Plot Summary (Braveheart) Braveheart (1995)
The narrative below tracks the film as filmed; the plot is heavily fictionalized and bears only loose resemblance to the historical William Wallace (see Wallace and the Real History). Every plot fact is anchored to a Backbeat.
A boy is handed two inheritances at one funeral
A voice-over — later revealed as Robert the Bruce — frames the film as contested history: he will tell of William Wallace, the English will say he is lying.b1 Edward I of England, called Longshanks, claims the Scottish throne after the Scottish king dies without an heir, and invites the Scottish nobles to a "talks of truce" — no weapons, one page each.b2 Young William Wallace watches his father Malcolm and brother John ride out to the gathering with the clansmen.b3 The boy slips into the barn at MacAndrews', where the rafters are strung with the corpses of the nobles who came to the truce — the public-body image the film will pay off at the scaffold three hours later.b4
Malcolm rides out with the men to fight the English, telling William to stay home and adding that "it's our wits that make us men."b5 Malcolm and John are killed; William finds his father laid out for burial and a boy at the funeral hands him a thistle.b6 Uncle Argyle (Brian Cox (in Braveheart)) arrives, takes William in, and promises to teach him first to use his head and then the sword. That night, in dream, Malcolm tells his son: "Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it."b7
Longshanks declares prima nocte; Wallace returns home to belong
Years later, Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan (in Braveheart)) marries his son to a French princess and grants prima nocte — the right of the lord to take a vassal's bride on the wedding night — to attract greedy English settlers north. "If we can't get them out, we'll breed them out."b8 The adult Wallace (Mel Gibson) returns to the village, fakes Hamish (Brendan Gleeson (in Braveheart)) out in a stone-throwing test, and sees Murron (Catherine McCormack (in Braveheart)) watching from the side.b9 At a different feast an English lord rides in to claim prima nocte; Wallace observes silently as the bride is taken away.b10
Wallace courts Murron, teaching her the French word for beautiful on a ride into the rain.b11 Her father MacClannough offers Wallace a place at a secret rebel meeting; Wallace declines — "I came back home to raise crops and, God willing, a family" — and uses the refusal as proof of love.b12 He proposes; that night the priest performs a secret wedding in a candlelit glade. Wallace gives Murron a thistle-cloth: "I will love you my whole life, you and no other."b13
Murron's killing collapses the equilibrium
In the village the next day, the English garrison commander Hesselrig sends two soldiers after Murron at the well; Smythe attempts rape, Wallace overpowers them, and the couple flees. They split — "Meet me at the grove. Ride!" — and the English seize Murron at the village.b14 Hesselrig drags her to the post in the village square, declares to the villagers that "an assault on the king's soldiers is the same as an assault on the king himself," and cuts her throat with a single stroke.b15
Wallace rides into the square as if surrendering, then explodes into action. Villagers join the fight; they storm the garrison; Wallace finds Hesselrig and cuts his throat in mirror of Murron's killing. The villagers chant "MacAulish!" — son of Malcolm — then "Wallace! Wallace!"b16 At the camp afterward, Campbell (James Cosmo) takes whiskey to his wound and a MacGregor party rides in refusing to be sent home: the English will burn their villages anyway.b17 Wallace welcomes them. The project has changed without an explicit announcement.
