William Wallace executed at Smithfield

August 1305

Dragged through London behind horses, hanged, cut down alive, disemboweled and quartered, Wallace's head was set on a spike over London Bridge. His limbs were dispatched to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth as a warning. Edward I wanted terror. Instead he made a martyr whose memory would galvanize Robert Bruce's revolt the following year and outlast the Plantagenets.