What if the Scottish Nobles had Supported William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk

What would have happened if the Scottish Nobles had helped William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk? Please mention the short-term effects, such the battle and after the battle, and long-term effects, like Robert the Bruce becoming king
 
What would have happened if the Scottish Nobles had helped William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk? Please mention the short-term effects, such the battle and after the battle, and long-term effects, like Robert the Bruce becoming king
I'm pretty sure that Wallace was a Balliol supporter. But then again, that might not much him anyway.
 
Scottish Nobles at Falkirk. . .

Btw you do know that there were Scottish Nobles at Fakirk, right? They were charged by the English Horse Early in the battle, outnumbered 30 to 1 and were driven off. They fought and retreated due to untenable odds. Really I see this a lot, people taking Braveheart at face value for historical accuracy. Not terribly bright of them to do so...
 
Laugh if you will, but I have encountered several people who buy what mel gibson and hollywood were pedalling when they advertised braveheart as historically accurate. It pisses me off and I've taken to calling people on it.
 
It's still true that the Scottish nobility did not exactly fight wholeheartedly at Falkirk.

From Scotland: The Story of a Nation (which lists Edward as entering with 1,500 mounted knights and men at arms and twelve thousand foot soldiers, vs. "four (perhaps) five massed schiltrons" - of 1,500 to 2,000 men each - and an unknown number of knights and archers):

"The schiltrons held firm: The English knights could make no impression on them, and many of their horses were impaled on the deadly spears. Then came an extraordinary turn of events: The Scots cavalry, which should have gone into action to distract the English knights who were thundering in from both sides, simply abandoned the field without striking a blow."

Note that Magnusson is not exactly a big Wallace fan, or treating Braveheart as accurate.

So if the English heavy cavalry outnumbered the Scots cavalry thirty to one, I'd love to see the source for comparison's sake.
 
Still, losing your nerve when you are MASSIVELY outnumbered and fleeing the field before you can be butchered and maliciously conspiring with your enemies to quash this "upstart wallace" are not the same thing.
 
Still, losing your nerve when you are MASSIVELY outnumbered and fleeing the field before you can be butchered and maliciously conspiring with your enemies to quash this "upstart wallace" are not the same thing.

Oh aye, and there's little evidence of the latter (though that's not to say it's untrue, it should be noted). But "massively outnumbered"?

I don't know how many knights and mounted men at arms Wallace had with him, but Bruce had five hundred cavalry vs. I believe 2-3,000 at Bannockburn, and they were quite willing to fight there. So if the odds were worse here - and I'm willing to acknowledge they may well have been - how many horse are we talking about, and according to who?

Not to mention that the idea that they would inevitably be 'butchered" . . . by what? The English knights busy killing themselves off against the spearmen?

This is the kind of pitiful performance that indicates no desire to even stand and fight long enough to find out if defeat is inevitable.
 
Meh. I figure if they had no intention of fighting they wouldn't have taken the field in the first place.

I figure that they felt that they could get away with it "because it's not like Wallace is anything but an upstart", myself.

Which is to say, Wallace was dismissed as not worth dying for, not maliciously betrayed.

Note to the original poster: Since we don't know how much impact the knights would have had if they'd stayed, hard to answer - they might well have disrupted the "Shoot up the shilitrons" plan, however.
 
See I always figured that the nobles plan was to offer token resistance and then seek terms. Wallace was upsetting those plans in that regard, but it's not like they actually had to fight with him for this plan to work, hence not taking the field in the first place.
 
Really I see this a lot, people taking Braveheart at face value for historical accuracy. Not terribly bright of them to do so...

Other fun things people think happened thanks to Hollywood.

1. There was a guy called Maximus who killed Emperor Commodus.
2. The Roman Senators were champions of the people and democracy.
3. The Persians literally assaulted Greece with a million men.
4. The British army had a policy of burning people alive in churches.
5. The Samurai were nothing but noble warriors who were defending Japan's ancient heritage rather than their own wealth.
6. Japanese soldiers in WWII were mindless drones subserviant to the Emperor's Hive Mind.
7. Scots do, have and always will wear kilts.
8. Cortez fought the Mayans for some reason.

Actually Mel Gibson is responsible for most of these...
 
Other fun things people think happened thanks to Hollywood.

