On this day in 1305 William Wallace was executed in London.
Wallace had evaded capture by the English until 5 August 1305, when John de Menteith, a Scottish knight loyal to Edward, turned Wallace over to English soldiers at Robroyston near Glasgow.
Wallace was transported to London and taken to Westminster Hall, where he was tried for treason and for atrocities against civilians in war. He was crowned with a garland of oak to suggest he was the king of outlaws. He responded to the treason charge, "I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.
Following a trial ,Wallace was taken from the hall to the Tower of London, then stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to the Elms at Smithfield.He was hanged, drawn and quartered—strangled by hanging, but released while he was still alive, emasculated, eviscerated and his bowels burned before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts. His preserved head was placed on a pike atop London Bridge
