Another account helped William's public image no end. In an attempt to come to the aid of a youth being accosted by English troops he bit off a bit to much and found himself backed up and overpowered. He was pressed down, tied up and taken to the Wardens prison. At this time he was only an outlaw and not wanted so much by Longshanks as simply wanted dead by the local garrisons. He was thrown into jail and left to die. The jailer was instructed to feed him only with bread and rotten herring, after quite some time, weekend and starved he was mistaken for being dead when he fell into a coma. News was spread that William Wallace was dead and his body was thrown onto a dung heap to be left to rot.
In hearing that he was dead an old friend, namely his first nurse, made her way to the jail house and asked that she take the body away in order to give him a decent burial. Of course with William now dead and out of the way it seemed harmless enough to keep the locals happy by letting them bury him.
She took William back to her house and began to clean and prepare him for a burial which he deserved. However, in cleaning him she noticed that he still had a signs of life and she began to spoon feed him, and even her daughter, who had a twelve week old baby, suckled young William and together they both brought him back from the brink. It is not uncommon to find certain coma cases to still show signs of primitive, natural reflex.
About this time Sir Thomas Rymour of Ercildoune heard of the death of William and instantly sent a servant to find out what had happened. When the servant returned with the news that he was alive and had defied death to the point where it seemed he had actually returned from the grave, Sir Thomas Rymour, known to us know as simply 'Thomas the Rhymer", declared:
For sooth, ere he decease,
Shall many thousands in the field make end.
From Scotland he shall forth the Southron send,
And Scotland thrice he shall bring to peace.
So good of hand again shall ne'er be kenned.
Thomas the Rhymer, had already foretold the death of Alexander III and was widely regarded in his own lifetime as a soothsayer and prophet. Now that William was in good company having his name placed within the same mystical and supernatural circles as the great Alexander III, not only did the English as far south as London prick up their ears, but also William himself must have felt that he was something special and with a - now foretold - destiny, was there anything he couldn't do? He had stared death in the face and won. With his destiny in front of him it was not long before his kinsmen and fellow Scots rallied around him in support.
It was also in these times that his taste for the young girls became a costly problem. Sneaking around romancing the young girls proved to be a game that cost him many a man in battles of escape and also landed him in compromising positions which almost lead to being captured - again.
It wasn't until he met with Marion Braidfute, the eighteen year old daughter and heiress of Hugh Braidfute of Lamington that his heart was pierced by the arrows of love. William and Marion never married as William believed that romance and war did not mix, however, he did see Marion as much as possible secretly at her home. It is at this point that Marion is to have given birth to William's daughter. Many historians will deny that there is any evidence that William had any offspring, and if he had in fact married her then the history books would have definitely recorded the event. Marion was murdered shortly after the birth and this would only have spurred William into further action.
Also during this time he was joined by his old friends Tom Halliday and Edward Little who were more than pleased to see that William was not, according to the rumours, dead. The other old friend who joined the band was John Blair, If you refer to the previous section regarding William's education, you'll remember that John Blair was the Benedictine monk who left his monastery to join his friend William. He spent the rest of his time with Wallace recording every move that they made.
So allow me to quickly recap. We have a roving band of men making surprise attacks at English garrisons and troops. William, the leader, Marion his well-to-do mistress and, by this time, around 15 fellow Scots, one of whom was named Little (Edward Little), and a to add to the similarity a Benedictine monk. Sound familiar?
It is not fanciful of me to draw this comparison. In the story of Robin Hood you have a giant of a man called Little John. It would be easy for such a man to be a mix up between the large frame of William, his friend Edward Little and possibly even William's younger brother John. Is it possible that his younger brother was with William, and if he were it wouldn't take much to assume that he would have been referred to as 'Little John' given the size of his older brother.
If you think that I am over simplifying matters by saying that 3 people could have been fused into 1 person, and in turn that the story of Robin Hood could actually be the English making their own version of William Wallace in order to claim their own hero in an attempt to 'keep up with the Joneses' - then let me remind you that Mel Gibson took 3 of William's uncles and forged them together to create a character called "uncle Argyle" in order to keep his version more compact.
The propaganda machine of English history?
