From The United Service Magazine.
THE CAMPAIGN OF FLODDEN.

BY C. STEIN.

tively little is generally known, in its exact details, of the great struggle which here took place nigh four hundred years ago. Most people owe all their knowledge to "Marmion," and indeed, either directly or indirectly, almost all that can be told has been

A

thing, and supplement each other. study of the scene of action, local tradition, and place names eke out our knowledge where it is scantiest, and we are able to place before our mind's eye a tolerably coherent picture of the short and disastrous campaign

THERE is no district in the realm of Britain richer in natural beauties than the borderland between England and Scotland; none whose every spot is more fecund with associations roman-repeated in the glowing tale; but there tic, historic, and poetic. For many are many points which will bear repetihundred years it was a debatable land tion, some which have not been made where, even during nominal peace be- use of by the great poet. We may tween the two countries, the wild and still be permitted to glean where he has unsettled men who dwelt on the fringe reaped, and to profit by the stores of each spent their days in the unceas- which he has long ago garnered. Hall, ing round of private feud and quarrel; Hollingshed, Pitscottie, Pinkerton, old and where, in the frequently recurring county histories, Weber's edition of a wars, the waters of the main boundary long descriptive ballad poem written in stream, the silver Tweed, were mud- the sixteenth century, all tell somedied by the passage of large armed forces, to which the raiders of the border attached themselves as light cavalry and scouts, exulting in the opportunity of licensed and widely extended rapine. For the most part waste and roadless, fortresses clustered thickly on either side to guard the tracks and fords; every farmhouse was a fine tower built more for defence and shelter from a foe than for any other purpose; and the slender population of the humbler class was in constant readiness to fly to a secure fastness, or to collect in arms, according to the strength of sudden attack and the possibility of friendly support. The poetry of the border fills volumes; its history is the tale of the relations between two kingdoms; its romance has been a rich mine for many authors, from the great Sir Walter to countless literary pigmies. All three are our heritage to-day, and, if we will, they are to be enjoyed in the environment of its exceeding loveli

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield.

The claim of supremacy set up by Edward I., and persevered in by all his successors, had been the cause of undying hostility between England and Scotland. It was a right which one nation would not abandon, and to which the other, by many instances of stern resistance, had shown that it would never submit. The history of both for more than a hundred years had been one of inveterate war, or short and doubtful truce. In 1496, James IV. of Scotland led a force into. Northumberland in support of Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the English crown, and, in retaliation, BerwickOf all the places where a traveller shire was invaded by the English in may linger in study and meditation, of 1497. James, however, abandoned all the scenes that have been theatres Perkin Warbeck's cause, and a truce of of great events in our island story, of seven years was arranged between the all the land which now combines the rival kingdoms. The wise and polite wild beauties of nature with the fair- Henry VII., anxious to inaugurate an ness of peaceful cultivation, there is era of tranquillity, agreed to give his no spot more pregnant with memories, daughter Margaret iu marriage to none more deserving of critical exam- James IV., and on the occasion of this ination, none with a greater individual alliance, which took place in 1502, a charm, than Flodden Field. Compara-treaty of perpetual peace was signed.

ness.

On the accession of Henry VIII. to the | monarch's call to arms was eagerly and throne of England, dissensions very promptly obeyed. The tidings of this rapidly arose between him and his national movement came to the Earl of brother-in-law. There was constant Surrey, who had been left by Henry trouble on the borders, and James had VIII. as lieutenant-governor of the reasonable cause to consider that he kingdom, with special charge to guard was injured in some of the later dis- against a Scots' invasion, and he sent turbances. On the other hand, the Sir William Bulmer with two hundred brothers Barton, who had fitted out mounted archers to watch and scout on two armed ships by the authority of the border, while he took vigorous the king of Scotland, had committed measures to collect a force which would acts of piracy at sea, and had been en- be able to protect England. The pregaged and defeated by the sons of the caution was taken none too soon. The Earl of Surrey. There was therefore first rumor of intended hostilities was sufficient matter of dispute, and the ill- sufficient to set the border in a flame; feeling was inflamed by French influ- and Alexander Lord Home, who only ence. War was about to break out a few years before had succeeded his between France and England, and father as chamberlain of Scotland, and Louis XII. was desirous of renewing was, moreover, warden of the marches, the hereditary alliance with Scotland, having collected a force of three or four in order that apprehension of attack thousand men, was already on the from the north might prevent Henry march through Northumberland, and VII. from invading his kingdom. had struck the first blow by rifling and French gold was lavished among the burning seven villages where he colScottish nobles and men who had influ- |lected considerable spoil. Sir William ence with James, while Anne of Bretagne, the queen of France, flattered his romantic gallantry by calling herself his lady-love, and conjuring him to march three miles on English ground for her sake.

