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The Battle of Flodden or Flodden Field was fought in the county of Northumberland, in northern England on September 9, 1513, between an invading Scots army under King James IV and an English army commanded by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. It ended in a bloody defeat for the Scots.

Background

This conflict began when King James declared war on England, to honour the Auld Alliance; namely, to divert Henry VIII's English troops from their campaign against the French king Louis XII. England was involved in a larger conflict; defending Italy and the Pope from the French, (see Italian Wars), as a member of the "Catholic League". James of Scotland invaded England with an army of about 30,000 men.

The battle actually took place near the village of Branxton, in the county of Northumberland, rather than at Flodden — hence the alternative name of Battle of Branxton. The Scots had previously been stationed at Flodden Edge, to the south of Branxton.

James Crosses the Border

With his muster complete King James crossed the border on 22 August. Most of the soldiers who came with him were armed with the eighteen foot Continental pike, some six feet longer than the traditional Scottish schiltron spear. In the hands of the Swiss and German landsknecht these weapons had acquired a fearsome reputation; but they could only be used to effect in highly disciplined formations. James was accompanied by the French captain d'Aussi with some forty of his fellow countrymen, who had helped to train the Scots in the use of the weapon. It is open to question, though, if the Scots infantrymen had been given enough time to master the new techniques of battle or, indeed, if the countryside into which they were advancing would allow them to make the best use of the training they had received.

Following in the wake of the army came Robert Borthwick with the artillery, seventeen guns in all, which required 4000 oxen to drag them from Edinburgh. The majestic old lady, Mons Meg, who was more trouble than she was worth, was left behind. Even so, the whole Scots artillery train was too heavy for a field campaign, and only slowed down the progress of the army. Although the big guns could batter down castle walls, they were difficult to manoeuvre in battle conditions. Moreover, these weapons had to be handled with skill to make them effective: unfortunately James had sent off his best gunners with the fleet.

James' army was composed of many raw recruits. many had been demoralised by the high casualties sustained by the assault on Norham Castle, which James laid siege to soon after crossing the border. To make matters worse, the weather was deplorable, continuing wet and windy throughout the whole campaign. Disease began to spread and morale slumped still further. Gathering whatever spoils they could, many simply decided to make their way home. By early September men were arriving back in Edinburgh in such numbers that the town council was forced to issue a proclamation-'We charge straitli and command in our Soverane Lord the Kingis name that all manner of persons that ar cummyng fra his army that thai address thame and returne againe thairto.'

Surrey's March

By early September Surrey's muster was complete, and the old general had approximately 26000 men under his command, made up chirfly of archers and other infantrymen armed with the bill, the English version of the Continental halberd, an eight foot long weapon with a fearsome axe-like head, which could be used for cutting and slashing. All were on foot, save for William, Lord Dacre, who had some 1500 light border horsemen. Surrey was anxious that James would not be allowed to slip away, as he had during his invasion of 1497. To ensure that the king remained the commander sent a herald from his base near Alnwick, with an invitation to meet in battle on 9 September. James responded with his own message, announcing his intention to wait for the Howards until noon on Friday 9 September.

Why, we have to ask, did James accept such a challenge? Why, in other words, did he knowingly accept the risk of battle when most commanders since Robert Bruce had-unless the circumstances were exceptional-avoided large set-piece conflicts with the English? The traditional explanation is that he was blinded by outmoded notions of chivalry and honour. The real answer to these questions is altogether less nebulous.

First, it seems clear that James was confident in the sheer size of his army, which was at least as strong, if not stronger, than that of his enemy. He was proud of his guns and his pikemen, and anxious to let them prove themselves in battle. There was always the danger of the English longbow; but many of his troops were encased in the latest armour, or carried heavy wooden shields to parry the effects of the arrow fire.

The second part of the explanation lies in the position he chose in which to meet Surrey. Just across the River Till from Ford Castle lie the north-eastern outriders of the Cheviots. The highest of these is Flodden Hill, in those days a treeless slope, rising to over 500 feet above sea level. From Flodden the ground falls away to the north-west, before it rises again to Branxton Hill. To the west the approach is covered by Moneylaws Hill. The whole position resembles a huge irregular horseshoe shape, with the open end facing eastwards towards the Till. It was here, in a great natural fortress, that James placed his army. Bannockburn had shown the importance of selecting a good position in battle; but the Flodden position was, if anything, too strong: any attempt at direct assault would have been military suicide. James was no Bruce and Surrey was no Hotspur.

