William Wallace; a name that conjures up emotion in the heart of any Scot.
The monument to this Scottish patriot towers like the giant he was
over the site of his greatest triumph at Stirling Bridge
after which he had the English Governor Cressingham
flayed and his skin used as a scabbard. But what if I said this is actually a
monument to the British Empire and glory of the Anglo Scottish Union.
If you re interested in the people places and events in Scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen.
In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
We live in a time where internet spin and propaganda has people believing red is green.
At the very least the waters are muddied enough that people can
confidently believe what they want to believe. By the time I m finished you re going to see
that William Wallace isn t a Scottish hero, but a shining star of the British Empire.
If you think that s an uphill struggle, you ll need to come with me to find out.
Let s get pedantic for a minute.
You see we might drive past this place and lazily call it The Wallace Monument,
but it s more correctly called The National Wallace Monument
unlike the statues and monuments to Wallace across the country this one represents the nation.
The Statue of Liberty in New York, The Eiffel Tower in Paris,
the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin You see people at a football world cup carrying or
wearing the things that identify their nation. Americans dressed as Liberty, English as crusading
knights, French as Asterix or Obelix, Canadian Mounties, Greeks in Togas,
Italians as Roman Legionaries. When this monument was built, it was built
to hold and represent the hopes,
dreams, values and characteristics of a nation framed in the character and name of one man.
So who decided what characteristics and values the Wallace Monument would represent?
Who was the driver behind it? The idea of a Wallace monument had
been around for a while, but in the early 1850s
national pride and enthusiasm for a monument to William Wallace on the Abbey Craig
was taken up by one Rev. Charles Rogers. He was an energetic town councillor and Stirling
Castle Chaplin who d raised funds for other monuments in the past
and was the impetus behind the 1851 formation of the National Wallace Monument committee.
Now Rev Rodgers wasn t a nationalist, certainly not in any sense that we d recognise.
Polite Victorian society would never endure the idea of Scottish political
nationalism. The Empire sir!
Like Walter Scott before them, you might have a love for things culturally Scottish,
but the idea that there should be a political element to national sentiment outwith the Union
no, no, no, no, no. The fund raising and management committee
had to be very careful not to give the impression of promoting Scotland in its own right.
After all Rodgers had agents in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and London.
A monument to a Scottish hero that focused on his triumph, even temporarily, over the English
would send all the wrong signals. In fact, The Times of London thundered that
Wallace was little more than a myth and the idea of a monument was provincial petty exclusionism.
No, the message would be of a William Wallace who stood
for ideals that transcended national boundaries
a William Wallace of whom Scots could be so proud
that there d be no question of political independence
We needed a national statue to celebrate what William Wallace did for the Union.
One 1856 magazine article said that Wallace s value to English liberty
was equal to his efforts for Scottish independence .
Wallace was a unionist hero, nay a champion of the British Empire
At Stirling Bridge William Wallace fought for Union and The Empire.
He just didn t have the foresight to realise it.
At the ceremony laying the foundation stone, the huge crowd was reminded that if it hadn t been for
Wallace s victory at Stirling Bridge Scotland would never have brought an
independent nation to the table to forge a union of equal nations,
creating an Empire to the glory of God and the benefit of the world.
If you think Mel Gibson played fast and loose with Scotland s history .
But hold on Rodgers and his ilk
weren t the only people on the committee. Let me tell you about William Burns;
solicitor, historian, influential Glaswegian and rabid radical nationalist leader in the NAVSR .
The NAVSR was a catchy Victorian title, but to be honest
the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights
weren t really that radical. They were nowhere near SNP
although it might be ignoring them was what eventually led to led to the SNP.
Their complaint was that, based on population and value to the exchequer
Scotland was underrepresented at Westminster. The larger partner in the union permanently
outvoted the smaller neighbour who was inevitably disadvantaged.
What they wanted was an increase in Scottish MPs at Westminster
that would reflect Scotland s population share That s right, they wanted EVEN MORE Westminster
but that was still SEEN as radical, dangerous and anti-English
So the radical firebrand NAVSR members of the committee
had to give assurances that they wouldn t hijack the monument for their own ends
which seems ironic, since by definition
every monument is for some cause s ends
Throughout Scottish history there have been a succession of minority monarchies;
James IJames II, James III, James IV, James V, his daughter Mary Queen
of Scots and her son James VI were all minors when they came to the throne.
Generation after generation, those with an eye for a chance fought to be regent
because who controlled the king, controlled Scotland.
In the nineteenth century constitutional debate whoever controlled the National Wallace Monument
would control how Scotland saw itself. Imposing the meaning of the monument
to Scotland s patriotic hero seemed like a prize worth fighting over.
The struggle for the committee s future would be to decide who owned the past
William Burns and Charles Rogers were continually at odds.
I mean bitter, bitter rivals. So who would be the winner?
At one key point, with Burns in the ascendency, a design for the monument was adopted.
