William Wallace’s sword remains forgotten in the aftermath of the Battle of Stirling Bridge. The slaughter of the English trapped between the loops of the river Forth and the furious Scots was horrific. The despicable Hugh Cressingham, King Edward's treasurer in Scotland, died in the fighting and it is reputed that his body was subsequently flayed and the skin cut into small pieces as tokens of the victory. The Lanercost Chronicle records that Wallace had "a broad strip (of Cressingham’s skin) ... taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword". Unfortunately, somewhere on the field of battle, Andrew de Moray, Wallace’s co-commander of the Scottish army, received a fatal wound from which he would die sometime in late 1297.
This is a depiction of the famous Wallace Sword, an antique Claymore, kept in the Wallace monument at Stirling which is said to have belonged to Wallace himself and is claimed to have been used by him at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 and the Battle of Falkirk in 1298.
The shaft of the sword measures 4 feet 4 inches in length and 5 feet 4 inches including the hilt. The breadth of the blade varies from 2.25 inches at the guard to 0.75 inches before the point. The sword weighs 6.0 pounds (2.7 kg). Although it is now an iconic sword, there is great dubiety as to the authenticity of the blade which has been refurbished at several stages of its existence. There are parts of it which do date back to the 13th century, however.