1. There was a guy called Maximus who killed Emperor Commodus.
2. The Roman Senators were champions of the people and democracy.
3. The Persians literally assaulted Greece with a million men.
4. The British army had a policy of burning people alive in churches.
5. The Samurai were nothing but noble warriors who were defending Japan's ancient heritage rather than their own wealth.
6. Japanese soldiers in WWII were mindless drones subserviant to the Emperor's Hive Mind.
7. Scots do, have and always will wear kilts.
8. Cortez fought the Mayans for some reason.

Actually Mel Gibson is responsible for most of these...

And this one we can lay squarely at the feet of Tom Cruise :mad:

Much as I liked that movie despite the historical inaccuracies...
 
Other fun things people think happened thanks to Hollywood.

1. There was a guy called Maximus who killed Emperor Commodus.
2. The Roman Senators were champions of the people and democracy.
3. The Persians literally assaulted Greece with a million men.
4. The British army had a policy of burning people alive in churches.
5. The Samurai were nothing but noble warriors who were defending Japan's ancient heritage rather than their own wealth.
6. Japanese soldiers in WWII were mindless drones subserviant to the Emperor's Hive Mind.
7. Scots do, have and always will wear kilts.
8. Cortez fought the Mayans for some reason.

Actually Mel Gibson is responsible for most of these...

Actually, I believe the point was made in the movie that it was NOT the policy of the British Army to do that, but that particular officer thought it would be effective. And wanted guarantees that, if he did what was necessary, he would be rewarded rather than denounced for those actions.
 
The truth of the matter is that the Scottish Cavalry abandoned the field because they knew the battle was lost, just as Wallace himself did. Once the English Cavalry got on both sides of the Scottish Army they had trapped the Scots. The was a marsh between the English and Scottish Army and a dense wood to the Scots rear and once the English Calavry was around their flanks and the English archers came up then there was no chance of success for the Scots, the fact that the English Cavalry destroyed the Scottish archers early also contributed to the doom of Wallace's Army.

From A Great and Terrible King - Marc Morris page 313:

The Scottish Cavalry - that is, the Scottish nobility - had fled at the start of the battle. ('Without a sword's blow,') said Guisborough, derisively.) This had given rise to the pernicious but persistent myth that they secretly despised Wallace as a common upstart, and were actually in league with Edward I. As we have already seen, nothing could be futher from the truth. The nobles of Scotland had from the first defied the English king and were quite ready to resist him. What seperated them from the unfortunate archers and infantry at Falkirk was not their commitment to the patriotic cause, but their ability to flee when they realised that defeat was inevitable. We should not be too quick to condemn as cowards men who faced such overwhelming odds: it was massive numbers and superior firepower, not treachery, that led to the English victory. Nor should we pretend that the behaviour of the Scottish cavalry in any way divided them from their general. Wallace too escaped from Falkirk - presumably on the back of a horse.

The decision of the Scottish nobles to flee the field, far from condemning their country to defeat, in fact proved to be its saving grace. Had they been captured at Falkirk, as they had been at Dunbar two years before, resistance would have come to a swift end. As it was their flight meant that the recent battle, although extremely bloody, was quite indecisive. Edward had succeeded only in killing a lot of Scottish commoners (and, to judge from the sudden drop in his infantry wages, a lot of English ones as well). Irritatingly, he now had no choice but to conduct a massive manhunt.
 
One would like to know - given the utter lack of success (until the longbowmen had done their deadly work) of the English cavalry why the nobles would regard it as lost from the beginning.

I mean, let's take Bannockburn - Bruce is facing odds longer than Wallace did (by the information I know), with a similar army to Wallace's, and yet the nobles didn't run there.

Does Morris give numbers for the two armies?
 
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Laugh if you will, but I have encountered several people who buy what mel gibson and hollywood were pedalling when they advertised braveheart as historically accurate. It pisses me off and I've taken to calling people on it.

Me too. That the Battle of Stirling Bridge doesn't include a bridge and that the Scottish soldiers are all portrayed without wearing armour or using cavalry is criminal and just... stupid. Not to mention how they changed Wallace's ancestry, biography and social standing. Gibson was really just pushing an agenda with the movie and didn't even bother to wink at the audience with hints of deliberate overstylization favouring one side, á la 300. At least that movie acknowledged it was never trying to be historically accurate, but be more like a campsite story told from the Spartans' POV (hence the demonizing or belittling of the Persians).
 
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