⚔️ c. 1297 | William Wallace Speaking Scots What you’re seeing: William Wallace on a windswept Scottish hillside, resting on his sword while a small band of followers waits behind him before facing English forces in the Wars of Scottish Independence. Why did war break out between Scotland and England? Scotland’s royal family died out in the late 1200s, leaving no clear king. When Scottish nobles asked England’s king, Edward I, to help, he treated Scotland as under his rule and demanded obedience, money and soldiers. That pressure and humiliation sparked revolt and created space for leaders like Wallace. What language is he speaking? The line is in Scots, a Germanic language that developed in Scotland from early northern English. It is not Scottish Gaelic, which is a Celtic language closer to Irish. Scots shares many words with English but has its own sound and history; words like bairns (children), nae (no, not) and gang (go) come from Scots. This is a modern Scots-style sentence th...