Blind Harry's poem which you cite as your source is a sack of shit, it's overblown scottish jingoist propaganda.
Now, lets start off with a few points, firstly, Wallace was a rich cunt, not some poor boy made good who led the people, he was a fucking fat cat lord, and the scottish king John Balliol was also a rich landowner who owned most of his lands in france and england, and was probably born in either france or england, he only became scottish king because he inherited a huge amount of land there.
The situation was that the scottish kingship had come into dispute with both Robert Bruce (grandpa of hte famous one) and John Balliol and severals minor claimants all claiming kingship, the scottish lords feared Bruce and Balliol would cause a civil war, and so appealed to Edward I of England to settle the dispute, this led to a huge arbitraion process with John Balliol eventually being voted the winner by the 103 arbitrators. However before the process began, Edward told the scottish them must accept him as being above the authority of hte scottish king, which they eventually did as they had no choice.
What happened next is the important part, basicly Edward basicly lent on John Balliol to rule the way edward wanted, and Robert Bruce undermined all John Balliol's efforts to resist Edward in a cheap political move so he could get more power himself. This eventually led to Edward wanting scottish troops for his planned invasion of France. This led to hte scottish Allying with France against england and informing them of hte English plan to invade.
It was only a year later that the English learned the Scottish were planning an invasion, and so strengthen thier border defences, and demanded hte handover of scottish border castles.
Edward raised a militia in Newcastle and preparded for war, John Balliol did hte same, calling up scottish troops from his feudal lords, many of whom ignored him.
The English won the war and the scottish were all but defeated, Edward took hte Stone of Destiny from scone and and sent it to westminster. The Stone of Destiny to those who don't know is the stone on which the king of scotland is crowned.
Now, the English invaded in 1296, and Wallaces campaign began in 1297. Now of course all you Braveheart fans are of course labouring under the illusion that the English had been ruling over Scotland for years, and that they were poor colonial serfs, but this is not hte case, they had just lost a war that they took an equal part in starting.
Now we have a nice story there of wallace victory at sterling bridge and defeat at falkirk. Of course wallace never captured terretory in northern england, but engaged in raids, ie crossing hte border, attacking towns then withdrawing before the English defenders arrived, they never fought a battle in england, only attacked towns.
After Falkirk, Wallace fled, he went into hiding, where he remainded throughout hte rest of hte war, The scottish were defeated and after thier surrender, Wallace was caught, by a scottish knight loyal to Edward and was given hte standard treatment for a traitor.
Now note that Wallace did not have support from all hte scots, he was allied to the French, whereas other Scots believed they should negotiate peace with England. Englands invasion of France never happened, so scottish troops were never called up, and so scotlands war was largly pointless and most scotts agreed, they did not want to be Frances monkey, invading England to defend the French, while hte French never invaded England to defend Scotland.
Thus ends Wallaces story, but the war continued, with Bruce killing hte other claimant for the throne, John Comyn and finanly stopping the infighting betweene hte scottish factions. This led to an end of scottish claimants soliciting english support for their claim and meant Bruce could finally stop the political manipulations within hte scotts and win the war, with the decisive victory at Bannockburn.
This eventually led to the end of hte war and the sending to the pope of a declaration of Scottish Independance, and after the Murder of Edward II, his son Edward III made peace with Robert the Bruce,
However less than 10 years later there was another war with the scots, and they lost, ending with them keeping thier independance but having to pay a huge ransom for thier king, The English meanwhile began the 100 years war with France.
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Now as far as the poeple of scotland were concerned, it didn't really affect them, when they were being intimidated by thier feudal lords for thier taxes, it didn't matter to them where those taxes went, to the English or Scottish, king, (and note it still went to hte Scottish king, even under English rule), it was still the same rich Scottish cunt who was making them work and ruling over them, the only difference was to the rich cunt who he had to give his money too, and to hte cunts who might get to be top cunt, who started the whole thing, the rich cunts fighting over who got to be the cunt is charge was what began everything. It was the scottish nobles who invited the english king to get involved and he just did the same thing that they did, try and get his cut of the action.
As far as the poor scottish people were concened, when they fought were wallace they were just doning at they always did, fighting for some noble. If anyone's seen that Family guy flashback, the one where Wallace rallys the troops then Stewie comes on and ruins it by talking about taxes on abuttments to church lands. Stewies talk was closer to the real reason they were fighting as far as the Nobles were concerned, the scottish nobles could have stopped the whole thing if they had not tried to use Edward I to settle thier own power struggles.
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Oh and the Scottish opinion of Gibsons ridiculous recasting of Wallace as this stupid freedom fighter? Well, when someone erected a statue of Gibson as Wallace with the words braveheart and freedom written on it, the locals smashed it's face in during the night.
So boys please don't talk shit about war, becuase it's not about glory or any such shit, it's about power for hte cunts in charge, Wallace fought for hte Scottish rulling class, not hte scottish people. Neither the Scottish or English people benefited from hte war, only the rulling classes did, the remaining scottish nobles of course carving up even greater estates, Wallaces years in hiding were probably in France living it up while the common people were left to suffer.
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