Post by Elly on Jun 10, 2005 4:48:31 GMT 10
TRIAL of WALLACE
By 1305, Wallace was back in Scotland, near Glasgow. On or about August 3, 1305 he was betrayed by his own servant, Jack Short, and a Scottish Baron who had been on the side of the Scots, Sir John Mentieth. In exchange for becoming sheriff of Dumbarton, Mentieth told the English where Wallace was hiding. As one can clearly see from the picture of his hiding place, Wallace would not have been discovered, but for the betrayal. Edward now had his man.
And the English, who had been led to believe that Wallace was an outlaw who killed innocent English people, had their spectacle. Seven hundred years later, the "trial" of William Wallace remains one of the greatest judicial shams of all time.
It would not do, of course, to try Wallace in Scotland. What good would that accomplish? How could Edward make a public example of a so-called "traitor" in his own country? Even though Wallace was originally taken to the castle of Dumbarton, the trial would take place in London, where it would have the most impact on the most people. Trial had to occur in a place where the English king could send a clear message: This is what happens if you try to resist my will.
So it was that the great legal reformer, Edward I, conducted a show trial on August 23, 1305. As he was taken to Westminster Hall, Wallace was led through the streets of London where people jeered and pelted him with rotten food. He was charged with treason, among other things. When he arrived at Westminster Hall, a crown of laurel was placed on his head. Wasn't he, after all, trying to wear the Scottish crown?
Since the English considered Wallace to be an "outlaw," he was treated outside the boundaries of the law. He had no lawyer. He was not even allowed to speak on his own behalf. The outcome of the trial (a guilty verdict) and the punishment (death) was assured long before Wallace was captured.
The great law-giver of The Middle Ages, Edward I, who created the system of barristers still in use today, did not allow a barrister to speak for Wallace. Trial was a mockery of justice. Only once did Wallace speak, when he shouted out at Sir Peter Mallorie who formally accused Wallace of treason:
"I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he shall never receive it."
Wallace was found guilty, but what is most remarkable is the intentional cruelty of the sentence. Death was not enough to satisfy Edward's anger at this Scottish patriot. The manner of death, imposed by the court, was almost beyond belief.
...he be there hanged, and afterwards taken down from the gallows. And that, inasmuch as he was an outlaw, and was not afterwards restored to the peace of the Lord King, he be decollated and decapitated...that the heart, the liver and lungs as well as all the other intestines of the said William, from which such perverted thoughts proceeded, be cast into the fire and burnt.
Torture was not enough, though. After death, William's body would be:
...cut up and divided into 4 parts, and that the head, so cut off, be set up on London Bridge, in the sight of such as pass by, whether by land or by water; and that one quarter be hung on a gibbet at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, another quarter at Berwick, a third quarter at Stirling, and the 4th at St. Johnston [Perth], as a warning and a deterrent to all that pass by and behold them. (Quoted in Braveheart, by James Mackay, at page 263.)
A contemporary chronicler from the monastery of Lanercost summed up how the English people viewed the cruel sentence:
Butcher of thousands,
Threefold death be thine,
So shall the English
From thee gain relief.
Scotland, be wise,
And choose a nobler chief.
Immediately after the "trial," Wallace was taken to the place of execution. Today that place is known as Smithfield, in London. (Be patient with this link. It takes awhile to load, but where else are you going to see London as it was in 1300?) He was stripped naked, bound and dragged face down four miles, under the tails of two horses. As he was led to the scaffold, William asked for his psalter to be held open where he could see it.
To ensure Wallace felt the most extreme effects of the sentence, officials made sure William hung but did not die. While he was still alive, his genitals were cut off with a dull blade. His intestines were cut out and burned in his presence. Only after he had endured torture beyond human comprehension was beheaded. After he died, his body was quartered. The body parts were sent to Newcastle, Stirling, Berwick and Perth, as specified in the sentence.
Stirling received one of his arms. Legend has it that once the flesh deteriorated, monks at Cambuskenneth Abbey buried Williams's arm somewhere on the Abbey's grounds. As one last stroke of defiance, the buried arm was outstretched toward Abbey Craig, the scene of William's great victory against the English at Stirling Bridge.
The sentence imposed on William Wallace was brutal. But it wasn't until 1870 that England abolished the barbaric practice of dragging a condemned criminal to the place of execution and then beheading and quartering him after death by hanging. Today it is hard to imagine this primitive behavior was still legal for more than 500 years after Wallace died.
Wallace had a vision: "Pro libertate - for freedom." Within ten years after his death, the Scots achieved his dream. In 1314, at Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce crushed an English army twice the size of his own. It had not been an easy process.
Legend has it that after one of his defeats, Robert the Bruce hid in a cave to avoid capture himself. While in the cave, he watched a spider trying to make a web. The spider kept falling and starting again. Inspired by those continued efforts, the Bruce told himself:
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
He did just that and finally led his country to the brink of independence from England.
