There have been many dark days in Scottish history and while the events at Culloden Moor (1746) are often quoted as one of these disasters, there is no doubt that the Battle of Flodden Field (1513) was by far a much worse defeat and one which had a deep impact on that part of the country.
Remember that at Culloden it was the Jacobites under Prince Charles Edward Stuart who were on one side and the Hanoverian English army on the other and that the English force was augmented by the Lowland Scots who had no love for the Stuarts or their cause. At Flodden it was a united Scotland against the might of England and the real tragedy is that it was a conflict that need never have happened. It was an exercise in futility.
The political situation at the time was that Scotland had close ties with Spain and France and the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland was at its strongest. King James IV of Scotland had married King Henry VIII’s sister and Henry had invaded France. Scottish pirates had been harrying English ships in the North Sea, but James apparently wanted something more substantial to prove his part in the alliance, and he, with nothing to gain, declared war on England.
James raised an army of some 20,000 men from all parts of Scotland both Highlanders and Lowlanders and marched into England. It is doubted whether James intended a long term invasion and occupation of England and it was seen more as doing his continental allies “a favor.” With the young King Henry on a campaign in France, it was left to the then Queen, Catherine of Aragon, to take the initiative and she ordered the English Commander, The Earl of Surrey, and his son, Lord Dacre, to move north to meet the threat from Scotland. After initial success by the Scots in the far north of England, the two armies confronted each other on the west bank of the River Till in Northumberland, near the village of Braxton on September 9, 1513.
As to the events of that fateful day—the Scots held the high ground and a considerable advantage early in the day. The English pounded the Scots positions with an early form of cannon and outflanked the Scots position on their west. At the height of the battle, James, against all advice and military strategy, ordered his troops to charge and take on the English on the ground level. Although outnumbered, the English were better equipped with the vicious ‘bill,” a long shafted battle axe with hook and spear attached and in close combat were superior to the Scots weapons and a heavy toll resulted.
Gradually the Scots were literally cut down, and the pride of Scotland’s nobility made a gallant last stand surrounding the king who himself suffered several grievous wounds before falling with the last of his men. English losses were heavy but the Scots casualties were believed to be between five and ten thousand. There was an unusually high number of aristocracy engaged in the combat and among the dead were several earls, lords and lairds and some churchmen, including an archbishop, bishop and the king himself.
There was hardly a town or village in Scotland that did not suffer losses as a result of the battle, but worse to follow especially for the people of the southern counties of Scotland who were infamous for their vigilante type raids into England. The Earl of Surrey had a desire to create a sort of buffer-zone between the two countries, stamping out the raid and counter-raid that was a way of life there. He issued an order, “shake loose the border”, and the English went on a spree of pillage, rape and fire across the border countryside.
Perhaps the Battle of Flodden is best summed up by two quotations, one from the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, who described the battle as one of Scotland’s darkest days and pointing to it’s futility he said, “…never was a day’s work more bungled than that day”.
Today the battlefield site is marked with a stone cross and the simple inscription, “To the Brave of Both Nations”.