Flodden Edge

On 6 September the English army entered the valley of the Till. From here they had a clear view of the the Scots a few miles to the west. To Surrey the strength of the enemy position was immediately obvious. The Trewe Encountre, an account written soon after the battle, describes what he saw;

The Kyng of Scottes did lye with his army in the egge of Cheviotte and was enclosed in thre parties, with three great mountaynes soe that ther was noe passage nor entre unto hym but oon waye where was laied marvelous and great ordenance of gonnes.

For a second time time Surrey sent his herald for a second time, to complain that James had taken a position 'more like a fortress', and invite him to do battle on the level plain at nearby Milfield. Naturally enough, he refused. By now it is certain that James wanted a battle. Even so, it was to be a battle on his terms: Surrey must come to him; he would not go to Surrey. Ironically, from what we know of the coming battle, James may have fared better if he had indeed accepted Surrey's invitation, and allowed his pikemen the advantage of a 'level plain'.

Surrey was faced with a stark choice. Running short of supplies, he would either have to abandon the field, or take the risky step of outflanking the Scots by marching to the north and west, and taking a position across James' lines of communication. This would have the effect of forcing him out of his present position in a rapid march back towards the border. The fact that James did not abandon Flodden, or was only able to do so when it was far too late, was to give England one of the most complete victories over Scotland in her history. Surrey began his march on the evening of 8 September. In the course of the following morning his army crossed the Till in two places, marching south towards Branxton Hill.

Branxton

We do not know when James discovered that he had been outflanked: it was probably not until some after mid-day. Visibility was poor, and the weather continued to be wet and stormy. The only defensible position now was at Branxton, the northern wall of the fortress camp, and the scottish army began its slow redeployment. Once complete, James arranged his army in four divisions. The left, under the joint command of Lord Hume and the Earl of Huntly, was made up of men from the borders and the north-east of Scotland. Next came the division under the earls of Errol, Crawford and Montrose. To their right was the most powerful and best equiped unit of all, commanded by the king in person. On James right were the Highlanders, commandec by the earls of Argyll and Lennox. A fifth division, commanded by the Earl of Bothwell, was held in reserve close to the King. There was a space of about 200 yards between each of the formations, with the artillery in between.

Surrey made is own dispositions to mirror those of the enemy. On the far right, facing Huntly and Hume, was his youngest son, Edmund Howard. Next came his eldest son, Thomas, the Lord Admiral. Close to the Admiral, possibly slightly to the rear, was Lord Dacre and the border horse. This unitwas destined to perform an important task as a mobile reserve. To their left was Surrey's own division. On the extreme left, Edward Stanley, with the men of Lancashire and Cheshire, was still some way to the rear. The royal artillery was stationed with the Admiral.

The contemporary and near contemporary accounts of the ensuing battle, all of them written from the point of view of the victor, make it very difficult to build an accurate picture. It is not always possible to reconcile the contradictions within the narratives, and many of these have tended to make their way into the standard histories. Flodden is best seen as a series of smaller battles, which merged into a greater whole. Thus the English archers who were of little account on one part of the field, had an enormous impact in another. THe role the artillery playedmay have been brief, but it was vital. The Borderers on either side did not give up the battle, as some have suggested, they simply held each other in check.

Charge of the Earls

What is certain is that the Battle of Flodden beganas an artillery duel about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of Friday 9 September 1513. With the English occupying dead ground below Branxton the Scottish artillery roared to little effect. The English artillery, some 22 guns directed by Sir Nicholas Appelby, was lighter and far easier to manipulate. It was also used with much greater accuracy. Soon all of the Scots guns fell silent. the English discharge was now concentrated in an uphill sweep, catching the Scottish divisions, silhouetted against the skyline, in a murderously accurate cross-fire. This, in effect, was the beginning of the end for the Scots. James was now caught like the fourth Earl of Douglas at the Battle of Homildon Hill. His men could not be expected to withstand the English fire for long. But any attempt to redeployout of artillery range behind the brow of Branxton Hill involved the risk of the army disintegrating in panic. We have no way of knowing what James' intentions were at this point; but his mind was made up by the precipitate action of the men of Huntley and Hume on his left. In the words of The Trewe Encountre-'our gonnes did so breake and constreyn the Scottische great army, that some part of thaim wer enforsed to come doun towards our army.'

That part of the field occupied by the borderers and the Gordons was a little less steep than the rest of the Scottish position, and the ground flatened out towards where Edmund Howard's men were situated. With leveled pikes the Scots made good progress towards their ememy. The wind and rain was blowing in the face of the longbow men, who loosed their weapons with only limited effect. Keeping up momentum Hume and Huntly sliced into Howard's division, which disintegrated under the impact. Many were killed; many more fled from the field. Howard escaped with difficulty, falling back with the survivors in his command on the division under his brother. At this critical point the advance of the Scots, now disorganised in victory, was checked by the charge of Dacre and the light horse. Hume and Huntly drew off. In this part of the field the Battle of Flodden was over.