Bulmer was a man of action and resource. Round his nucleus of archers he gathered some of the English gentlemen of the border with their followers, and swelled his command to nearly a thousand strong. Even so he was In June, 1513, Henry VIII. sailed too weak to meet Home in direct comfor France with a gallant army, and bat, but, lying in wait on the Scottish entered upon the siege of Terouenne. line of retreat, he concealed his small James then took a decided step, and force in the thick broom which clothed sent a herald to the English king's Millfield Plain. Home's men, laden camp, demanding that he should cease with spoil and straggling in careless from aggressions upon Scotland's ally, and disordered march, thought not of and furthermore, recalling the old sub-possible attack. Suddenly the deadly jects of quarrel originating on the bor- shower of arrows from an unseen foe ders and at sea. This was equivalent to a declaration of war, and was received as such by Henry. A scornful reply was sent, but before the herald returned to Scotland, hostilities had begun, the great battle had been fought, aud James IV. was dead.

When war had appeared imminent, the note of preparation sounded through Scotland, and James summoned his whole kingdom's strength to make ready to take the field. No Scottish sovereign had ever been more popular, and, though thinking men had denounced the war as imprudent, the

whistled through their files, and the continuous discharge laid low five or six hundred. Unmarshalled, bewildered, and unknowing the strength of the enemy, they fell easy victims to the subsequent charge of Bulmer's mail-clad horsemen, and pressed to the Tweed in headlong flight. Lord Home's brother with two hundred men were left prisoners in the hands of the victors. All their booty and many horses were lost, and the march warden himself with the rout of the panic-stricken fugitives only found safety after crossing the Tutford. This skirmishi was afterwards consid

ered by the Scots as an ill omen at the trained and disciplined troops would
commencement of the war, and was now tax to the utmost the capabilities
generally known as "The ill Rode." even of a highly instructed modern
It is doubtful whether Lord Home's staff. The feeding of man and horse,
incursion was made by the direct order the provision of beasts of burden and
of James, but, though a warden of the indispensable transport, the mainte-
marches had much latitude and inde-nance of order not only in camp, but
pendence in action, it is not likely that also in the neighboring city, the care of
he would have committed himself so the unavoidable percentage of sick,
seriously if he had not felt confident of would be problems of the gravest de-
approval.
scription during the period of concen-
Meantime the king and his adviserstration, and, when the gigantic force
held serious consultation whether En- moved, the marshalling of the various
gland should or should not be invaded. columns would be a most difficult and
Queen Margaret and many of his wisest complicated operation. Indeed, we
nobles were against such a hazardous may believe that such a work as James
undertaking, and James's superstition IV. and his subordinate leaders im-
was worked upon by warnings and por-posed on themselves would now never
tents said to be supernatural. At Lin- be undertaken. If a modern general
lithgow a venerable form, supposed to in Scotland had to move one hundred
be St. Andrew, the country's patron
saint, walked up to the king's seat in
church and foretold disaster. A few
days later an unknown mysterious voice
was heard at midnight to summon from
the Market Cross of Edinburgh the
chief leaders of the army to appear be-
fore an infernal tribunal. But the
council of prudence and the warnings
of superstition both equally failed to in-
fluence James. Perhaps he distrusted
the good faith of the one and suspected
the human origin of the other. He
found many men to excite his passion
for war, notably Andrew Forman, the
self-seeking and ambitious Bishop of
Moray, and De la Motte, the French
ambassador; his army, gathered from
every province of his realm, even in-
cluding a contingent of the half-savage
western Islesmen, and amounting in all
to more than one hundred thousand
men, was assembled in array on the
Boroughmuir of Edinburgh, and he
took the fatal determination to march
at its head to the borders.

