed forces, and most of the time these armed forces are voluntary, gathered by Wallace himself, in the sole name of the independence of Scotland that is trampled down upon by Edward I. This feudal society has strange customs that we must try to understand. First a fief was a piece of land with all its infrastructures and the people (mainly serfs) attached to that land. To conquer a piece of land was also to conquer everything it contained. The Magna Carta is extremely clear about what is part of an estate (infrastructures, real estate and equipment, cattle, chattel, and that includes the serfs). The poem is kind of clearly mute on that subject. It never speaks of the serfs. It never speaks of the people attached to this or that estate. Wallace conquers many areas and many cities and most of the time burns them down, kills all the men and let the women and the children (under what age is not specified, but we can think 12 probably) go. Some cities were burnt down two or three times in less than ten years. The South'on (English) men were killed, their wives and children were free to go, but then the city was replenished with good Scots. This is of course absolutely unbelievable. Burning down to the ground, looting and raiding everything valuable, killing all males, etc, is not even thinkable once in those days, but two or three times in ten years is absurd. That explains the fact that he will be delivered to the English King by the Scots themselves. You can call them traitors if you want, but I would rather think it is self-protection, survival when confronted to that killing machine. I did not count all the people who were killed but we are not far from one million. That again is absurd because it would be three, four or five times the population of London at the time (according to how far you go in the definition of London: City of London, City of London and City of Westminster, or the present territory of London). At times it turns laughable: once Wallace and a few companions are followed by eight hundred soldiers in arms in the countryside and Wallace does not hear anything. Maybe we should have provided him with subtitles for hard of hearing people. By doing too much the credibility of the story is at stake. In the same way what he does when in the service to Philip IV of France is in many ways absurd, like killing a lion. Yet that feudal society is clearly depicted with its classes: nobility at the top, their soldiers at their service and then all the rest of the population. It is also clear that you conquered a territory for the income it provided and that these wars were destroying the income, and that paying a share to the English King or to a Scottish King was just the same for the feudal lords as well as for the laboring population. The role of the church yet is definitely downgraded. In those days they had the power to excommunicate anyone and that was enough to stop such rampage. A fascinating book, a legend in a way, but nothing but a romance.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

William Hamilton of Gilbertsfield's retelling of Blind Harry's Wallace, which he rewrote into rhyming couplets in the eighteenth century, starts with two strikes against it. This is a long eighteenth century poem, and it's written in rhyming couplets. It nevertheless manages to remain interesting, largely because the subject itself resists Augustan ornament and distancing.

Blind Harry wrote his original epic in the fifteenth century. Hamilton remade it into modern English sprinkled occasionally with Scots words. Most of these are glossed in the margins in this edition; modern readers will not find its story hard to follow. Hamilton is not always faithful to his source; the introduction notes that a supernatural sequence, where Blind Harry had Wallace dreaming a vision of the Virgin Mary, and had his vision interpreted by a priest, has been altered in this retelling to better suit Presbyterian sensibilities. Again, the subject resists Augustan polish, and the occasional inclusion of highfalutin' vocabulary or stock pastoral imagery here only adds a disconcerting bit of cognitive dissonance. On the whole, the verse seems more reminiscent of broadsheet ballads than of Dryden or Pope; as such it's more accomodating to contemporary readers.

The story reads like an over the top novelization of a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Wallace seems to be portrayed as a turbo Grignr, a Tasmanian Devil of manslaughter; he commits a fresh homicide in almost every chapter, even the ones that aren't about warfare and battle. The Scots are the good guys and the English are the bad guys, so any time Wallace encounters an Englishman, blood is spilt.

The net result is to make the poem a highly entertaining yarn, at least in small doses at a time. It's hard to have much empathy with the hero, but the lurid spectacle of his exploits and downfall is told with enough hyperbole to make up for the one-dimensionality of its characterizations.

The pleasures of fine writing aren't to be found here. It's hard to give the poem much credit as a historical source. The pleasures of sword and sorcery, comic books, and murder ballads are what the poem has to offer; and if you bring appropriate expectations to the work, you may well find it quite entertaining.

Are you a fan of Braveheart? Well this is the book for you. This is not only the one true written history of William Wallace, but it describes him to a T. If you are interested in Scotland, William Wallace, or even history in general, then you will want to read this book time and time again.