James Wallace, usually called Colonel Wallace, leader of the Covenanters at the battle of Pentland Hills, was descended from the Wallaces of Dundonald, a branch of the Wallaces of Craigie. Neither the place nor the year of his birth is known; but in the sentence of death, which was passed against him in absence after the battle of Pentland, he is styled of Auchens, an estate situated in the parish of Dundonald, in Ayrshire, and which was the family-seat of his ancestors, and most probably his own 'birth-place. Of his education there is equally little known as of the other particulars alluded to.