The said William Wallace came by night upon the said sheriff and surprised him, when Thomas de Gray, who was at that time in the suite of the said sheriff, was left stripped for dead in the mellay when the English were defending themselves. “At which time in the month of May William Wallace was chosen by the commons of Scotland as leader to raise war against the English, and he at the outset slew William de Hesilrigg at Lanark, the King of England's Sheriff of Clydesdale. He came back later at night with some supporters and attacked Lanark, killed Heselrigg, nearly killed Thomas Grey senior, and set fire to some houses. He wrote that a fracas broke out at a court being held by Heselrigg, but Wallace was able to escape with help from a girl who may have been his wife or mistress. Perhaps a more reliable account can be found in the Scalacronica, written by Thomas Grey, whose father was actually present during the incident. For instance, nobody really knows whether this Marion Braidfute actually was Wallace’s wife. It is impossible to find definite facts about Wallace’s attack on Lanark and his slaying of the Sheriff. As Wallace hacked Heselrigg’s corpse to pieces, others of his band spread throughout Lanark to assassinate other English officials and sympathisers. Heselrigg's son, hearing the commotion, rushed up the stairs to his father's bedroom only to be cut down himself. Startled from the depths of sleep, Heselrigg was unable to defend himself and Wallace split his skull to the collar bone with his massive two handed sword.
Minutes later they had gained access to Heselrigg's apartments and Wallace bounded up the stairs to kick Heselrigg’s bedroom door open. Then, silently through the darkness, Wallace and his followers crept up to the castle and quickly overpowered the guards. By nightfall, they were all inside the walls. But Wallace gathered his small force at Cartland Crags and stealthily infiltrated the town in ones and twos. The English garrison soon sank into complacency thinking that Wallace and his rebels had been cowed into submission. But he bided his time and planned his attack on Lanark Castle slowly and methodically. When the news reached Wallace, he was beside himself with grief. He had Marion executed immediately in the town square. Heselrigg, the Sheriff of Lanark, was outraged by the carnage and was determined to wreak a brutal vengeance upon Wallace. The men fought their way out but Marion was not so lucky. There, they continued a futile resistance until a decision was made to retreat to the nearby Cartland Crags outside the town walls. Eventually, weight of numbers forced Wallace and his followers to retreat to the family house of Wallace’s wife, Marion Braidfute. A brutal running street fight ensued and Wallace's men joined in, leaving fifty Englishmen dead or dying in the streets. Initially, he ignored their taunts, but, when they said that his daughter had been fathered illegitimately by a priest of the chapel of St Nicholas who had been sleeping with Wallace’s wife, his temper snapped. According to Blind Harry’s popular version of events, Wallace responded to insults from English soldiers when he was leaving St Kentigerns church one Sunday morning. No one really knows what happened that night in May, 1297 in Lanark.
From that time therefore there gathered to his side like a swarm of bees all those who were bitter in their outlook and oppressed by the burden of servitude under the intolerable rule of English domination, and he was made their leader.” “In 1297 the famous William Wallace, the hammer of the English, the son of the noble knight Malcolm Wallace, raised his head.When Wallace was a young knight, he killed the sheriff of Lanark, an Englishman who was dexterous and powerful in the use of arms, in the town of Lanark.
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