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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;sylvester, post: 73724, member: 708&quot;]He will! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Yes I’ve seen Braveheart, but I have mixed feeling about the film myself. It wasn’t that popular in Scotland though by all accounts. Many would have preferred Sean Connery to Mel.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have reservations for different reasons; firstly the film was good at giving an overall feel of the events and secondly it helped get people more interested in history. However the film took liberties that made me cringe.</p><p><br /></p><p>Such as;</p><p><br /></p><p>Why was Isabella of France (Prince Edward’s wife) portrayed as a fully-grown woman? She would have been no older than 14 at the time. Why was Edward I seemingly dying at the end of the film? As he was around several years after Wallace met his demise.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Battle of Stirling Bridge; where was the bridge?</p><p><br /></p><p>The Scots won because they managed to trick the English into crossing the bridge and the picked them off as they came off the other side, as they were more vulnerable as the width of their ranks were diminished.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it had been a pitched battle as depicted in the film then it’s quite likely the English would have won. Whilst ever Edward I was king the English army was a force to be reckoned with, under his son Edward II well that’s a different story, hence Bannockburn.</p><p><br /></p><p>The other question is that of the future Edward II, in the film he was quite clearly portrayed as homosexual. This is a matter that is still under debate, it is true however that he frequently let the men around him, ‘his favourites’ dominate him. This was taken as the fundamental evidence by contemporaries that Edward was indeed committing homosexual practices. When in actual fact he might have merely have just been a weak willed person, who was insecure and keen not to lose his friends.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now Henry III, he was the son of King John, and Edward I’s father. It has to be said Henry III didn’t do much, well apart from patronising the arts and overseeing building works, other than that he was a pretty lousy king. The biggest problem with Henry was he was like the later Edward II, he was happy to take foreigners on. After his marriage his wife supporter’s got positions left right and centre, you get the feeling Henry was under the thumb.</p><p><br /></p><p>His reign also saw the first ever English parliament in 1265 which was a meeting of the barons led by Simon De Montfort in an effort to suppress the Royal Prerogative (note the Barons had encountered similar problems with King John, hence the Magna Carta), and to try and oust all the foreigners that had come over with the Queen. Henry was in a very bad position.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then along came his son Prince Edward ‘Longshanks’, he managed to get some barons on his side and he gathered together an army and a battle was fought between his army and that of Simon De Montfort’s at Evesham. De Montfort was killed and Edward won back the dignity of the crown. He then ensured that the peace was kept for the remainder of his father’s reign. So whilst Henry was still officially the king, Edward was now the one running the country, Henry didn’t seem to mind because it let him get on with the more important aspects of kingship; hunting, building monasteries, churches, cathedrals and trying to introduce a gold coinage etc.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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