Several weeks from now, on Sept. 18, the people of Scotland will cast their votes on whether, after 300 years, to remain a part of the United Kingdom or part ways with it. But first a prologue.

For Scotsmen, 9/11 is encoded in their historical archetype and etched on their national consciousness. And for no man, even one with a mere trickle of Scottish blood in him, will that date draw a blank. Except this was Sept. 11, 1297, when, during Scotland’s war of independence, the legendary leader William Wallace, at the head of a vastly outnumbered Scottish rebel force, deafeated the English army at the battle of Stirling Bridge — evoked so dramatically, though not with historical accuracy, in Mel Gibson’s 1995 Academy award-winning film, Braveheart. The English survivors of the battle were then told: “I am William Wallace, and the rest of you will be spared. Go back to England and tell them Scotland is free.”

This now iconic battle in Scottish history may have been a memorable one in the country’s war of independence, but it was also a battle that highlighted the many other rebellions taking place at the time across Scotland. Eight years after Stirling Bridge, Wallace was captured near Glasgow and handed over to King Edward I of England, who then had him hanged for “high treason.”

As it is in Arab lore today, so it was in Scotland’s then: When a man dies, his life ends, but when a martyr dies, his life begins. William Wallace has become an immortal figure for the people of Scotland, with his monument erected on the top of Abbey Craig, the site of the hill where he had camped before defeating the English in that decisive battle, visited by generations of Scotsmen (including diaspora Scotsmen) who to this day continue to revere his memory.

Ted Cowan, Professor of Scottish History and Literature at Glasgow University, put it this way: “William Wallace was probably one of the greatest Scots who ever lived — not only for himself, not only for his lifetime, but for what he became. The mythos of Wallace is just as important as what the man himself achieved.”

Even after the so-called Act of Union, or the Union With England Act in 1707, that joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland into a single united kingdom called Great Britain, the ethos of independence, along with an undercurrent of resentment toward England, lingered, defining the sentiment of the majority of the people of that land.

To this day, that resentment is evinced not only by Scottish nationalists and political activists, but also by high-profile Scottish celebrities as well, including Andy Murray, the top-seeded tennis player, who, when asked recently what team he supported in the World Cup in Brazil, snapped: “Anyone but the English.” (Sean Connery, the Hollywood actor, reportedly has a “Scotland Forever” tatoo and says he may move back to Scotland if it secedes.)

These people then will vote in a referendum on Sept. 18 to decide whether it is a Yes or a No, whether to divorce, and we go our separate way, or to make up, and all is forgiven.

Will Scotland become an independent state, its citizens becoming the only determing force in their destiny, or will they remain an integrated part of the UK? So far, it is close. Very close.

Perhaps as close as the 1995 Quebec referendum which asked voters in the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province whether Quebec should proclaim national independence and become a separate state or stay with the union, a vote that represented the culmination of years of public debate spearheaded by the nationalist Bloc Quebecois. The tally was 49.42 percent Yes and 50.56 percent No.

Whichever way the Scots vote several weeks from now, and whichever way you look at their yen for independence, this is an impassioned time for the people of Scotland, a nation that stands on the threshold of a new future.