By the time of Bannockburn, Longshanks was dead and his son, Edward II, ruled England and Wales. A weak and ineffective king, the first Prince of Wales was no match for the Scottish forces.
After Bannockburn, the Scots set forth their terms of Independence in the Declaration of Arbroath, signed at Arbroath Abbey in 1320. Even the man who had betrayed William Wallace, Sir John Montieth, signed the Declaration. It remains one of the greatest declarations by people fighting to be free. The pope, who at that time wielded great influence between nations, himself approved the declaration of Scottish independence.
But declaring independence, and actually being free, are different things. Although the battle of Bannockburn did not completely end the fighting, the English had to deal with compelling evidence of Scottish will. An army half the size of Edward II's was victorious. Peace between the two countries was finally negotiated with the Edinburgh-Northampton Treaty of 1328. Wallace's dream was realized. Scotland was independent. Robert the Bruce became King Robert I.
During his years as ruler, Robert the Bruce did not forget the time he supported Edward I at the battle of Falkirk. At the end of his life, while he was dying of leprosy, he ordered that his heart be cut out and taken on a Crusade. He wanted to atone for his past mistakes. He still thought he needed forgiveness from God and from his country.
His heart was, in fact, cut out and taken on a Crusade. It was ultimately returned to Scotland where it was buried at Melrose Abbey. Recently, archaeological excavations at the Abbey found a lead container with an engraved plaque inscribed with these words:
The enclosed leaden casket containing a heart was found beneath Chapter House floor, March 1921, by His Majesty's Office of Works.
Edward II died as dishonorably as he lived. Spending more time with his lovers (he called his wife, Isabella, the "she-wolf of France") than he did attending to affairs of state, he was murdered while in captivity. He is buried in Gloucester.
But William Wallace is still honored as the greatest of all Scottish patriots. His commitment to his country never wavered. In 1869, Scotland honored him with a monument in Stirling, near the site of his great victory. It stands as a reminder that one man's motto can be more than mere words. One man's courage can change the course of legal history.
As Robert Burns said, centuries after William's brutal death,
"The story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins which will boil along till the floodgates of time shut in eternal rest."
Edward thought he had judicially eliminated his nemesis. England thought the outlaw was gone forever. But Edward created a martyr, and the spirit of the martyr created a nation whose thirst for independence remains strong to this day.
By 1305, Wallace was back in Scotland, near Glasgow. On or about August 3, 1305 he was betrayed by his own servant, Jack Short, and a Scottish Baron who had been on the side of the Scots, Sir John Mentieth. In exchange for becoming sheriff of Dumbarton, Mentieth told the English where Wallace was hiding. As one can clearly see from the picture of his hiding place, Wallace would not have been discovered, but for the betrayal. Edward now had his man.
And the English, who had been led to believe that Wallace was an outlaw who killed innocent English people, had their spectacle. Seven hundred years later, the "trial" of William Wallace remains one of the greatest judicial shams of all time.
It would not do, of course, to try Wallace in Scotland. What good would that accomplish? How could Edward make a public example of a so-called "traitor" in his own country? Even though Wallace was originally taken to the castle of Dumbarton, the trial would take place in London, where it would have the most impact on the most people. Trial had to occur in a place where the English king could send a clear message: This is what happens if you try to resist my will.
So it was that the great legal reformer, Edward I, conducted a show trial on August 23, 1305. As he was taken to Westminster Hall, Wallace was led through the streets of London where people jeered and pelted him with rotten food. He was charged with treason, among other things. When he arrived at Westminster Hall, a crown of laurel was placed on his head. Wasn't he, after all, trying to wear the Scottish crown?
Since the English considered Wallace to be an "outlaw," he was treated outside the boundaries of the law. He had no lawyer. He was not even allowed to speak on his own behalf. The outcome of the trial (a guilty verdict) and the punishment (death) was assured long before Wallace was captured.
The great law-giver of The Middle Ages, Edward I, who created the system of barristers still in use today, did not allow a barrister to speak for Wallace. Trial was a mockery of justice. Only once did Wallace speak, when he shouted out at Sir Peter Mallorie who formally accused Wallace of treason:
"I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he shall never receive it."
Wallace was found guilty, but what is most remarkable is the intentional cruelty of the sentence. Death was not enough to satisfy Edward's anger at this Scottish patriot. The manner of death, imposed by the court, was almost beyond belief.
...he be there hanged, and afterwards taken down from the gallows. And that, inasmuch as he was an outlaw, and was not afterwards restored to the peace of the Lord King, he be decollated and decapitated...that the heart, the liver and lungs as well as all the other intestines of the said William, from which such perverted thoughts proceeded, be cast into the fire and burnt.
