Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297): William Wallace's Victory

The Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought on 11 September 1297 at a narrow wooden bridge over the River Forth near Stirling, in central Scotland. A Scottish army led by William Wallace and Andrew Moray caught an English army under John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, halfway across the river and routed it. The victory turned a scattered rebellion into a national war and made Wallace one of the most famous figures in Scottish history.

Background: Scotland without a king

The crisis began with an accident. In March 1286 King Alexander III of Scotland died after falling from his horse, leaving as heir his granddaughter Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”. When she died in Orkney in 1290 on her way to Scotland, the royal line was broken and more than a dozen claimants came forward.

The Scottish leaders asked Edward I of England to judge between them. Edward agreed, but only after the claimants accepted him as overlord of Scotland. In 1292 this process, known as the Great Cause, ended with the choice of John Balliol as king. Edward then treated Balliol as a vassal, summoning him to English courts and demanding military service.

In 1295 the Scots made an alliance with France, later called the Auld Alliance. Edward responded by invading in 1296. He sacked Berwick in March, his army defeated the Scots at Dunbar on 27 April, and in July Balliol was forced to give up his kingdom. Edward took the Stone of Destiny (the Stone of Scone) to Westminster, collected oaths of loyalty from roughly 1,500 to 2,000 Scottish landholders on the so-called Ragman Roll, and left English officials to govern Scotland.

English rule was unpopular almost at once, partly because of heavy taxation and demands for military service. In May 1297 William Wallace, a younger son of a minor landholding family, killed William Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark. Little is known for certain about Wallace’s early life, but from this point he led a growing band of fighters in the south-west and centre of the country.

At the same time, Andrew Moray, son of a northern lord who had been captured at Dunbar, raised a rising in the north and took castle after castle around the Moray Firth. A separate revolt by some of the great nobles collapsed when they came to terms with the English at Irvine in July 1297. By late summer, Wallace and Moray had joined forces and controlled most of Scotland north of the Forth.

The English administration was led by Surrey, the king’s lieutenant, and Hugh de Cressingham, the treasurer of Scotland. Edward I himself was in Flanders, preparing a campaign against France. Surrey and Cressingham marched north with an army to restore control and reached Stirling in early September.

What happened at Stirling Bridge

Stirling was the key to Scotland. Its castle commanded the lowest practical crossing of the River Forth, and anyone moving between the south and the north of the country had to pass close by. The Scots took up position on high ground near the Abbey Craig, north of the river, overlooking the bridge and the loop of the Forth.

The bridge itself was the problem for the English. According to Walter of Guisborough, an English chronicler writing not long afterwards, it was so narrow that only two horsemen could cross abreast. A Scottish knight serving with the English, Sir Richard Lundie, reportedly proposed sending a force across a ford upstream to outflank the Scots. Cressingham, anxious about the cost of a long campaign, is said to have urged a direct crossing instead, and Surrey agreed.

On the morning of 11 September the English began to cross. Guisborough says Surrey overslept and that the crossing started and stopped more than once, which wasted time. Wallace and Moray waited until a substantial part of the English army, including many heavily armed cavalry, was on the north bank. They then sent their spearmen down onto the causeway at the northern end of the bridge, cutting the vanguard off from the rest of the army.

The English on the north bank were trapped in a loop of the river on soft ground where heavy cavalry could not manoeuvre. Many were killed fighting, and many others drowned trying to cross the Forth in armour. Cressingham was among the dead. Several chronicles report that his body was flayed and that pieces of his skin were taken as trophies, a detail that shows the bitterness of the conflict.

Surrey, still on the south bank with most of his army, could not help the men trapped across the river. He ordered the bridge to be destroyed and retreated quickly to Berwick, leaving the garrison of Stirling Castle under Sir Marmaduke Thweng to hold out alone. The castle later surrendered to the Scots.

Key people

William Wallace (died 1305) was a guerrilla leader who became, briefly, the most powerful man in Scotland. Most of what is popularly believed about him comes from a long poem written by Blind Harry around the 1470s, nearly 200 years after his death, so historians treat many stories about him with caution.

Andrew Moray (died 1297) was the son of a northern baron and a skilled organiser. He shared command at Stirling and was named with Wallace as leader of the army of Scotland in letters sent after the battle. He was seriously wounded and died later in 1297, probably in November.

