William Wallace - Wallace in Fiction

Wallace in Fiction

In the early 19th century, Walter Scott wrote of Wallace in Exploits and Death of William Wallace, the "Hero of Scotland", and Jane Porter penned a romantic version of the Wallace legend in The Scottish Chiefs in 1810. G. A. Henty wrote a novel in 1885 about this time period titled In Freedom's Cause. Henty, a producer of the Boy's Own Paper fiction who wrote for that magazine, portrays the life of William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, The Black Douglas, and others, while dovetailing the events of his novel with historical fiction. Nigel Tranter wrote a historical novel titled The Wallace, published in 1975, which is said to be more accurate than its literary predecessors. In 2010, the novelist Jack Whyte gave another fictionalized account of Wallace’s life, particularly his early life, in The Forest Laird, the first book in The Guardians of Scotland trilogy.

A well-known account is presented in the 1995 film Braveheart, directed by and starring Mel Gibson as Wallace, written by Randall Wallace, and filmed in both Scotland and Ireland. The film, a highly fictionalized account of Wallace's life, was a commercial success and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, but has been widely criticized by historians for its inaccuracies.