Flodden Field [Child 168]

DESCRIPTION: King James vows to fight his way to London. Queen Margaret tries to prevent him, and Lord Thomas Howard supports her. James vows to punish them when he returns -- but he never returns; the English slay him and twelve thousand men at Flodden
AUTHOR: unknown (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1597 (see NOTES); the text in Child's Appendix is from the Percy Folio and elsewhere
KEYWORDS: war royalty family promise death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sep 9, 1513 - Battle of Flodden. James IV and the pride of Scotland's chivalry die in battle with the Earl of Surrey's English army
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Child 168, "Flodden Field" (1 text plus long appendix)
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume I, pp. 313-340, "Fflodden Ffeilde" (1 text)
Ritson-AncientSongsBalladsFromHenrySecondToTheRevolution, pp. 208-212, "Floddon Field" (1 text)
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, pp. 70-71, "Flodden Field" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Michael Brander, _Scottish and Border Battles and Ballads_, 1975 (page references to the 1993 Barnes & Noble edition), pp. 67-68, "Flodden Field" (1 text)
APPENDIX: "Now Let Us Talk of Mount of Flodden"
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #3779
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 117
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, MS. Harley 293, folio 55
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, Ms. Harley 367, folio 120
Roud #2862
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Flowers o' the Forest" (subject)
NOTES [1275 words]: Child's only text of this is from Thomas Deloney's Pleasant History of John Winchcomb (the other versions, including the Percy Folio version, are of the appendix text). Ritson credits the piece to Deloney (1543?-1600?). Chambers observes that Deloney may well have printed the text with some "improvements." It would be very interesting to know what was Deloney's source -- it might well have been nearly contemporary with the actual battle of Flodden.
The probable earliest copy of this, Harley 367, was assembled mostly from papers which had been in the possession of John Stow (died 1605). Stow is most notable for an edition of Chaucer of singularly low value -- he seems to have reprinted his text without deliberate change from the earlier edition of Thynne. Parts of Harley 367 are in Stow's own hand, whatever that tells you. It also contains a copy of "The Song of the Lady Bessy," for more about which (and about the manuscript) see the notes to "The Battle of Bosworth Field."
King James IV was unusually long-lived for a Stewart king; he lived all the way to forty (1473-1513). But it wasn't for lack of trying; he repeatedly went to war with England. The first attempt, in support of Perkin Warbeck, was in the 1490s, and accomplished nothing. A 1502 attempt also went nowhere.
To cement the post-1502 peace, James IV married Margaret Tudor, the elder daughter of England's King Henry VII. (This was the marriage that eventually brought the Stewarts to the throne of England.) But that didn't prevent his warmongering. In 1513, the new English king Henry VIII was away in a sort of a mock campaign against France. James (strongly encouraged by the French, who wanted to distract Henry) decided to go to war.
Unfortunately for James, the defense of the border was in the hands of Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey (1443-1524). Surrey was the son of John Howard, Richard III's Duke of Norfolk, and had fought for Richard III at Bosworth. But with Richard dead, Howard was given a partial pardon (being given the Surrey earldom though not the Norfolk dukedom). This may have been because, with Richard and the elder Howard dead, Surrey was the best soldier in England.
Surrey wanted to go to France with Henry in 1513 (according to Mattingly, p. 155, he was "choking with rage and grief" at not being allowed to join the invasion). But he ended up getting his chance to fight.... It was Surrey who led the army which intercepted the invading Scots. James IV, meanwhile, had decided that the French alliance was more important than peace with England. So he invaded.
The Scottish attack started with a minor raid led by Lord Home. This burned seven villages and took a lot of plunder, but Sir William Bulmer, Sheriff of Durham, intercepted and routed it. Home and some of his men made it home, but the plunder was lost. It came to be known as the "Ill Raid" (Phillips, p. 113).
