Mark Smith: A William Wallace pilgrimage – and what I learned from it

I take it all in for a few minutes. Part of me wishes I was a psycho-geographer – one of those people who say they can wander round a city like London and sense the atmospheric remnants of history that are beneath, and behind, and between. I can’t pretend to feel any of it personally. But I’m here.

I also know – because I’ve read the historical accounts – what this place would have been like when Wallace was dragged here. Smithfield was a huge open space – it was where people came to joust and fight, eat, drink, wrestle, play football, and find a prostitute of whatever kind they needed. But above all, it was where you came to watch people being killed and torn to pieces. The meat market was nearby so human guts mingled with animal and it was all swept into the river Fleet.

I take a look at the words on the memorial. Sir William Wallace, it tells me, fought dauntlessly in defence of his country’s liberty and independence before being betrayed and put to death on 23rd August 1305. It also says his memory remains for all time a source of pride, honour and inspiration to his countrymen. And this: Libertas Optima Rerum. Freedom is the Best Thing.

There’s another plaque underneath it as well. The memorial was placed here, it says, by Scots and friends at home and abroad and was unveiled on 8th April 1956. There’s a railing at the front to which people have attached plastic flowers and ribbons. One of the ribbons is from Ronnie Cowan, the MP for Inverclyde. Mr Cowan is a member of the Scottish National Party.

But that date is interesting isn’t it? 1956. Why then? The 50s was hardly one of the high-points of Scottish nationalism – in fact, you might even call the 50s and 60s a nadir when most of the Scottish electorate weren’t interested. Perhaps that’s the reason Scots and friends chose then to erect the memorial – perhaps they thought it would get things started. But if they did think that, it didn’t work.

Instead, it wasn’t until the 70s that the SNP reached one of its peaks and Wallace had very little to do with it. So what was it? The fading of the post-war consensus? The shrinking of the empire, the fall in the Tory vote breaking up the Unionist majority, the decline in the Church of Scotland and Protestantism, the economic troubles of the early 70s? Take your pick. But it meant the SNP got 11 seats at the ’74 election – some 20 years after the Wallace stone was erected by a street called Little Britain.

I watch the people going by. No one stops. Occasionally, someone glances sideways at the guy staring at the plaque on a wall (me), but otherwise the memorial attracts no attention. We know from the flowers, though, and the ribbons, that people come here; perhaps they’re kind of pulled to the spot; perhaps they connected in some way to the story of Wallace when they were young and have felt it ever since and end up here, in Little Britain.

Let me tell you something: it includes me. Like a lot of Scottish kids, one of my earliest impressions of history was the story of Wallace. I remember my teacher telling me about his execution – the horror of it, the guts; I also remember the nasty feeling I got about his betrayal and condemnation; I suppose, really, that Edward I, along with Shere Khan, was one of the first baddies of my childhood. But then you grow up don’t you, and you see grey as well as black-and-white and you learn a lot of the myth was created centuries later by Blind Harry. You (hopefully) become more realistic and put it all into its proper historical context.

Not entirely though. We’ve got to talk about Braveheart haven’t we? I remember seeing it for the first time at the Odeon on Renfield Street and coming out, feeling a bit weird, and saying to my friends: “If there was a referendum tomorrow, I would vote for Scottish independence!” I may even have said “Freedom”. My friends looked at me funny and quite right too: it proves no one is immune to the cheapest of patriotic tricks. But it didn’t last and for a good reason: Braveheart isn’t real.

Looking at the Wallace memorial now, I think you can detect something similar, something Bravehearty, in the words. They are true for many – that his memory remains for all time a source of pride, honour and inspiration – but like anything made from granite, memorials lack context or any sense of how things change. It’s why people call for “contextualising” notices on statues and memorials and I guess this one to Wallace should be no different.

So I’m thinking about that phrase on the memorial – “for all time” – and how actually the SNP’s peak of 1974 led to the disastrous trough of 1979. It also makes me think that what sometimes feels like the current never-ending dominance of the nationalists could, should, will, come to an end as well (before possibly rising again in years to come) because that’s how history works. Memorials are made of stone; political movements not so much.

I’m wondering as well about the feelings behind the words on the memorial and specifically what I’m feeling today. If I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure why I've come here, but something made me. I also realise that I can still, without trying very hard, connect with the childhood me who was horrified and hated the Hammer of the Scots and the young man who said “freedom!” outside the Odeon on Renfield Street in 1995.

But I do not feel what this place used to be. I cannot see the big open space, or the faces of the people who came to watch the killings, or the guts, human and animal, swept into the river Fleet; I can’t even imagine it to be honest. What I can hear is an ambulance. I see nurses walking past. And it isn’t 1305, or 1956, or even ’74 or ’79. The Australian writer Robert Hughes said small nations should neither strut nor cringe but maybe, with respect to Hughes, I can add something else: small nations should neither strut nor cringe nor get bitter. I came here, and I’m glad, and now the visit’s over.

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