William Wallace was executed in London on 23 August 1305

Sir William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered in London on 23 August 1305, after a treason trial at Westminster Hall. He had been captured near Glasgow on 3 August by Sir John Menteith, keeper of Dumbarton Castle, who handed him over to Edward I’s men.

By then Wallace was a man left out of a settlement. Eight years after his victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, most Scottish leaders had made terms with Edward I: Robert Bruce had accepted a truce and John Comyn submitted in 1304. Wallace was excluded, and Edward offered a large reward for him, dead or alive.

Why did Wallace deny he was a traitor?

His defence was a legal one: a man could only betray a king he owed allegiance to, and Wallace said he had never sworn allegiance to the English king. He had fought as Guardian of Scotland in the name of the deposed King John Balliol, not as one of Edward’s subjects. The court was not there to weigh the argument.

What does the English record say?

The execution survives as a line of accounts. The Exchequer pipe roll for 1304–05, held by The National Archives as E372/150, records the London sheriffs’ account for “William Wallace, a robber, a public traitor, and outlaw”. It charges him with having “falsely sought to call himself king of Scotland”, which he never did, and records the sentence: drawn, hanged and beheaded, his entrails burned and his body quartered. The bill came to 61 shillings and 10 pence.

The roll says the four quarters went to “the four principal towns of Scotland”. The usual list is Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth, and Newcastle was English. His head was set on London Bridge. Rather than ending Scottish resistance, the display helped make him its most lasting hero, remembered in Scotland long after the men who condemned him.