The Wallace (poem)



The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace (Acts and Deeds of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion Sir William Wallace), also known as The Wallace, is a long "romantic biographical" poem by the fifteenth-century Scottish makar of the name Blind Harry probably at some time in the decade before 1488. As the title suggests, it commemorates and eulogises the life and actions of the Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace who lived a century and a half earlier. The poem is historically inaccurate, and mentions several events that never happened. For several hundred years following its publication, The Wallace was the second most popular book in Scotland after the Bible.

The earliest extant text is a copy made by John Ramsay, 1st Lord Bothwell in 1488, but that copy has no title page and last few pages are missing, with no mention of Blind Harry as its author. The first mention of Blind Harry as the work's author was made by John Mair in his 1521 work Historia Majoris Britanniae, tam Angliae quam Scotiae. It was later republished in the late 18th century by the poet William Hamilton, in contemporary English. This version also went through over 20 editions, with the last published in 1859.

The Poem
The Wallace is a long narrative work composed in decasyllabic rhyming couplets. It forms a biography of William Wallace from his boyhood, through his career as a Scots patriot in the First War of Independence until his execution in London in 1305.

The poem has some basis in historical fact with descriptions of the Battle of Stirling Bridge and the Battle of Falkirk. The factual elements of the poem are, however, combined with many fictional elements. Wallace is depicted as an ideal hero in the tradition of chivalric romance. He is described as being unfailingly courageous, patriotic, devout and chivalrous.

The English are depicted throughout as the natural and irreconcilable enemies of the Scots.

The Author
In the early texts of the poem, the author of The Wallace is referred to as "Hary" or "Blind Hary" but little is known for certain about the poet.

A man referred to as 'Blind Hary' is recorded as having received payments from King James IV on five occasions between 1490 and 1492. The reasons for the payments are not specified.

A 'Blind Hary' is also mentioned by the near-contemporary poet William Dunbar in his Lament for the Makaris. In this poem Hary is included in a list of deceased poets mourned by Dunbar.

The Scots scholar John Mair identified 'Blind Hary' as the author of The Wallace in his work Historia Majoris Britanniae or The History Of Greater Britain of 1521.

Date of Composition
The Wallace appears to date to the latter half of the fifteenth century. The earliest surviving copy, the Ramsay Manuscript, is dated to 1488 but evidence from within the poem itself suggests that it was completed during the 1470s or earlier. Blind Hary refers to having consulted William Wallace of Craigie while composing the poem and Wallace of Craigie is known to have died in 1479.

Furthermore, during the 1470s King James III was engaged in a policy of reconciliation with King Edward IV of England. The poem, with its unsympathetic depiction of the English, may represent a criticism of this policy as typified in its opening verse,


 * The Original Text


 * Till honour ennymyis is our haile entent,
 * It has beyne seyne in thir tymys bywent.
 * Our ald ennemys cummyn of Saxonys blud,
 * That nevyr yeit to Scotland wald do gud.


 * A Translation into English


 * To honour enemies is our sole intention.
 * It has been seen in past times,
 * That our old enemies of Saxon blood,
 * Have never yet done good to Scotland.

Publication History
At first The Wallace circulated only in manuscript form. The earliest surviving manuscript of the poem was written in 1488 by John Ramsay, a Prior of the Perth Charterhouse. The Ramsay manuscript is preserved in the National Library of Scotland under the catalogue number Adv. MS. 19.2.2 (ii).

Chepman and Myllar published the first known printed edition in the early sixteenth century. Only fragments of this edition survive. A second printed edition was produced at Edinburgh in 1570 by Robert Lekpreuik. A third printed edition was published in 1594, also at Edinburgh, by Henry Charteris. The texts of all three early printed editions agree closely with the Ramsay manuscript.

No new editions are known to have been produced during the seventeenth century.

The work's popularity continued into the modern era with editions which often differed substantially from the texts of the sixteenth century. William Hamilton of Gilbertfield produced a translation into English entitled The Life and Heroick Actions of the Renoun'd Sir William Wallace, General and Governour of Scotland which was published by William Duncan at Glasgow in 1722. In 1869 John Jamieson edited a more authentic Scots version The Life and Acts of Sir William Wallace of Ellerslie also published at Glasgow. In 1889 the Scottish Text Society published a scholarly transcript of the text of the Ramsay manuscript.

Many other editions have been published.