James's own invasion was more than a raid; it was intended to take advantage of the fact that the main English army was away. James's army was large -- Phillips, p. 114, thinks 40,000 a reasonable estimate. (I think that absurd; Scotland didn't have the men or the logistics. But it was very possibly the largest army Scotland ever raised.) Phillips estimates that it was down to about 34,000 by the time of the battle.
Surrey's army Phillips, p. 116, puts at 26,000 a few days before the battle, with some small reinforcements coming in after that, so while it may have been slightly smaller than the Scots army, the difference was small. Both armies had artillery, and the English also had longbowmen (which however did little damage, according to Phillips, p. 127. He thinks it was because the Scots were armored; I suspect that it was the weather; a wet bow is a bow that loses power). The Scots in addition had long pikes, with which they fought in phalanxes. The English answered with halberdmen (a shorter pike/axe).
Surrey actually issued, and James made a formal acceptance of, a challenge to battle (Phillips, pp. 118-119) -- but they didn't actually rush into combat.
Initially the English were to the south of the Scots, but Surrey, to force battle, decided to move around to the north and cut James off from home (an interesting choice, since Surrey's army was apparently out of provisions, and Surrey was cutting himself off from supplies as well as cutting James off; Phillips, p. 120). The weather was miserably wet, and James did not interfere with Surrey's maneuver. Perhaps uncertain about the English intentions, he let them take up their new position, then went ahead with his attack.
The actual battle started around 4:00 p.m. and lasted until nightfall, according to Philips, p. 129 -- so, given the time of year, roughly three hours.
The mud made it hard for James to attack; I suspect that this was also why the artillery and longbowmen played little role. But James's long pikes could not deal with the halberdmen -- who cut off the heads of the pikes and then went in for the kill (MacDougall, pp. 272-276). Nor did James exercise much control over the battle; he was too close to the front (the Spanish ambassador had written in 1497, "He is not a good captain, because he begins to fight before he has given his orders"; Philipps, p. 125). The armies apparently first engaged on the west end of the field, with forces to the east gradually becoming involved. The Scots at first had some success in shaking the English line, but their advantage disappeared as more English troops joined the action.
Once the English right had fought off the initial Scottish attack, it circled around to take the Scottish center in the rear (Phillips, p. 128).
The English and Scottish forces are believed to have been about equal in size, but Surrey outmaneuvered the Scots and inflicted a crushing defeat, killing James, the cream of his army, and about a third of his troops (everyone agrees that at least 5,000 were dead, and Phillips, p. 129, thinks 10,000 more likely) -- a defeat which came to be commemorated in the popular lament "The Flowers o' the Forest." Surrey lost perhaps 5%-10% of his own men.
There was no pursuit, because of the darkness (Phillips, p. 129), but there was hardly need of one!
King James's body was found on the field, wounded by arrows and bills, supposedly by Thomas Lord Dacre (Phillips, p. 130). The English had no doubt it was him, though there was no sign of an iron belt James wore as a penance, so some Scots had doubts, and there were rumors James had escaped and gone abroad. He never resurfaced, though, so even if the English had the wrong body, there seems to be no doubt that James died.
According to MacDougall, p. 309, it is likely that twelve Scottish earls were present (Phillips, p. 131 suggests there was eleven present, out of 21 earls in Scotland at this time), and nine of them were killed: Argyll, Bothwell, Cassillis, Crawford, Caithness, Erroll, Lennox, Montrose, and Rothes. Huntly survived but lost a brother; Marischal lost a son (Marischal seems to be the earl that Phillips thiks was not present). Angus, who was in his sixties and did not fight, lost two sons. About thirteen (Phillips) or fourteen (MacDougall) barons were killed as well. The Scots even lost an archbishop, a bishop, and a bunch of lesser clergy.
Scotland -- as always when a new monarch came to the throne -- was plunged into chaos. The loss of so much of the nobility made it even worse; most of the earls had heirs, but they were in their twenties or younger, often much younger. The border was safe for many years. Surrey received the Norfolk dukedom, which has remained in the Howard family ever since. - RBW
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