James Advances

observing the success on the right the next two divisions began their own descent down the slope of Branxton, Errol and Crawford making for the Lord Admiral and the King for Surrey. But in this part of the field conditions were altogether different from those on the left. The hill was steep, wet and slippery, forcing many to remove their shoes to obtain a grip on the ground. the ranks of pikemen, advancing in the style of the German landsknecht, were probably beginning to lose formation before they reached the bottom of the hill. All momentum was lost when they reached a little burn, which had to be negotiated before the army could aascend the slope towards the English around Piper's Hill. Presumably they were also harrassed by continuing artillery fire. With the formations breaking up the billmen were able to penetrate the gaps to begin hacking and chopping, loping the heads off the pikes. Rather than long spears each man was left with a sixteen foot pole.. Swords were drawn; but these could not match the range of the murderous swinging bills. Before long Crawford, Errol and Montrose were dead and their division all but destroyed, allowing the Admiral to turn on the exposed flank of the king's division.

Surrey's battle was particularly hard. Ranged against him were the best troops in the Scottish army; and despite the problems the pikemen had in keeping formation, he was forced to give some ground. But James and his men were eventually brought to a standstill, allowing the bills to begin work. What happened to Bothwell's reserve is something of a mystery. All we know is that the earl was slain at some point in the fight, so it must be assumed that he advanced in support of the king shortly after the battle began, or after he saw his progress arrested by Surrey.

What of Argyll and Lennox on the right? Here the Scots looked out towards an empty front. Stanley was a considerable way behind Surrey and arrived late. His approach was completely unobserved by tyhe Highlanders, transfixed by the bloody struggle in the centre. Stanley noted that Argyll and Lennox were in a strong position; but he could also see that the eastern part of the ridge where they stood, some 500 yards to the south of Mardon, was unoccupied. A dip in the ground here would enable him to approach the enemy flank under cover. His tactics were bold: part of his force was detached to begin a frontal attack, while he led the remainder round the side. The climb Stanley made was steep and the ground so slippery that, like the Scots in the centre, his men removed their shoes, even clambering up on hands and knees. To the front the less well-armed Highland troops were already falling to English arrow fire: when arrows began to descend from an unexpected direction it was simply too much. Argyll and Lennox were both killed, and their shattered brigade melted away to the west, across the central part of the battlefield, now thick with the dead and wounded.

The Death of Kings

We cannot be certain exactly when King James was cut down. As he was in the front rank it might have been early in the struggle. Neverthless his men fought on with Spartan courage. Hume, still holding the ground to the left, is often criticised for not advancing to aid the king and his comrads in the centre. This accusation is not altogether fair. Judging by the ease with which Dacre had checked his advance it seems likely that his pikemen were badly broken up. To have reorganised them and then turned information towards the centre would have been difficult: to have exposed his flank to Dacre would have been suicidal. Moreover, Hume held that part of the field over which the rest of the shattered Scottish army was able to retreat. It is thanks to him and Huntly that a disaster did not turn in to a catastrophe of Cannae proportions. Pittscottie's story that he left the king to get on with it, having done his bit, is of late origin, composed long after Hume had been executed for treason during the reign of James V.

As for James himself, his judgement had been disastrous. He had, as in the past, gone into battle, not allowing for the proper direction and management of his army. He had been out-manoeuvred, out-generaled and out-fought; and in the end, against this background, his personal bravery counted for nothing. The oft-quoted remark of the English historian Edward Hall deserves repeating;

O what a noble and triumphant courage was thys for a kyng to fyghtein a battayall as a meane souldier; but what avayled hys stronf harnes, the puyssance of hys myghte champions with whom he descended the hyll, in whom he so much trusted that wyth his strong people and great number of men, he was able as he thought to have vanquished that day the greatest prince of the world, if he had been there as the erle of Surrey was, or else he thought to do such a hygh enterprise hym selfe in his person, that should surmount the enterprises of all other princes; but how soever it happened God gave the stroke, and he was no more regarded than a poore souldier, for all went one way.

James' charge is said to have brought him to within a spear's length of Surrey, though this seems a little to much like the story of Richard III at Bosworth, added to illustrate the danger in which the elderly victor had been placed. In fact his body was only discovered the following day, and only after some difficulty, stripped, as it was, of his armour and mangled by several wounds.

