William Wallace

In every hero there must exist – in my opinion – five qualities which include intelligence, determination, cunning, bravery, and diplomacy. To truly become heroic a person must have a strong character and a will of steel, to fight to their dying breaths to achieve their goals. The hero has to have cunning whether they fight on the field of battle – or in the courts and government chambers. He must also have the ability to fire up others for his cause. Intelligence holds great importance for many if not all of these qualities as a person cannot effectively fight for their goals if they don’t even fully understand what those around him intend. William Wallace displays these qualities.

Despite the unfortunate fact that Wallace’s story remains clouded over with legend because of fearful English historians and awed Scottish ones, this paragraph does its best to illustrate the life of this great man. Born in 1270(?), at Ellerslie, or modern day Elderslie, William Wallace drew his first breaths as the son of a lesser Scottish lord known as Sir Malcolm Wallace. At the time William had approximately twenty-one years of age behind him, English knights ambushed and murdered Sir Malcolm. This coupled, with the later murder of William’s wife, drove the soon-to-be Scottish hero to fight for the eventual freedom of his people. After several years of fighting, and brilliant tactics shown at decisive battles such as The Battle of Stirling Bridge – in which he defeated a force of eighty-eight thousand well-trained Englishmen with a small force of 60,000 untrained Scots – Wallace, managed to secure Scotland. He received knighthood and the title "Guardian of Scotland," although Scotland’s newly found freedom only lasted until 1298. In that year Edward I (king of England) returned to Great Britain and defeated Wallace at Falkirk. He was eventually hunted down and executed as a traitor in 1305, despite the fact that he truthfully claimed to have never sworn fealty to the English crown.

Once the brutality of Wallace’s execution reached the ears of an heir to the throne called Robert the Bruce, it inspired him to lead the Scottish people to permanent victory over the English in the following years. As you can see Wallace exemplifies the qualities of a man who had a fierce determination to fulfill his goal – in this case the freedom for his country Scotland. He demonstrated time and again his ability to fight against overwhelming odds and win with his cunning and intelligence in the affairs of war. He also not only fired up a single man, but an entire nation to fight for freedom upon his death. It must have taken immense strength of character for Wallace to declare that he would not call himself a subject of the English crown in the face of brutal execution. Surely this makes him worthy of the title “hero” for many including myself and a vast majority of those in Scotland.