The rebellion as movement: Lanark to Stirling
Wallace's men, in English uniform, deliver the prima-nocte lord into his own courtyard. Wallace kills him and tells the survivors: "I am William Wallace... tell them Scotland is free."b18 In London Longshanks dismisses the rising and leaves it to Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) before departing for France.b19 At Bruce castle the leper father (Ian Bannen) lays out the noble realpolitik to Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen (in Braveheart)): "It is exactly the ability to compromise that makes a man noble."b20
Wallace plans long spears against heavy cavalry and Stephen of Ireland (David O'Hara) joins, having slipped a dagger past Campbell's guards.b21 Stephen kills the volunteer Faudron — exposed as an assassin — and a runner brings news the English are advancing on Stirling; Hamish reports "Robert the Bruce and most of the others will not commit to battle, but word has spread, and the Highlanders are coming down on their own."b22
At Stirling the Scots see they are outnumbered three to one and start to leave.b23 Wallace rides up in blue face paint and intercepts the retreat: "they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom" — a future-tense rehearsal of what he will do at the scaffold.b24 At the parley Wallace tells Cheltham the English commander must "kiss his own arse"; the cavalry-vs-pike trick — feign retreat, draw the heavy horse, lift the long spears at the last moment — impales the English charge. (See The Stirling Bridge Without a Bridge on the bridge the film famously omits.)b25
Wallace knighted and betrayed
In the Edinburgh chamber Wallace is knighted Sir William and declared Guardian of Scotland; the nobles whisper that "his weight with the commoners could unbalance everything."b26 The nobles fall to bickering over Balliol vs. Bruce succession claims; Wallace walks out, telling them he will invade England. Bruce catches him in the corridor: "if you would just lead them to freedom, they'd follow you. And so would I."b27
Wallace's army takes York; Wallace sends the Magistrate's head in a basket to London. Longshanks throws the Prince's high counselor Phillip out a window and dispatches Princess Isabelle (Sophie Marceau (in Braveheart)) with a truce offer (see Isabella as Film Fiction).b28 Isabelle parleys with Wallace at a barn near camp; he refuses the bribe and, for the first time on screen, names Murron as his secret wife.b29 Isabelle reports back; Longshanks reveals he has already sprung a flanking trap with Welsh archers, French troops, and Irish conscripts — the wife was a delaying ruse.b30
At the Edinburgh council the nobles wobble; Bruce promises to bring them. The leper father pulls Bruce back: the nobles will not support Wallace, "so how does it help us to join the side that is slaughtered?"b31 At Falkirk, Bruce does not come. Mornay and Lochlan flee with their cavalry, bought by Longshanks. Wallace charges Longshanks alone and is intercepted by a masked English knight who runs him through with a lance. Wallace, on his back, reaches up and pulls off the helmet: it is Robert the Bruce. (See The Falkirk Visor-Lift.)b32
The post-midpoint approach: spending the body publicly
Campbell dies in Wallace's arms saying he has lived long enough to live free. Bruce confronts the leper father: "Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk, they fought for William Wallace... I will never be on the wrong side, again."b33 Hooded, Wallace assassinates Mornay with a flail in his bedchamber and cuts Lochlan's throat at his own table among Lochlan's men.b34 Isabelle slips out of London with a warning and they become lovers in a wooded clearing.b35
Hooded nobles offer a Bruce-pledged unity meeting; Hamish and Stephen call it a trap; Wallace argues "joining the nobles is the only hope for our people" and insists on going alone.b36 At the gate the trap snaps shut. Bruce, on the wall in armor, sees Wallace look up at him in recognition and screams "You lied!" at his father. The leper father: "Longshanks required Wallace. So did our nobles. That was the price of your crown."b37
At Westminster Hall Wallace refuses to bend the knee. That night in the Tower cell Isabelle visits and begs him to confess for mercy; Wallace answers: "Every man dies. Not every man really lives." He refuses laudanum so he can choose his last word.b38 On the Smithfield scaffold, hanged, drawn, and broken on the rack, offered mercy in exchange for the word "Mercy," Wallace draws a long breath and exhales "Freedom!" instead. The axe falls. (See The Scaffold Climax.)b39
The new equilibrium: Bannockburn
Wallace's head is set on London Bridge and his body sent to the four corners of Britain. Bruce voice-over: "It did not have the effect that Longshanks planned." Cut to 1314, the road to Bannockburn. Bruce, riding to do homage to Edward II, stops his column on the field, dismounts, and turns to the Scottish men-at-arms behind him: "You have bled with Wallace! Now bleed with me!" The Scots roar "Wallace! Wallace!" as they follow. (See Bannockburn as Wind-Down.)b40