This is a well-researched historical novel about Sir William Wallace of Scotland, also known as Braveheart-a nickname given to this great leader by the soldiers that followed him into battle. This richly detailed history of Sir Wallace's heroic fight for Scottish independence begins in Scotland in the summer of 1296. Set against the rugged beauty of the Scottish countryside, told in elegant prose, this book is hard to put down. The author has "spared no pains in consulting almost every writing extant which treats of the sister kingdoms during the period of my narrative. It would be tedious to swell this page with a list of these authorities; but all who are intimate with our old British historians must perceive, on reading the Scottish Chiefs, that in the sketch which history would have laid down for the biography of my principal hero, I have made no addition, excepting where time having made some erasure, a stroke was necessary to fill the space and unite the outline."