William Wallace (Braveheart)

"Would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they may never take our freedom?" - William Wallace rallying his army

William Wallace is the hero of the Oscar-winning 1995 movie Braveheart. He based off of a warrior of the same name who was lesser-known throughout his native Scotland until the movie came out.

Braveheart
William Wallace (1272? - 1305) was a Scottish peasant whose nation was under the thumb of King Edward "Longshanks" I of England. When he was a young boy, his father was captured and hanged by the English. When he grew up, Wallace was a huge, muscular man whom scholars assumed stood seven feet tall. At the age of twenty-five, he killed an English sheriff who murdered his wife-to-be. Wallace commanded a powerful rebel band and battled the English Armies. It's been said that his greatest victory came at the town of Stirling, where Wallace led a group of spearmen to victory against King Edward's cavalry.

In 1278, Edward led his army to battle against Wallace in the town of Falkirk. There was a huge battle, but the horsemen did little to stop the killings. Wallace managed to escape death at Falkirk, but seven years later he was captured, tried, and executed by the English.

Trivia

 * William Wallace was made a folk hero around the world when Braveheart came out.
 * In reality, Wallace was twenty when his father was executed.
 * Blind Harry, a poet, told of Wallace's brave deeds whilst living 170 years after the hero's death.
 * Wallace is played by Mel Gibson in Braveheart.