Wallace Sword

It has been alleged {{by who?|date=March 2023}} that after William Wallace's execution in 1305, John de Menteith, governor of Dumbarton Castle, received the sword in August of that year, but there are no records to that effect. Two hundred years later, in 1505, accounts survive which state that at the command of King James IV of Scotland, the sum of 26 shillings was paid to an armourer for the "binding of Wallace's sword with cords of silk" and providing it with "a new hilt and plummet" and also with a "new scabbard and a new belt". This repair would have been necessary because, according to legend, Wallace's original scabbard, hilt, and belt were said to have been made from the dried skin of Hugh de Cressingham, who was killed at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.{{cite news |url= https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald-1130/20200728/281835761027950 |via=PressReader.com |title=Medieval sword believed to have been wielded by Sir William Wallace at the Battle of Stirling Bridge for sale |date=28 July 2020 |newspaper=The Herald |access-date=17 September 2021}}{{additional citation needed|date=November 2021}}

No other written records of the sword are found for a further three centuries.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} In 1875, a letter from the War Office informed that the sword in 1825 was sent to the Tower of London to be repaired. At that time, it was submitted to Samuel Meyrick by the Duke of Wellington for examination.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Meyrick was an authority on ancient swords, but he estimated the age of the sword by examining the mountings only, which were replaced early in the 16th century. Thus he concluded that the sword could not date from earlier than the 15th century. However, he did not take account of the blade, which must have been of some importance for James IV to have it bound in silk and given a new scabbard, hilt, and belt, and it was also described then as the "Wallas sword".{{cite web |title=The Book of Wallace |first=Charles |last=Rogers |publisher=Clan Wallace Society Publications (republished) |date=2005 |orig-year=1889 |url= http://www.clanwallace.org/clanhis4.html |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190328104021/http://www.clanwallace.org/clanhis4.html |archive-date=28 March 2019 |access-date=6 August 2011}}

The sword was recovered from Dumbarton by Charles Rogers, author of The Book of Wallace. Rogers, on 15 October 1888, who renewed a correspondence with the Secretary of State for War, with the result that the major general commanding forces in North Britain was authorised to deliver the weapon to his care for preservation in the Wallace Monument.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

In 2005, the sword was lent to New York City for display at Grand Central Terminal during Tartan Week celebrations; it was the first time the artefact left Scotland in modern times.{{cite journal |last=Brancaz |first=Lauren Ann-Killian |title=The Homecoming of Tartan: How Scotland and North America Collaborate in Shaping Tartan |date=2016 |journal=Études écossaises |issue=18 |doi=10.4000/etudesecossaises.1074 |url= https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/1074?lang=en |s2cid=131473903 |at=pp. 69–87, para. 25}}

On 2 March 2023, the case of the sword was vandalised by a climate group This Is Rigged. Work is underway to analyse if the sword was also damaged.{{Cite web |title=William Wallace's sword being checked for damage after casing smashed in climate protest at Wallace Monument in Stirling |url=https://news.sky.com/story/william-wallaces-sword-being-checked-for-damage-after-casing-smashed-in-climate-protest-at-wallace-monument-in-stirling-12824293 |access-date=5 March 2023 |website=Sky News |language=en}}

There is good reason to believe that this sword as it is now did not belong to William Wallace. The blade does not possess a fuller — a near-universal feature of blades with this type of cross-section (lenticular){{cite web |url= http://swordforum.com/fall99/sword-of-william-wallace.html |title=Sword of William Wallace|publisher=Sword Forum}} except in processional swords of the Renaissance.

The blade in its original state would have likely been Oakeshott type XIIIa (also known as {{lang|fr|espée de guerre}} or great war sword), which became common by the mid-13th century.Records of the Medieval Sword By Ewart Oakeshott {{ISBN|0-85115-566-9}} Such swords would have a long, wide blade with parallel edges, ending in a rounded or spatulate tip {{crossref|(see Oakeshott typology)}}. The grip, longer than in the earlier Scottish swords, typically some {{convert|15|cm|abbr=on}}), allows good two-handed use. The cross-guards were probably down-sloping (in the later highland style) or straight, and the pommel either regularly Brazil-nut or disk-shaped but this case perhaps a lobed pommel inspired by the Viking style.Highland grave slab (National Museum of Scotland).

Close inspection reveals that it may be made up from pieces of different swords fitted together. Part of this could have come from a late-13th-century sword.BBC-LEARNING ZONE BROADBAND Class clips The Wallace Sword

David Caldwell,The Wallace Book, published by John Donald, 2007, {{ISBN|0859766527}} writes that "Apart from the reshaping of the guard, this sword does not appear untypical of the two-handed swords in use in the lowlands of Scotland in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries." (page 174) and that the blade has a ricasso, which is not a medieval feature. However, the blade appears to be made of 3 separate pieces hammer welded together. The bottommost piece has a flattened diamond cross-section, and so perhaps might be a 13th-century sword, and therefore there is some hope for those who think that Wallace's sword is there. The sword may be an example of a Ship of Theseus.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

{{reflist}}

• The Book of Wallace (1899) by Rev Charles Rogers, D.D, L.L.D
• Scotlands Brave by Darren Loudoun.
• The Wallace Book (2007) edited by Edward J. Cowan

• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/as/warsofindependence/info.shtml?loc=sword Wallace's Sword]

{{Notable swords}}

Category:Scottish folklore

Category:Medieval European swords

Category:Military history of Scotland

Category:William Wallace

Category:Individual weapons