Quick March

A very wonderful band birthday and Wallace Day

August 23rd, 2009

Sir William Wallace

On behalf of the St. Andrew’s Legion, I want to thank all who made the party this Sunday and for those who couldn’t make it, we look forward to the next time you can join us. The cookout was great and the turnout was immense. I did feel bad being the lead cook as all you new folks came in, I had to do quick dashes of greetings and return to the grill, but at least I got more time to socialize as the grills got finished cooking 200 plus chicken breast. The food and side items you all brought were scrumptious!

Thank you especially to AJ & John who did such a beautiful remodeling job on my home in time for the event, and to their wives who helped with prep work, along with Kenny Shumaker and Betty Goodman. Kenny has actually been at my place almost all week helping the contractors and me work on the place, and we’re proud of the young man he has become. Kenny started in the band when he was just fourteen, and is a role model for our youth members.

Thanks also to Dave Irvin who manned the second grill. Thanks to all of you who came and I hope to have you all back again next year. I absolutely loved seeing all the street and side streets filled in New Glasgow.

Sir William Wallace should be proud to look down and see so many gather to remember him.

Long life and good health to all our friends in and about the Celtic Community!

My home was surely Blessed by your fine company

Some reflections on Sir William Wallace.

There has been a great publication out for several years, by James MacKay, titled William Wallace – Braveheart.

The book is fascinating in that it gives many actual accounts from historian Blind Harry of the time and era, along with other official authenticated documents of British/Scots history.

Everyone’s heard the hollywood quote ” Every man dies, not every man lives”, but their is an actual quote from Wallace. He is actually quoting his own uncle, a priest.

“I tell you the truth, freedom is the finest of thing; Never live under a servile yoke, my son”

When one reads those words, you can not help but ponder, did our American forfathers know extensively of this earlier account of patriotic inspiration, or did the notion just simply reinvent itself to stand not for a government, faith, king, or somethng temporary, but to fight for the very essence of men to free themselves of subjugation of a “benevolent” or malevolent force seeking to control?

Sadly, despite his heroic deeds, his struggles sometimes even by himself, were not the soul reason he so remembered today. Wallace’s own death was the cause of passion to beat within the hearts of his countrymen once again. In his last years of defying King Edward, Wallace’s own countrymen had pretty much caved into to the idea of a free nation, and basically just wanted to lay low, and hope for the best. In his last days, only eighteen loyal friends still remained. He had seen his days of glory, and also seen the defeats. Yet, he remained undaunted and refused to yield to offers of amnesty, when the majority of others conceded.

Edward had a vengeance for Wallace. Wallace’s style of execution was actually standard since the days of William the Conqueror, all the way up to the year 1780.

If one reads the actual account of the execution of Wallace, it was far more painful, humiliating, and obscene compared to even the accounts of the execution of Jesus in the bible. Even the executions committed by terrorist in the middle east could be seen as more humane than what awaited William Wallace on 23 August 1305, but back to one observation.

If Edward had dispatched his biggest nemesis, as others like him had done in his time; quietly and tactfully, Wallace would not have become immortalized. The people of Scotland would have probably followed servile living under English rule with hardly an outcry, but something over the months while Wallaces quartered, castorated, beheaded corpse hung in four parts of Scotland. As he physically decomposed over the ground he fought and loved so much, a powerful spirit arose. A spirit that rose up and defied the chain of tyranny, and redeemed a nation of people to self identity for at least another 440 years. I do believe that very Spirit then made it’s way over to the eastern shores of North America first, then spread like a fire across the entire continent.

Not so much as a reprisal against England in particular, but against any person,ruler, government, or idea that would lessen, impede, prohibit, or subdue the basic fundamentals of Liberty.

As long as we remember for one thing, and second, have the strength William Wallace had. Even while the spirit still remained and he consciously watched his own body being slowly and brutally torn apart, he never relinquished nor submitted his own God given and blood bought Freedom.

Proud to be a Scot, Proud to be an American. Both facets walk and march hand in hand.

Aye, Tim Lewis Batten MacLeod

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