THE REAL SWORD OF WALLACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 26

THE REAL SWORD OF WALLACE

The news of the theft of Sir William Wallace's two-handed sword from the Wallace Monument at Stirling need not unduly perturb good . Scotsmen, wrote James G. Mann in the "Observer" recently.

The sword, which 1 remember being shown to me there as the sword of Sir William Wallace (much as I would like to believe it, being a Scot myself), cannot be placed as early as his time. The thumb ring and guard, known as a "pas dane," not to mention other details, betray the hilt as not before the sixteenth century, and not necessarily even Scottish. It is said to have been preserved at Dumbarton Castle from 1305, when Sir William Wallace was led captive there, until 1888, when it was transferred to the monument.

This is not necessarily a case of deliberate invention. It has often happened in the past; when antiquarian knowledge was not very strong, that an inscription has become confused, being transferred by mistake from the original to another object, of later date. How often has one come across this in old countryhouses, even with family, portraits? The sword was- exhibited at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Wallace Monument in 1861 with those of four other Scottish heroes. King Robert Bruce, Sir John de Graeme, Sir Richard Luridin (sic), and the Black Douglas. From a drawing in my possession it would appear that, of these. Sir ■ John Graham's 1 was a baskethilted broadsword and Sir Richard Lundin's a claymore with quatrefoil quillohs, while the Bruce's was clearly much later, • than the fourteenth century, and the Black Douglas's— alas!—a Germari sixteenth-century "Zweihander" with flaming blade.

Scotland possesses a distinctive weapon of its'own in the Claymore (Gaelic, "Claid-hearm-mor," i.e., great sword), which, is a two-handed sword and not to be confused with the later basket-hilted broadsword to which the name is frequently wrongly applied. Examples are rare and highly prized.

They can be seen in the Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh; there is one in the Noel Paton collection in the Royal Scottish Museum, and another will be found in the Edward VII Gallery .of the British Museum. Several specimens in private hands were shown iv London at the exhibition of Scottish art and antiquities, held at Grosvenor Place in 1931. *

The second and probably later type has straight quillons and two . large shell guards, one on each side. . An example in the Tower of London is reputed to have been carried before the Chevalier de St. George, when he was'proclaimed King at Scone in 1716. None of the above-mentioned swords is probably earlier than the sixteenth century, though those with "wheel" pommels show a close connection with a - widespread medieval fashion.

Analogous swords drooping quillons were used by the Irish, and a twohander can be seen in Albrecht Durer's famous wood-cut of' Irish soldiers dated 1521: The Black Book of Tamo'uth, drawn about the end of the sixteenth century, shows .generations of Campbells with two-handed swords. There is evidence to show that they were still being carried'in Scotland as.'late as the - middle of the seventeenth century. . [

Though not all the relics, of national heroes carry conviction, Scotsmen: can pride themselves on having at Edinburgh' regalia of exceptional, interest, and, in the main, considerably older regalia than that which will be carried at the coronation of King George VI in London this year. The Crown of King James, IV,' who fell at Flodden, his sceptre, and the great sword presented by Pope Julius II in 1507, escaped the hand of Cromwell, arid after manifold " adventures ' across country, were eventually locked up in a chest in Edinburgh Castle in 1707. They were not seen again until they were brought to light in 1818. Sir Walter. Scott was present with the high officials who attended on this memorable occasion, none knowing what the forcing of the locks would reveal.