ie, in Paisley Parish, and his father was a vassal of the High Steward of Scotland, James Stewart. He may have received some education at Paisley Abbey, for it does appear that he knew Latin and French, but there is no record of the fact. He had uncles who were priests, and they probably helped educate him. He married Marian Braidfoot around 1297 in the church of St. Kentigern in Lanark. In the film Braveheart, Marian (or Murron) was murdered under the direction of the English sheriff of Lanark, William de Hazelrig, in May of 1297. However, it would seem that the timing of and reason for her murder differed in reality from what was seen in the film. In the film, Marian is murdered when Wallace rises to protect her from a previous assault by English soldiers. In reality, though, by the time she was killed, William had already risen against the English, and they killed Marian in reprisal. Perhaps the filmmakers thought this made her death seem more his fault than that of the English, or perhaps they saw her death in more heroic terms in the way they presented it. In any case, they changed the emphasis and the timing. In the real story, at the same time that Wallace was attacking Hazelrig, Andrew Murray was leading an attack against the English in the Highlands ("The History Behind Braveheart").
For that matter, there were other rebellions across the country at that time, and the unrest was due to the imposition of strict rule on the Scots after John Balliol, who had held the throne of Scotland for a brief time, gave up his kingship. Edward I had control of Scotland because Scotland had no king, and he wanted to make certain that the Scots did not break free from his control. Under such oppression, it was not surprising that the Scots did react, and that many of them, bei
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