John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was an experienced commander who had won at Dunbar the year before. His caution and slow handling of the crossing were blamed for the defeat.

Hugh de Cressingham, the treasurer, was deeply unpopular in Scotland as the face of English taxation and was killed in the battle.

By the numbers

Medieval chronicles give unreliable figures for both armies, so modern estimates vary widely.

Consequences: from victory to Falkirk

After the battle Wallace and Moray took the war south. In October and November 1297 they raided deep into Northumberland and Cumberland. Letters written in their names to the towns of Lübeck and Hamburg announced that Scotland had been recovered from the English and invited merchants to trade again.

Wallace was knighted and, by early 1298, was acting as Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland in the name of the absent King John Balliol. It was an extraordinary position for a man who was not a great noble, and some Scottish magnates resented him.

Edward I returned from Flanders and led a large army north in 1298. On 22 July 1298, at Falkirk, he defeated Wallace. The Scots had formed schiltrons, tightly packed rings of spearmen, which held off the English cavalry until they were broken up by archers and then charged. Wallace resigned the guardianship soon afterwards and spent some time abroad, including in France, seeking support for the Scottish cause.

Capture, trial and execution of Wallace

By 1304 most Scottish leaders had submitted to Edward, but Wallace was specifically excluded from any offer of peace. On 3 August 1305 he was captured at Robroyston, near Glasgow, and handed over to the English by men of Sir John Menteith, a Scottish noble serving Edward.

Wallace was taken to London and tried in Westminster Hall on 23 August 1305. He was accused of treason and of many killings and burnings in England. He is recorded as denying that he was a traitor, on the grounds that he had never sworn allegiance to Edward. He was condemned and executed the same day at Smithfield by hanging, drawing and quartering. His head was displayed on London Bridge and parts of his body were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.

His death did not end the war. In 1306 Robert the Bruce seized the throne, and in 1314 he won the Battle of Bannockburn, not far from Stirling Bridge. The case for Scottish independence was later set out in the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320.

Myths and facts

Myth: Braveheart shows the battle as it happened. The 1995 film stages Stirling as an open-field fight with no bridge. The real battle depended entirely on the river crossing.

Myth: Wallace won alone. Andrew Moray was joint commander, and his early death is the main reason his name is less well known.

Myth: Wallace wore a kilt and blue face paint. Both belong to much later periods. Scottish soldiers of the 1290s were dressed and armed much like other western European infantry, with spears, padded jackets and helmets where they could afford them.

Fact: the original bridge is gone. The 1297 bridge was made of wood. The stone Old Stirling Bridge that visitors see today was built much later, probably in the 15th or 16th century.

Legacy

Stirling Bridge showed that well-led infantry could defeat a mounted army when the ground favoured them, a lesson repeated at Courtrai in 1302 and at Bannockburn. It also made Wallace a symbol of resistance, a reputation built up by Blind Harry’s poem and by Romantic writers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The National Wallace Monument, built on the Abbey Craig between 1861 and 1869, overlooks the battlefield. It reflects the Victorian view of Wallace as a national hero, and the site remains one of the most visited historic places in Scotland. Edward I’s wider campaigns of conquest, including his conquest of Wales, form the background to the whole struggle.

Timeline

• 1286, 19 March: Death of King Alexander III of Scotland.
• 1292, 17 November: John Balliol is chosen as king of Scots after the Great Cause.
• 1296, 27 April: English victory at Dunbar; Balliol abdicates in July.
• 1297, May: Wallace kills William Heselrig, sheriff of Lanark; risings spread.
• 1297, 11 September: Battle of Stirling Bridge.
• 1297, autumn: Scottish raids into northern England; Andrew Moray dies of his wounds.
• 1298, 22 July: Edward I defeats Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk.
• 1305, 3 August: Wallace is captured at Robroyston, near Glasgow.
• 1305, 23 August: Wallace is tried at Westminster and executed at Smithfield.

Why it matters

Stirling Bridge was the first great Scottish victory of the Wars of Independence. It proved that Edward I’s conquest could be reversed, gave the Scots a leader and a cause, and created the legend of William Wallace that still shapes how Scotland remembers its past.