William Wallace was a Scottish knight and military leader during the First War of Scottish Independence, portrayed in the 1995 American film, Braveheart.
The movie was inspired by a 15th century biographical poem called the “Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace” by Blind Harry, a minstrel who composed his works 172 years after Wallace’s death.
The poem is a long narrative work composed in decasyllabic rhyming couplets that forms a biography of Wallace’s life from his boyhood until his execution.
Based on assumptions by Blind Harry, it is suggested that William Wallace was born in 1270 in Elderslie and was the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace, a minor landowner and vassal of James, 5th steward of Scotland.
However, William’s own seal on a letter sent to the Hanse city of Lübeck in 1297 gives his father’s name as Alan Wallace, possibly an Alan Wallace in the Ragman Rolls as a crown tenant in Ayrshire.
