The True Story Behind Braveheart

Publish date: 2024-05-09

While quite a few details of "Braveheart" are either difficult to prove or even outright falsehoods, we can be pretty sure that William Wallace suffered a bloody end at the hands of the English. In fact, the 1995 film, with its careful framing and editing, actually pulls back from the true brutality of what was done to Wallace on his final day.

According to "The Myth of William Wallace," Wallace was specifically accused of sedition. For that charge, he was taken from Glasgow, where he was apprehended, to the Tower of London. He faced what was surely one of the worst ways to die in medieval Europe: hanging, drawing, and quartering. Wallace was first stripped nude and dragged through the streets on a hurdle. He was then "hanged," which really mean that he was painfully strangled until nearly dead. Then his privates were cut off, he was disembowelled, and finally beheaded.

Now, with Wallace mercifully dead, his remains were cut into four quarters. Per History Extra, his disassembled body parts were then displayed across England, with his head prominently placed on a spike on London Bridge. That done, Wallace arguably became a Scottish martyr and certainly would become a nigh-on mythical figure in his nation's history.

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