Chapter XIX The Battle of Flodden Field
One of the most tragic episodes in the History of the Borders was the battle of Flodden Field, when the flower of the Scottish nobility fell around their sovereign, James IV., while fighting against the English under Surrey.
The causes of the war were many. Henry of England refused to give up the jewels which had been promised as the dowry of his sister Margaret on her marriage with James IV.
The Lord High Admiral of England, Sir Edmund Howard, had attacked and taken two Scottish ships, and slain their captain, Sir Andrew Barton. James, who was fond of Barton, demanded redress, but Henry insolently replied that kings should not quarrel about pirates.
But the immediate cause was the friendship between France and Scotland. Henry was preparing for war with France, and James stood by his ally, declaring that if Henry warred with France, he would lead an army into England. The Queen of France sent James a turquoise ring, asking him to carry out his threat to serve her interests.
James had been warned that his action would have terrible consequences. A man appeared to him at Linlithgow, clad in a long blue gown, with bare head, and carrying a pikestaff, and having told the king that his dead mother had sent him to warn him not to go to war against England, he disappeared as suddenly as he had come.
Also at the dead of night a voice had been heard proclaiming aloud at the market Cross in Edinburgh the names of those who, within forty days, would be no more. It was thought at the time that these happenings were instigated by Queen Margaret, but the king still persisted in his policy, and led his army across the Border, in spite of the warnings of his counsellors and his queen.
A fine description of his army is given by Sir Walter Scott, when Lord Marmion watches the scene from Blackford Hill.
“Thousand pavilions, white as snow,
Spread all the Borough-moor below,
Upland, and dale, and down:—
A thousand, did I say? I ween,
Thousands and thousands, there were seen,
That chequer’d all the heath between
The streamlet and the town;
In crossing ranks extending far,
Forming a camp irregular;
Oft giving way, where still there stood
Some relics of the old oak wood,
That darkly huge did intervene,
And tamed the glaring white with green,
In these extended lines there lay,
A martial kingdom’s vast array.
For from Hebudes, dark with rain,
To eastern Lodon’s fertile plain,
And from the southern Redswire edge,
To farthest Rosse’s rocky ledge,
From west to east, from south to north,
Scotland sent all her warriors forth,
Marmion might hear the mingled hum,
Of myriads up the mountain come;
The horses’ tramp, and tingling clank,
Where chiefs reviewed their vassal rank,
And charger’s shrilling neigh;
And see the shifting lines advance
Whilst frequent flash’d, from shield and lance,
The sun’s reflected ray.
* * * * *
They saw, slow rolling on the plain,
Full many a baggage-cart and wain,
And dire artillery’s clumsy car.
By sluggish oxen tugg’d to war;
* * * * *
Nor mark’d they less, where in the air
A thousand streamers flaunted fair,
Various in shape, device, and hue,
Green, sanguine, purple, red, and blue,
Broad, narrow, swallow-tailed, and square,
Scroll, pennon, pensil, bandrol,5 there
O’er the pavilions flew.
Highest and midmost, was descried
The royal banner floating wide;
The staff, a pine-tree, strong and straight,
Pitch’d deeply in a massive stone,
Which still in memory is shown,
Yet bent beneath the standard’s weight.
Whene’er the western breeze unroll’d,
With toil, the huge and cumbrous fold,
And gave to view the dazzling field,
Where, in proud Scotland’s royal shield,
The ruddy lion ramp’d in gold.”
Marmion wondered that with such a glorious army at his back anyone should try to dissuade James from battle, yet Sir David Lindesay of the Mount answered him,
“’twere good
That Kings would think withal,
When peace and wealth their land has bless’d,
’Tis better to sit still at rest,
Than rise, perchance to fall.”
Men-at-arms were there, sheathed in plate armour, with battle-axe and spear, and mounted on Flemish steeds. Young knights and squires practised their chargers on the plain. Hardy burghers marched on foot, armed with long pikes and two-handed swords and bright bucklers.
The yeoman, too, was on foot, dressed in steel-jack quilted well with iron, and bearing at his back, provisions for forty days. He seemed sad of cheer, and loth to leave his humble cottage, wondering who would till the land during his absence.
There, too, was the Borderer:—
“bred to war,
He knew the battle’s din afar,
And joy’d to hear it swell.
His peaceful day was slothful ease,
Nor harp nor pipe his ear could please
Like the loud slogan yell.”
for
“War’s the Borderer’s game,
Their gain, their glory, their delight,
To sleep the day, maraud the night,
O’er mountain, moss, and moor.”
