Elizabeth Ewan describes
Braveheart as a film that "almost totally sacrifices historical accuracy for epic adventure". It has been described as one of the most historically inaccurate modern films. Sharon Krossa noted that the film contains numerous historical inaccuracies, beginning with the wearing of
belted plaid (
feileadh mór léine), which was not introduced until the 16th century, by Wallace and his men. In that period "no Scots [...] wore belted plaids (let alone
kilts of any kind)." Moreover, when Highlanders finally did begin wearing the belted plaid, it was not "in the rather bizarre style depicted in the film". She compares the inaccuracy to "a film about Colonial America showing the colonial men wearing 20th-century business suits, but with the jackets worn back-to-front instead of the right way around." In a previous essay about the film, she wrote, "The events aren't accurate, the dates aren't accurate, the characters aren't accurate, the names aren't accurate, the clothes aren't accurate—in short, just about nothing is accurate." Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplay, has acknowledged
Blind Harry's 15th-century
epic poem The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie, as a major inspiration for the film. In defending his script, Randall Wallace has said, "Is Blind Harry true? I don't know. I know that it spoke to my heart and that's what matters to me, that it spoke to my heart." there are large parts that are based neither on history nor Blind Harry (e.g. Wallace's affair with Princess Isabella). The reign of
King Edward I of England is one of the best documented by contemporary chroniclers in the Middle Ages, but these sources were entirely ignored by the screenwriter in favour of the non-contemporary source written more than two centuries after the events it portrays. In the
DVD audio commentary of
Braveheart, Mel Gibson acknowledged the historical inaccuracies but defended his choices as director, noting that the way events were portrayed in the film was much more "cinematically compelling" than the historical fact or conventional mythos.
Occupation and independence The film suggests Scotland had been under English occupation for some time, at least during Wallace's childhood, and in the run-up to the
Battle of Falkirk Wallace says to the younger Bruce, "[W]e'll have what none of us have ever had before, a country of our own." In fact, Scotland had been
invaded by England only the year before Wallace's rebellion; before the death of
King Alexander III it had been a fully separate kingdom. In the film, William Wallace uses the phrase “hundred years of theft, rape, and murder” to describe the relationship between England and Scotland, which has been criticised for not accurately representing the two nations' relationship at the time.. The sister of
King Edward I of England,
Margaret of England, was married to Alexander III. They had been married at
York Minster in 1251 amidst friendly relations between the two royal families. As Robert Bartlett wrote “ In fact, in the hundred years before 1297, the year of that battle [of Dunbar], the king of England had led an army into Scotland only once, for ten days in January 1216.”
Portrayal of William Wallace As
John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett writes, "Because [William] Wallace is one of Scotland's most important national heroes and because he lived in the very distant past, much that is believed about him is probably the stuff of legend. But there is a factual strand that historians agree to", summarized from Scots scholar Matt Ewart: A. E. Christa Canitz writes about the historical William Wallace further: "[He] was a younger son of the Scottish gentry, usually accompanied by his own chaplain, well-educated, and eventually, having been appointed
Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland, engaged in diplomatic correspondence with the
Hanseatic cities of
Lübeck and
Hamburg". She finds that in
Braveheart, "any hint of his descent from the lowland gentry (i.e., the lesser nobility) is erased, and he is presented as an economically and politically marginalized Highlander and 'a farmer'—as one with the common peasant, and with a strong spiritual connection to the land which he is destined to liberate." Colin McArthur writes that
Braveheart "constructs Wallace as a kind of modern,
nationalist guerrilla leader in a period half a millennium before the appearance of nationalism on the historical stage as a concept under which disparate classes and interests might be mobilised within a nation state." Writing about
Bravehearts "omissions of verified historical facts", McArthur notes that Wallace made "overtures to
Edward I seeking less severe treatment after his defeat at Falkirk", as well as "the well-documented fact of Wallace's having resorted to
conscription and his willingness to hang those who refused to serve." Canitz posits that depicting "such lack of class solidarity" as the conscriptions and related hangings "would contaminate the movie's image of Wallace as the morally irreproachable
primus inter pares among his peasant fighters."
Portrayal of Robert the Bruce Robert the Bruce did change sides between the Scots loyalists and the
English more than once in the earlier stages of the
Wars of Scottish Independence, but he probably did not fight on the English side at the
Battle of Falkirk (although this claim does appear in a few medieval sources). Later, the
Battle of Bannockburn was not a spontaneous battle soon after Wallace's execution; he had already been fighting a guerrilla campaign against the English for eight years. His title before becoming king was
Earl of Carrick, not Earl of Bruce.
Bruce's father is portrayed as an infirm
leper, although it was Bruce himself who allegedly suffered from leprosy in later life. The actual Bruce's machinations around Wallace, rather than the meek idealist in the film, suggests the father–son relationship represent different aspects of the historical Bruce's character. In the film, Bruce's father betrays Wallace to his son's disgust, calling it the price of his son's crown, when in real life Wallace was betrayed by the nobleman
John de Menteith.
Portrayal of Longshanks and Prince Edward The actual
Edward I was ruthless and temperamental, but the film exaggerates his negative aspects for effect. Edward enjoyed poetry and harp music, was a devoted and loving husband to his wife
Eleanor of Castile, and as a religious man, he gave generously to charity; the film's scene where he scoffs cynically at Isabella for distributing gold to the poor after Wallace refuses it as a bribe would have been unlikely. Furthermore, Edward died almost two years after Wallace's execution, not on the same day. The depiction of the future
Edward II as an
effeminate homosexual drew accusations of
homophobia against Gibson. Gibson defended his depiction of Prince Edward as weak and ineffectual, saying: In response to Longshanks' murder of the prince's lover, Phillip, Gibson replied: "The fact that King Edward throws this character out a window has nothing to do with him being gay ... He's terrible to his son, to everybody." Gibson asserted, without evidence, that the reason Longshanks kills his son's lover is that the king is a "
psychopath".
Wallace's military campaign "MacGregors from the next
glen" joining Wallace shortly after the
action at Lanark is dubious, since it is questionable whether
Clan Gregor existed at that stage, and when they did emerge their traditional home was
Glen Orchy, some distance from Lanark. Wallace did win an important victory at the
Battle of Stirling Bridge, but the version in
Braveheart is highly inaccurate, as it has no bridge (or
Andrew Moray, joint commander of the Scots army, who was fatally wounded in the battle). Later, Wallace did carry out a large-scale raid into the north of England, but he did not get as far south as York, nor did he kill Edward I's nephew. The "Irish conscripts" at the
Battle of Falkirk are unhistorical; there were no Irish troops at Falkirk (although many of the English army were, in fact,
Welsh). The two-handed long swords used by Gibson in the film were not in wide use in the period. A one-handed sword and shield would have been more accurate and more efficient, since in the enemy army there were a lot of archers. ==Sequel==