Artist J. Noel Paton s Lion and Typhon Typhon was a grotesque giant man serpent
monster thing and one of the
deadliest creatures from Greek mythology. The plan was to make a huge structure of a lion
with a broken chain overthrowing this creature the symbolism, of course, being the Scottish lion
breaking the chains of tyranny Well, the establishment had to
order in extra quantities of super soft loo roll they shat themselves that hard.
Fortunately a subsequent committee meeting was held and in June 1859
Lion and Typhon was rejected. Oooft, that was a close one.
Paton s design was dropped and new designs were called for.
The winner was the Scottish baronial tower that stands on that rocky crag today.
It would be perfect a rocky crag surmounted by
roughhewn tower and topped by an imperial crown symbolising the power of the British empire.
Scottish history and heritage crowned with the achievements of Union and Empire
in one harmonious whole.
Did you realise that The Wallace Monument was a shining symbol of the British Empire?
The battle for the design of the monument had been won, but the war wasn t over.
By the time the foundation stone was eventually laid in 1861; Rodgers,
who d written 20000 letters in one five-year period, had gained enough
support from around the empire for just half the funds needed
to build the monument Lack of inspirational leadership ?
or as Burns argued financial mismanagement? Rodgers jumped or was pushed
from secretary and principal fundraiser of the Wallace Monument Committee...
Who replaced him? William Burns.
Some had suggested that the very fact that NAVSR members
like Burns were involved in the Committee
was the reason that fund raising had been a problem.
Whether Burns s extremist nationalist views or Rodger s creative accounting
had slowed down the project, under William Burns s chairmanship
fund raising, and construction went on successfully and Rodgers set up his own
supplementary committee. The National Wallace Monument
was completed with Burns in the chair almost twenty years after conception.
During construction the architect had died, and the project had run well over budget
What Scotland really needed was a parliament building?
The inauguration ceremony in 1869 might have seemed like a finish line,
but it was really only the passing on of the baton.
Rodgers had won the design, Burns had overtaken him to bring the project home
but there was another hurdle to come In 1886 they opened the Hall of Heroes,
with busts of other great heroes of Scotland, starting with Robert Burns.
WILLIAM Burns had run his race. His finish line had passed ten years earlier
and Rodgers and his unionist nationalists were once more in the ascendency.
In 1896 they held a celebration here to commemorate
the 600 year anniversary of Wallace s victory over the English at the
Battle of Stirling Bridge below. Forty years after The Times had decried
a Wallace monument as petty provincialism. It now celebrated the deep and lasting
impression that Wallace had made upon the Empire The Telegraph said that Englishmen and Scotsmen
should join together in celebrating the shared advantages and yeoman service
that the national independence of Scotland had brought to the Union and the British Empire,
So Rodgers had won and The Natoinal Wallace Monument
stood as a symbol and celebration of the British union and empire.
Is that how you see it today?
Let me know in the comments section. Has poll position in the race
changed since 1896. Will it change again?
Unlike with the tortoise and the hare in this race,
as long as the monument stands the finish line is never reached.
You see monuments don t occupy a date or point in time, but a continuum
and they don t represent the designer s intentions, but the viewers interpretation
As we enter the National Wallace Monument we see Rodgers on one side and Burns on the other.
They may have seen two opposing sides of a debate with regard to Scotland s heart and soul.
You might see it that way too. In fact there are richer
and deeper choices still, as we ll see in the hall of heroes.
From outset it was decided that Wallace wasn t to be the only hero celebrated here.
Maybe to soften the idea of any nationalist sentiment focusing on Wallace there was to
be a whole hall of heroes . Starting with Robert Burns
Then Robert Bruce, John Knox, James Watt, Robert Tannahill, Thomas Carlyle,
David Livingstone, Allan Ramsay, Sir Walter Scott, Adam Smith, William Ewart Gladstone
and more but how are THEY seen today?
Are these white male bastions of Victorian Scotland representative,
or even recognised as today s heroes...
or do we have a richer or poorer range of choices?
It s not a point I m making, but a question I pose
and an observation that our idea of heroes, like national identity isn t static.
Since the first time I came here years ago, female heroes have been added
Does the addition of missionary Mary Slessor and Maggie Keswick Jencks,
co-founder of the Maggie s Centres make this national monument more representative
of who we are today ? Who chooses?
How often should they be augmented or replaced? Where are the heroes of Red Clydesyde?
Is it the people in this room who have formed us and what are the heroes inside us doing to frame
the image and values of Scotland going forward as we pass on the baton to our children?
I made this video to ask questions and to prompt thought.
With a hero like Wallace there s always going to be feeling as well as thought.
Personally, I can t understand the mental gymnastics that allowed folk to frame Wallace
as a hero of British empire, rather than Scottish independence.
Maybe the challenge for me is to at least understand the people who do.
You see without the support of differing points of view
this monument would never have been built, and I for one am glad it was.
Because whatever you think William Wallace and his monument represents
The legacy he left us is Scotland If you want to know more about the
people who preserved Scotland then there s a video coming
up on screen now In the meantime