Torture was not enough, though. After death, William's body would be:
...cut up and divided into 4 parts, and that the head, so cut off, be set up on London Bridge, in the sight of such as pass by, whether by land or by water; and that one quarter be hung on a gibbet at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, another quarter at Berwick, a third quarter at Stirling, and the 4th at St. Johnston [Perth], as a warning and a deterrent to all that pass by and behold them. (Quoted in Braveheart, by James Mackay, at page 263.)
A contemporary chronicler from the monastery of Lanercost summed up how the English people viewed the cruel sentence:
Butcher of thousands,
Threefold death be thine,
So shall the English
From thee gain relief.
Scotland, be wise,
And choose a nobler chief.
Immediately after the "trial," Wallace was taken to the place of execution. Today that place is known as Smithfield, in London. (Be patient with this link. It takes awhile to load, but where else are you going to see London as it was in 1300?) He was stripped naked, bound and dragged face down four miles, under the tails of two horses. As he was led to the scaffold, William asked for his psalter to be held open where he could see it.
To ensure Wallace felt the most extreme effects of the sentence, officials made sure William hung but did not die. While he was still alive, his genitals were cut off with a dull blade. His intestines were cut out and burned in his presence. Only after he had endured torture beyond human comprehension was beheaded. After he died, his body was quartered. The body parts were sent to Newcastle, Stirling, Berwick and Perth, as specified in the sentence.
Stirling received one of his arms. Legend has it that once the flesh deteriorated, monks at Cambuskenneth Abbey buried Williams's arm somewhere on the Abbey's grounds. As one last stroke of defiance, the buried arm was outstretched toward Abbey Craig, the scene of William's great victory against the English at Stirling Bridge.
The sentence imposed on William Wallace was brutal. But it wasn't until 1870 that England abolished the barbaric practice of dragging a condemned criminal to the place of execution and then beheading and quartering him after death by hanging. Today it is hard to imagine this primitive behavior was still legal for more than 500 years after Wallace died.
Wallace had a vision: "Pro libertate - for freedom." Within ten years after his death, the Scots achieved his dream. In 1314, at Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce crushed an English army twice the size of his own. It had not been an easy process.
Legend has it that after one of his defeats, Robert the Bruce hid in a cave to avoid capture himself. While in the cave, he watched a spider trying to make a web. The spider kept falling and starting again. Inspired by those continued efforts, the Bruce told himself:
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
He did just that and finally led his country to the brink of independence from England.
By the time of Bannockburn, Longshanks was dead and his son, Edward II, ruled England and Wales. A weak and ineffective king, the first Prince of Wales was no match for the Scottish forces.
After Bannockburn, the Scots set forth their terms of Independence in the Declaration of Arbroath, signed at Arbroath Abbey in 1320. Even the man who had betrayed William Wallace, Sir John Montieth, signed the Declaration. It remains one of the greatest declarations by people fighting to be free. The pope, who at that time wielded great influence between nations, himself approved the declaration of Scottish independence.
But declaring independence, and actually being free, are different things. Although the battle of Bannockburn did not completely end the fighting, the English had to deal with compelling evidence of Scottish will. An army half the size of Edward II's was victorious. Peace between the two countries was finally negotiated with the Edinburgh-Northampton Treaty of 1328. Wallace's dream was realized. Scotland was independent. Robert the Bruce became King Robert I.
During his years as ruler, Robert the Bruce did not forget the time he supported Edward I at the battle of Falkirk. At the end of his life, while he was dying of leprosy, he ordered that his heart be cut out and taken on a Crusade. He wanted to atone for his past mistakes. He still thought he needed forgiveness from God and from his country.
His heart was, in fact, cut out and taken on a Crusade. It was ultimately returned to Scotland where it was buried at Melrose Abbey. Recently, archaeological excavations at the Abbey found a lead container with an engraved plaque inscribed with these words:
The enclosed leaden casket containing a heart was found beneath Chapter House floor, March 1921, by His Majesty's Office of Works.
Edward II died as dishonorably as he lived. Spending more time with his lovers (he called his wife, Isabella, the "she-wolf of France") than he did attending to affairs of state, he was murdered while in captivity. He is buried in Gloucester.
But William Wallace is still honored as the greatest of all Scottish patriots. His commitment to his country never wavered. In 1869, Scotland honored him with a monument in Stirling, near the site of his great victory. It stands as a reminder that one man's motto can be more than mere words. One man's courage can change the course of legal history.
As Robert Burns said, centuries after William's brutal death,
"The story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins which will boil along till the floodgates of time shut in eternal rest."
Edward thought he had judicially eliminated his nemesis. England thought the outlaw was gone forever. But Edward created a martyr, and the spirit of the martyr created a nation whose thirst for independence remains strong to this day.