Black Friday

THe battle of Flodden ended shortly after 6 o' clock, when the autumn darkness began to fall. There was no rout, no pursuit. The brave Scottish soldiers left the field with dignity and honour, their comrades on the left covering the retreat. Surrey, still uncwertain of the outcome, held his men in check, a measure of the courageous determination with which the Scots had fought. It wasn't until the following morning he realised how complete his victory had been. There before him arounf Piper's Hill lay the mountain of dead. Some scots horsemen appeared on Branxton Hill, but were quickly driven off, and Surrey's men took possession of Borthwick's silent guns. What was left of the Scottish army made its way in good order across the Tweed.

Many had been left behind, to rest in England forever. James was joined in death by nine earls, as well as fourteen Lords of Parliament and several Highland chiefs. His son, Alexander, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had also been killed, along with other prominent churchmen. In all some 10000 men, a third or more of the Scottish army, had been killed. There were few prisoners. English casualties, amounting to some 1500 dead, were particularly high among themen of Cheshire, who had fought with Edmund Howard.

Flodden in History

Flodden was essentially a victory of bill over pike. As a weapon the pike was only effective for as long as it was used in a battle of movement. The hilly terrain of Northumberland did not allow it to be employed to best effect. Indeed the Scots may have managed better if they had kept to their traditional schiltron spears.

The infantrymen at Flodden, both Scots and English, had in most essentials fought in a fashion that would have been familiar to their ancestors of ages past, and it has rightly been described as the last great medieval battle in the British Isles. But this was the last time that they would come together as equals in battle. Two years later Francis I defeated the Swiss pikemen at the Battle of Margiano, using a combination of heavy cavalry and guns, ushering in a new era in the history of war.

The battle was the climax of days of maneuvering. The English finally managed to cross the River Till, and got behind the Scottish positions. The Scots' cannon opened fire; but due to poorly-trained artillerymen, cumbersome guns and damp powder, they mostly missed. The more limber, and much better-trained, English artillerymen then returned fire, with deadly accuracy; blowing the Scottish guns and gunners off the field. The English cannons and longbowmen then concentrated a furious fire upon the pikemen of the Scottish schiltrons. This took a terrible toll, and caused the Scots to charge down the hill and relinquish the defensive high ground, in order to come to grips with the English.

In many ways, Scottish tactics had changed little since Bannockburn. They used the schiltron, a tight formation of long spears better-suited for use against cavalry charges than for infantry melees. Nevertheless, it was a formation almost impossible to penetrate if the Scots could hold it in a steady advance. Unfortunately, they suddenly came across a burn or stream that had been hidden by the lie of the land. In attempting to cross, the schiltron formations began to break down. This was, perhaps, the turning point in the battle. The English infantry rushed forward and penetrated into the Scottish line. The English were mostly armed billmen, using a devastating weapon designed to tear armour and other forms of bodily protection apart. In the bloody slogging-match that characterised such warfare, the Scots were eventually encircled, and cut to pieces.

The king, many of his nobles, and over 10,000 Scottish men were killed. The English losses are estimated at between 1,500 and 4,000.

Aftermath

Tactically, this battle was one of the first major engagements on the British Isles where artillery would play a decisive role, and one of the last decisive uses of English longbowmen.

Many of these archers were recruited from Lancashire and Cheshire. Sir Ralph Asseton raised such a company from Middleton, near Manchester. In gratitude for his safe return, he rebuilt St. Leonard's, the local parish church. It contains the unique "Flodden Window" depicting each of the archers, and the priest who accompanied them, by name in stained glass.

Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Surrey, was Lieutenant General, and was largely responsible for the Tudor victory for Henry VIII of England. Howard was subsequently restored to his father's title of "Duke of Norfolk".

Skirmishes over the English-Scottish border had been taking place for centuries; and this was perhaps the longest such "war" on record.

There was not a noble family in Scotland who did not lose at least someone at Flodden. They and the other dead are remembered by the song (and pipe tune) "The Flowers of the Forest";

We'll hae nae mair lilting, at the yowe-milking,

Women and bairns are dowie and wae.

Sighing and moaning, on ilka green loaning,

The Flowers of the forest are all wede away

Geography

The field in which the battle was fought and the nearby countryside is an example of a drumlin swarm, with the drumlins themselves clearly visible from the field's monument.

See also

• The Percy Folio
• Selkirk Common Riding

External links

• flodden.net
• A detailed account of the battle.

• 1513
• Battles of the Italian Wars
• Battles of Scotland
• Battles of England
• History of Northumberland