On 11 September 1297 the Scots did not beat the English army at Stirling — they beat the bridge. The crossing was broad enough for only two horsemen abreast, and it would have taken John de Warenne's nine thousand men hours to file across it. So the Scots waited on the high ground and let them come, until perhaps two thousand had reached the near bank, and only then charged down to seize the bridgehead and cut the crossing behind them. The trapped vanguard was destroyed — a hundred cavalry and five thousand infantry killed, the hated treasurer Hugh de Cressingham among them — while the rest of the army watched helplessly from the far side. And the victory was not one man's. Wallace commanded jointly with Andrew Moray, and the two were named Guardians of the Kingdom of Scotland together. Moray was mortally wounded in the fighting and was dead by November, which is the real reason history remembers a single name.

King & Country give Wallace the moment of the charge — weapon arm flung up, mouth open in a shout, his black horse barded in the white lion rampant on red of his house, the saltire of St Andrew across his own surcoat. Set him at the head of a Scottish command group with Robert the Bruce and Sir Archibald Douglas, or muster him opposite Richard the Lionhearted Mounted as one warrior-king against another. He is built to be a diorama's focal point: a river crossing, a bank of scrub above a bridge, and a line of spearmen at his back is all the scene needs.

Model: MK184 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set