thousand men to invade England, he would certainly never think of assembling his whole army in one spot or of moving it on one line of approach, but his corps d'armée would be organized at several different points, and would be moved towards their objective by different routes within supporting distance of each other. It is possible that, even in the sixteenth century. though we have no suggestion of the fact in contemporary records, this was practically done, and that, though the king of Scotland's headquarters were at Edinburgh, many of his contingents may have been assembled at points miles apart, and that the whole may have been finally moved on a broad front. Whatever was really done, we must recognize no mean degree of military skill in the leaders who could produce order in an assemblage of contingents arriving in unknown strength, composed of men unused to discipline and untrained to manœuvre, led by chiefs and nobles jealous of their digIt is difficult to realize in our days nity and unwilling to acknowledge the what were the conditions of a great authority of any but a feudal superior. feudal array such as is said to have Each man who was summoned to the been concentrated and encamped for a field brought with him, as we know, time under the stately and aged oaks, provision for forty days, but much then scattered over the Boroughmuir, extra food must have been required and which moved at the command of even for the soldiery, and the horse the gallant, chivalrous king. An as- provender must have demanded careful sembly of one hundred thousand thought and provision. The sick, no

on

doubt, remained where they fell, and will and self-confidence refused to be were not allowed to encumber the influenced. The English border formarch, or, if they were not important tresses presented themselves before personages, to have men told off for him. They might easily have been their attendance. Transport must have masked and disregarded, but he set been provided for a certain number of himself to work to reduce them, wasttents and stores, and the officers must ing, in the trivial operations, time, have maintained a fair discipline; for, energy, and, above all, his limited though it was in the nature of things food-supplies. Norham Castle was the that numbers in the vast army should first to be attacked, and its commander supply their immediate wants by help- offered a stout resistance. The Scoting themselves to the resources of the tish batteries were established country through which they passed, Ladykirk bank, but had little effect on there is no record in any chronicle of the strong old walls, and it was not till great excesses having been committed the fifth day of the siege that a breach while the force was in a friendly coun- was made in the defences. Legend try. When, too, the movement to the tells us that a traitor in the garrison, border began, the fifty or sixty miles under promise of reward, indicated to march to the Tweed was accomplished James where the wall was weakest and over the rude tracks, which then did how the first position of his artillery duty for roads, in six or seven days, no was defective. Poetic justice was despicable rate of progress to have meted to the villain, who was hanged been maintained by so large a force, by the king, and the place of his exeand reflecting the utmost credit on cution was known in days long after as those who directed and superintended the Hangman's Land. The castles of the movement. Wark and Etal were the next to fall, and then came the turn of Ford, which was fated to be a final stumbling-block in the path of James's fortunes. chatelaine of Ford was Lady Heron, the wife of Sir William Heron, who was at that time a prisoner in Scotland, having been surrendered by Henry VII. on account of his share in the murder of Sir Robert Ker of Cessford by his brother the bastard Heron. There is an old tradition that James had been for many years (since 1500) enamoured of Lady Heron. Whether this was the case or no, she now appears to have entangled him by her fascinations, and the warrior king, forgetful of his duty to his country and his army, could not withdraw himself from her society. There is a vague story that James's natural son, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, who accompanied him on the campaign, also fell a victim to Lady Heron's daughter, but as there is no Miss Heron mentioned in the family genealogy, this may be doubted. At Ford Castle, therefore, the Scottish king dallied, and the tapestried room is still shown, in the old part of the castle, which now belongs

On the 21st August the Scottish army was at Coldstream; on the 22nd the Tweed was crossed, and a camp was formed at Twisel, where the Till joins the great river. Here there was a delay of two days before further operations were undertaken. James had now a great opportunity before him. There was not yet collected in the field against him any considerable force, and, with the great army under his command, the whole of the north of England lay at his mercy. It may well be believed that Carlisle, Newcastle, Durham, and York, might easily have been taken, and the surrounding districts overrun. A great moral effect might have been produced upon the enemy, the supplies of his army might have been renewed, and his followers might have been enriched and encouraged by plenteous spoil. But the king was no Bruce or Douglas. With all his personal gallantry, all his military aspirations and thirst for glory, he was no strategist. He had no experienced soldier at his side to advise him, or if there was any one who might have given him sound counsel, his own self

The