The year before the Battle of Falkirk in November of 1297, William Wallace, also known as Braveheart, had defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling.  Wallace continued raiding northern English counties.  He was looking for corn and cattle to feed his Scottish forces.  During the Battle of Stirling, his closest military advisor and friend, Sir Andrew de Moray, had been severely wounded, and died a short time later, leaving Wallace as the leader of all the Scottish forces in Northern England.

            The Scots were putting so much pressure on Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks, King of England that he moved his military headquarters to York to concentrate on destroying the Scottish rebellion.  The English recruited Archers, crossbowmen, and regular soldiers from as far as Ireland.  They put together the largest invasion force to go into Scotland since Agricola.  There were over two thousand knights and around twelve thousand infantry.  Eight earls from the surrounding area joined Edward and brought with them their own large forces.  In early 1298, peace was reached between the English and the French, and many of the experienced English forces came home to help fight the Scots.  William Wallace and his forces were up against huge odds.

            On July 3, 1298, Edward I crossed the River Tweed with over 2000 men on horses and over 12000 men on foot, plus the forces of seven earls from Northern England and one ally Scottish earl.  Wallace, meanwhile, had collected about10,000 total men and settled down in Falkirk.  He had chosen a good position and was busy fortifying it.

            Before William Wallace had settled in at Falkirk, he had ridden the countryside with his army and destroyed all of the food that he could find that could fall into Edward’s forces’ hands.  Many of the English troops began to desert, and some of the Welsh archers that were supposed to be an ally with Edward’s forces began to rebel and attack the English.  Wallace saw that the English were having trouble with hunger, rebellion, and desertion, so he decided to attack.

            The Battle of Falkirk began on the morning of July 22, 1298.  At first, only small scouting parties from the English and the Scottish met and fought each other near the town of Falkirk in far Southern Scotland.  But soon, a full-fledged battle was being fought between over 20,000 men on both sides.

            A new attack formation that the Scots were using, invented by William Wallace himself, was called the Schiltron.  Special troops, called pikemen, were placed at the front of the formation with spears over twelve feet long.  When the English troops mounted on horses rode up to meet them, they would raise their spears at a 45 degree angle, and the horses would be killed as they ran into the spears.

            However, Edward had a new secret message up his sleeve.  The English longbowmen shot their arrows at a steep angle, and they rained down on the Scots, breaking their Schiltron.  The English then ran through the gap and came up to meet the Scottish forces from behind.  Wallace’s troops in the rear were unprepared, and the battle was a quick victory for Edward and the English.  Unluckily for the King of England, though, William Wallace escaped with most of his closest advisors.