William Wallace

[sftr]

I apologise if this has been discussed before, but I have always wondered if Wallace was so brilliant, why did he lose the Battle of Falkirk so convincingly? I know there was the controversy of being abandoned by the nobles, but if I'd been there and was one of them I would have said, "err lads, we're gonna get killed so maybe we better sneak off and wait for someone else to lead us!"

In "Battles of the Scottish Lowlands" by Stuart Reid, the author suggests that not only was Andrew de Moray the tactical genious, but that after the battle at Stirling Bridge, instead of raising a proper army, Wallace went into hiding. When it was time for battle to commence once more, Wallace led an untrained rabble against the might of the English with Edward I leading them. He also goes on to say that at Falkirk Wallace

drew up his army in an open field and froze.

So really, does Wallace deserve all the adulation that he gets or was it simply a case that de Moray would have been THE MAN had he survived?

[ANDY-J3]

A medieval army of heavily armoured knights supported by archers would beat an army of foot soldiers every time, unless as happened at Stirling bridge and Bannockburn the Scots were able to use tactics or geography to negate the English advantage. There is no reason why the English should have been defeated at Falkirk however I think the fact that a pitched battle was fought at all was due to a failure of strategy by Wallace. It was expensive to maintain a large well equipped army in a foreign country and if Wallace had avoided a battle Edward would have been forced to head south and lose credibility in the eyes of his nobility. Wallace wasn't tactically at fault but strategically he made a blunder by allowing himself to be drawn into a battle.

[Lianachan]

I'd like to add that in my view, yes, de Moray would be THE MAN if he'd survived longer - whatever the outcome at Falkirk. Quite a lot of people have never even heard of de Moray, which is a great shame because not only was (almost certainly) instrumental at Stirling Bridge, he arguably achieved more than Wallace before that battle too (up here, in the north).

[anSiarach]

William Wallace established his legend upon the leadership of fellow guardian Andrew de Moray to whom he was junior and without whom he never (to my knowledge) emerged victorious in battle.

[aNonnyMoose]

Wallace was a minor knight and as such untrained in major battle strategy. His forte was guerilla warfare, and he excelled at this (Bruce learned a lot of his tactics from Wallace). De Moray was the tactician, in fact he had travelled to Switzerland and may have got the idea for the schiltrums there - the Swiss had developed this tactic as a defence against heavy cavalry.

Andy's right about Falkirk. Wallace had been strategically withdrawing north, using a scorched-earth policy, and Longshanks was on the verge of retreat when he heard Wallace's army was camped near Falkirk. A last-gasp forced march brought the English up on the Scots, and a battle was then inevitable. Tactically, Wallace was defeated when his light cavalry left the field - they should have destroyed the archers. Since that didn't happen, the archers were left to decimate the schiltrums, leading to defeat.

Lianachan, De Moray's not forgotten in the north. There's a commemoration each year up in the Black Isle at the site of his castle, in Avoch - usually around mid-May.

[BornAgainScot]

anSiarach, Wallace's legend is based on what Blind Harry wrote about him, but I personally believe much of what was credited to Wallace was in fact down to de Moray - apart from the obvious exaggerations added in by BH!

As for Robert the Bruce learning anything from Wallace, I very much doubt that. The Bruce was a smart man and he knew that confronting Edward I's army would have been fatal so he adopted the guerilla tactics that Wallace had used. However, he did so because it was the right thing to do at the time - not because it was what Wallace did!

[Lianachan]

Originally Posted by aNonnyMoose

Lianachan, De Moray's not forgotten in the north. There's a commemoration each year up in the Black Isle at the site of his castle, in Avoch - usually around mid-May.

He's not forgotten up here, no, but how many of the Braveheart generation have heard of him? Precious few, I'd wager.