William Wallace was a Scottish patriot who vowed to free Scotland from the control of kings of England. With a small army, he defeated the large and better-equipped English army at the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. A year later, however, the English king himself marched north with his troops and overpowered Wallace's smaller army at Falkirk.

Wallace escaped to France where the French king refused to help him and threw him into jail. He returned to Scotland a year later. In 1305 he was captured by his enemies and cruelly executed. The Wallace Monument outside Stirling reminds all Scots of William Wallace, a man of great courage and brave heart.