{"id":816,"date":"2017-12-08T11:20:39","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T11:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/?p=816"},"modified":"2026-03-06T18:22:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:22:31","slug":"wallaces-wife-marion-braidfute-was-invented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wallaces-wife-marion-braidfute-was-invented\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallace’s Wife Marion Braidfute Was Invented?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Marion Braidfute, wife of William Wallace, was a fictional character concocted by medieval biographers, a leading historian has claimed. Braidfute, who was supposedly murdered by the Sheriff of Lanark, triggering Wallace\u2019s rebellion against the English, was created more than 200 years after his death to heighten the political standing of a noble family, according to new research.<\/p>\n

In Mel Gibson\u2019s 1995 film Braveheart, the brutal murder of Wallace\u2019s wife (whose name was changed to Murron MacClannough, and was played by the actress Catherine McCormack) is portrayed as a pivotal moment in his transformation into a revolutionary hero. However, Ed Archer, an authority on Wallace, has found no mention of her in the earliest accounts of his life Blind Harry\u2019s \u201cThe Wallace,\u201d an epic poem written in about 1508, refers to a woman called Innes, who is credited with helping Wallace escape from the clutches of English troops. There is no suggestion that she was his lover or his wife. Braidfute does not appear until 1570, in a revised edition of Blind Harry\u2019s poem, possibly commissioned by the Baillies of Lamington, a wealthy family from Lanark who hoped to ingratiate themselves with Mary, Queen of Scots by claiming to be Wallace\u2019s descendants. In the revised text, Braidfute, from Lamington, Lanarkshire, is described as Wallace\u2019s lover and the mother of his daughter, from whom the Baillies of Lamington claim to be descended.<\/p>\n

However, a study by Archer of contemporary historical records found no mention of any Braidfutes living in the area at the end of the 13th century. \u201cDispelling the myth of Marion is important because we should try to get at the truth beyond the romance that surrounds Wallace,\u201d said Archer. \u201cWhat lies at the heart of this is the political aspiration of a local, minor aristocratic family who wanted to gain favour at the court of Mary Queen of Scots by claiming to be descended from William Wallace. \u201cThere is still mileage in Wallace and there are still things to be discovered about him. People have avoided Blind Harry\u2019s 1508 version of the Wallace story because it is not an easy read.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ian Scott, Chairman of The Saltire Society, said he was surprised by Archer\u2019s discovery. \u201cThe story of Wallace\u2019s wife and what happened to her is thought of as a trigger event in his life and is key to the story of the man himself,\u201d he said. \u201cNew discoveries will continue to be made about Wallace\u2019s life because so little of the hard historical fact is known.\u201d John Murtagh, who played the turncoat nobleman Lochlan in Braveheart, said he had always believed that Wallace\u2019s wife was a symbolic figure. \u201cTo me his wife has always been a metaphor for Scotland itself,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so when the English try to rape, and then murder her, it is symbolic of the way Scotland was treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little is known about Wallace\u2019s life before 1297, when he killed Sir William Heselrig, the English-appointed Sheriff of Lanark, and then led a popular uprising. His greatest victory took place at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, at which he routed the English army and was later proclaimed Guardian of Scotland. Archer presented his findings last year, at a conference on Wallace\u2019s life hosted by the Lanark Archaeological Trust, part of a series of events commemorating the 700th anniversary of Wallace\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

As originally published in the Guardian, Spring 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marion Braidfute, wife of William Wallace, was a fictional character concocted by medieval biographers, a leading historian has claimed. Braidfute, who was supposedly murdered by the Sheriff of Lanark, triggering Wallace\u2019s rebellion against the English, was created more than 200 years after his death to heighten the political standing of a noble family, according to … Continue reading Wallace’s Wife Marion Braidfute Was Invented?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1759,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[67,80,71,79,78],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wallace-news","tag-braveheart","tag-marion-braidfute","tag-the-guardian","tag-william-wallace","tag-william-wallace-wife","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clanwallace.org\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}