The History Behind Braveheart

The movie, Braveheart, is based off of the legends about the life of William Wallace-a Scottish national hero. The link I provided is found on the MyGenealogy website, which provides a lot of historic information on past wars around the world. The article regarding the history of Braveheart is titled, The History Behind Braveheart. During the early 1300's the Scottish struggled to fight for their independence from the English. The film surrounds the story of William Wallace, a Scottish hero who decided to fight for the freedom of his country against the English. He slowly gathered a large group of followers to defeat the English rule. As illustrated in the movie, Wallace and his followers defeated the English army at Stirling on September 11, 1297. Unfortunately, on July 22, 1298, King Edward II led a large English army against Wallace at the battle of Falkirk. Wallace was captured and taken to London where he was executed on August 23, 1305. Although Wallace was not able to free his country from English rule, he inspired others to carry on the struggle for freedom. Following the death of Wallace, Robert Bruce, a Scottish fugitive, was inspired to fight for the freedom of his country, and was crowned king of Scotland. On June 24, 1314, Bruce led and army of 40,000 troops to fight against the English army of 60,000 troops led by King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn. As the English launched a mass attack against the Scottish, Bruce had prepared camouflaged pits in the ground that allowed his troops to slain the English as they fought to attack. The English were defeated and lost about 10,000 men. This battle marked the Scottish independence from the English.