William Wallace not captured

How far do you think Wallace would have gotten if he hadn't been captured by the English? A lasting Scottish victory over the Brits and Wallace going on to a place of high leadership among the Scots?
 
William Wallace (the real one, not that Hollywood travesty) was a successful supporter of the Red Comyn, which is why Robert the Bruce hated his guts (not him, Radar, just his guts).

If Wallace had continued, he might have replaced Bruce completely as the candidate for King of Scotland. That might have been a very good idea, particularly if he managed to get the Douglas family behind him. Comes the year, comes the man...

Wallace had already proved himself a damned effective battlefield commander, so all he had to do was to out-survive his rivals and wait until the ailing Edward the First of England died.
 
Don't you mean "over the English"?

Wallace was the Guardian of Scotland until after his defeat at Falkirk. The English, though, were unable to follow up their victory and re-occupy Scotland. After this, Wallace allegedly sailed to France to persuade Philip IV to lend military aid to the Scots. Wallace and and his followers remained in France until 1303. The former Scottish King, John Balliol, was held captive by Edward I as of 1296. The Scottish rebels initially considered themselves as acting on his behalf, while the country was governed by the Guardians, like William Wallace, John Comyn and Robert the Bruce. John Balliol was released by Edward I into Papal custody in 1301. Scotland existed without a king until Robert the Bruce took up the mantle in 1306. There was some rivalry between Comyn and Bruce, the former being a nephew of John Balliol, and had a legitimate claim to the throne.

There were a lot of powerful personalities in Scotland which at some point or another held the Guardianship. If Wallace had evaded capture long enough, would Scotland have become fully united like it did under the leadership of Robert I like IOTL?
 
William Wallace (the real one, not that Hollywood travesty) was a successful supporter of the Red Comyn, which is why Robert the Bruce hated his guts (not him, Radar, just his guts).

If Wallace had continued, he might have replaced Bruce completely as the candidate for King of Scotland. That might have been a very good idea, particularly if he managed to get the Douglas family behind him. Comes the year, comes the man...

Wallace had already proved himself a damned effective battlefield commander, so all he had to do was to out-survive his rivals and wait until the ailing Edward the First of England died.


Are you saying Comyn would be King or Wallace?

What royal descent did Wallace have to be king?
 
Are you saying Comyn would be King or Wallace?

What royal descent did Wallace have to be king?

Maybe Robert the Bruce feared Wallace's return to Scotland, because he might have sided with John Comyn, and supported his claim to the throne over Bruce. Wallace in those times may have been more popular with the people of Scotland, and was considered a far more formidable general. The last thing Robert wanted was the mighty Wallace on the side of his main opponent.

If Wallace survived, and helped out Comyn with taking the kingship of Scotland, and destroying Robert the Bruce in the process, perhaps Wallace would have regained the Guardian-Stewardship of Scotland, being the regent and generalissimo of the country, and could have ruled Scotland through the person of Comyn, if the latter proved weak enough.
 
Imagine the Wallace family as the hereditary Stewards of Scotland, before achieving royal power!

Weren't the Stewarts already hereditary high stewards at this time?

Are there any natural lines on which Scotland might divide in a civil war?...would the Highlands or Islands be for or against Wallace?
 
If Wallace becomes too much of a thorn in Bruce's side he can always use the Somerled solution to the problem; had him assassinated!
 
How far do you think Wallace would have gotten if he hadn't been captured by the English? A lasting Scottish victory over the Brits and Wallace going on to a place of high leadership among the Scots?
In answer to the second bolded part, the Scots are Brits. Brit refers to a native of the island of Great Britain. Scotland is part of Great Britain.

Wallace backed King John as the rightful King of Scotland. After he resigned his position as Guardian though, it was taken by Robert the Bruce, whom he did not back. Without the position of Guardian, Wallace would likely have become the Scottish Owen Glendower, dissapearing into obscurity as Bruce consolidates his power. Remember, much of the credit for the battle of Stirling Bridge(unlike the battle depicted in that trash Braveheart) must go to Sir Andrew Murray.

It was tragic as King John never showed the inclination to return, much as James VII and II after the Glorious Revolution. The very fact he was still around, would have led to a lack of Wallaces support.
 
The first thing Bruce did when trying to ‘free’ Scotland was to destroy Scottish resistance first before fighting the English.

So if Wallace did not switch his allegiance from Balliol to Bruce he would have either
a) been a casualty and things turn out similar to the actual time line

b) Bruce would not have become king of an independent Scotland. And as Wallace did not have enough of the nobility behind him and Balliol did not help much, unification would have happened much sooner the 1707
 
In answer to the second bolded part, the Scots are Brits. Brit refers to a native of the island of Great Britain. Scotland is part of Great Britain.

At the time of the Scottish Wars of independence the term 'Briton' would have been seen as an archaic word for Welsh. It certainly would not have been applied to either the English or the Scots. That was an invention of the 17th and 18th Centuries
 
Wallace could never have become King of Scotland as he was not of royal or noble blood. He was the landless second son of a minor landowner (still gentry but a number of levels down from the Comyns, Bruces, Stewarts etc). The reason he was tolerated as Guardian was because he was the man of the moment. He had won the Battle of Stirling and much of the nobility had been somewhat discredited by an uprising against the English in Ayrshire which had simply petered out. Also, remember that Wallace was only joint-Guardian with Sir Andrew Moray, who was of noble blood. After Falkirk, the premier noble houses reasserted themselves and Bruce and the Red Comyn became joint Guardians of the realm. So Wallace after Falkirk only really played a supporting role - and in many eyes was actually a nuisance.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Well, IOTL his career was greatly discredited when he went off on an anti-Semitic tirade after some cops pulled him over for drunk driving, but he went on to produce some interesting movies filmed entirely in extinct languages.

Oh wait...
 
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