There, too, were the Celts, with savage eyes looking out wildly through red and sable hair, with sinewy frames and legs bare above the knees, their chiefs known by the eagle’s plumage. They wore the skin of the red deer, a graceful bonnet, and a plaid hung from the shoulders, and carried as weapons a broadsword, a dagger, and quivers, bows, and shafts.
The Isles-men, too, were there, carrying the ancient Danish battle-axe. While the army was mustering together, James feasted the chiefs in Holyrood Palace, for at dawn they were to march southward.
“Well loved that splendid monarch aye
The banquet and the song,
By day the tourney, and by night
The merry dance, traced fast and light,
The maskers quaint, the pageant bright,
The revel loud and long.
This feast outshone his banquets past;
It was his blithest and his last.”
And hazel was his eagle eye,
And auburn of the darkest dye,
His short curl’d beard and hair.
Light was his footstep in the dance,
And firm his stirrup in the lists;
And oh! he had that merry glance,
That seldom lady’s heart resists.”
Yet no fair lady was as dear to James as his own Queen Margaret, who sat alone in the tower of Linlithgow weeping for the war against her native country, and for the danger of her lord.
On the morrow, James marched south, crossed the Tweed, and encamped on the banks of the Till, near Twisel Bridge. The Scottish army moved down the side of the Tweed to Flodden Hill taking Norham Castle, and the Border towns of Etal, Wark, and Ford. Much time was wasted in these petty enterprises, time which should have been spent in marching to Newcastle before the English were prepared to offer resistance. When the castle of Ford was stormed, Lady Heron, wife of Sir William Heron, then a prisoner in Scotland, was taken, and this beautiful and artful woman induced James to idle away his time until all chance was lost of defeating the enemy.
The army suffered severely from want of provisions, and many of the Highlanders and Isles-men returned home, many who had come only for booty, deserted, and the numbers were reduced to about thirty thousand.
Meanwhile, the Earl of Surrey had raised twenty-six thousand men, and received other enforcements as he came north from Durham. He therefore challenged James to fight, and charged him with violating the treaty of peace between the two kingdoms.
The Scottish nobles were unwilling to fight, and said it was impossible to remain in a country so plundered; also, if fight the king must, he would fight to much greater advantage in his own country, to whose welfare the loss of this battle would be fatal; while he had sufficiently indicated his honour by crossing the Border.
James would not listen to the counsel of his nobles, though even the aged Earl of Angus expostulated with him. To this old warrior he angrily said, “Angus, if you are afraid, you may go home,” at which insult the aged Earl burst into tears.
The English army crossed the Till by Twisel Bridge and pressed on while the Scottish army stood idly by, the Scottish nobles in vain entreating the king to attack the English while they were crossing.
When the English army had drawn up in order of battle on the left bank of the river, the Scots, setting fire to their temporary huts, came down the ridge of Flodden. The clouds of smoke from the burning huts were driven into the face of the English, so that the Scots had got to within a quarter of a mile of them before they perceived them.
“No martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,
Told England, from his mountain-throne,
King James did rushing come:
Scarce could they hear or see their foes
Until at weapon-point they close.”
With clanging blows and arrows that fell like rain, with yelling and clamour and sword-sway and lance-thrust, the battle continued until the evening, and when even fell, the Scots still fought in an unbroken ring round their king. But when darkness came, and Surrey withdrew his men, the flower of Scotland’s chivalry had fallen, and the king lay dead on the field.
“Afar, the royal standard flies,
And round it toils and bleeds and dies.
Our Caledonian pride!”
* * * * *
But yet, though thick the shafts as now,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though billmen ply the ghastly bow,
Unbroken was the ring.
The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,
Each stepping where his comrade stood
The instant that he fell.
No thought was there of dastard flight:
Link’d in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;
Till utter darkness closed her wing
O’er their thin host and wounded King.
Then skilful Surrey’s sage commands
Led back from strife his shattered bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves, from wasted lands,
Sweep back to ocean blue.
Then did their loss his foemen know;
Their King, their lords, their mightiest low,
They melted from the field as snow,
When streams are swoln and south winds blow
Dissolves in silent dew.
* * * * *
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern fight and carnage drear
Of Flodden’s fatal field,
Where shiver’d was fair Scotland’s spear,
And broken was her shield!
* * * * *
And well in death his trusty brand,
Firm clench’d within his manly hand
Beseem’d the Monarch slain.”
Notes
5 Each feudal ensign intimated the rank of those who displayed them.