Gory executions

 

On this day in 1305 Sir William Wallace was executed with gruesome savagery at Smithfield. He was the second of Edward I's political enemies to be killed in this way, after Prince Dafydd of Wales in 1283, and the third criminal in England to suffer this form of execution. The first was a would-be assassin, name unknown, who had tried to murder Henry III in his bedchamber.

It is difficult to know, exactly, the motive for Wallace's barbarous execution. Unlike Dafydd, he had no personal relationship with the king. As a military commander, he posed significantly less threat than his fellow Guardians, all of whom Edward had pardoned and taken back into his peace. In terms of status, he was a mere knight, whose brief reputation and influence had been shot to pieces at Falkirk, seven years earlier. One might say – as many will – that Edward I was simply a vicious brute. If so, why did he pardon everyone else?

Perhaps the bare facts of Wallace's career are misleading. So much is implied by Edward's consistently hostile attitude towards the Scot. When the Guardians surrendered to the king, he insisted that several of them prove their loyalty by hunting down Wallace. On another occasion he informed Sir Alexander Abernethy, a Scot in English service, not to to accept Wallace's surrender on any terms. One English chronicler, Pierre Langtoft, even claimed that Wallace offered to surrender personally to the king, but was angrily rebuffed.

The final record of Edward's 'Ordinance' for the government of Scotland shows that all the Scots were permitted to submit on terms, with the sole exception of Wallace. He could only surrender unconditionally, which meant that Edward might – might – be persuaded to spare his life. Or not. Unsurprisingly, Wallace declined to accept.

So, to an extent, Wallace's reputation as an uncompromising resistance leader stems from Edward's unwillingness to let him surrender. Whatever unfathomable psychology was at work here, between two men who never met, is lost to history.