Firstly lets address the elephant in the room, Braveheart. Most people when they hear the name William Wallace think of a plucky peasant freedom fighter who stood up against a tyrant. The truth is most of that film and what people think of William Wallace is historically inaccurate, everything from the costumes and weapons (Scots did not wear kilts in late 13th century for example) https://www.authenticireland.com/scottish-kilts/ to depiction of medieval life and the personal life of Wallace is wrong.

Secondly it is not really the Historians job to decide whether this or that historical figure is a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy' Again in this we are conditioned by Hollywood and story telling in general to have hero and villains in our narratives about well known historical figures but real life is a lot more complicated than that and many of histories great heroes would be moral pariahs if we could pluck them from their own time and drop them into the 21st century, people like Winston Churchill, Gandhi and Thomas Jefferson all have great moral failings and caused suffering to a lot of innocent people.

But back to Wallace, the truth is very little is known about the man himself, we know he was a minor noble who led the first of a series of rebellions against occupying English forces, he had a stunning victory against the odds at the battle of Sterling Bridge in September 1297, he then took sterling Castle and invaded northern England and ravaged Northumberland and Cumberland counties. During his invasion of northern England rape murder and theft would have been par for the course as it was for any invading army throughout history. There are only four primary sources issued by Wallace in existence and they can be found here at the national records of Scotland website. https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20170106033154/http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/100604.asp

​

The Medieval world that Wallace lived in bares little resemblance to the one we live in now, strict hierarchy and religiosity meant that for the ordinary person there was no real sense of nationhood of being a 'Scot' in the same way that we think of it now. Your allegiance was to the church to the King and more immediately to your local lord and you did not have a choice in the matter, you could not vote you had no say where your taxes went and you were obliged to provide military service whether you liked it or not. You were not a citizen but a subject and your life your work your freedom where all at the whim of your lord.

​

The Wallace legend came to be used in latter eras as propaganda when national pride and statehood did start to mean something, particularly in the 15th and 16th century. Here you start to get epic poems and stories about Wallace appearing just when tensions between England and Scotland are begging to bubble up. The late 15th century epic Poem 'The Wallace " by the bard Blind Harry is one famous example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wallace_(poem)

I would like to know what are odds for him to be as educated as it is represented in movie?Being a nobleman,it probably meant some level of education.
While it is agreeable that Braveheart is probably too romanticized are there any records if he had been more or less cruel than other rebels during the same period (it is known that some things that we consider for incredibly cruel were usual in the Middle Ages)

Thanks in forward.