Hearing of the retreat of the Swiss, and observing the season to be far advanced, he thought proper to return to England; and he carried the greater part of his army with him. Success had attended him in every enterprise; and his youthful mind was much elated with this seeming prosperity, but all men of judgment, comparing the advantages of his situation with his progress, his expense with his acquisitions, were convinced that this campaign, so much vaunted, was, in reality, both ruinous and inglorious to him.[*]
* Guicciardini.
The success which, during this summer, had attended Henry’s arms in the north, was much more decisive. The king of Scotland had assembled the whole force of his kingdom; and having passed the Tweed with a brave, though a tumultuary army of above fifty thousand men, he ravaged those parts of Northumberland which lay nearest that river, and he employed himself in taking the Castles of Norham, Etal, Werke, Ford, and other places of small importance. Lady Ford, being taken prisoner in her castle, was presented to James, and so gained on the affections of that prince, that he wasted in pleasure the critical time which, during the absence of his enemy, he should have employed in pushing his conquests. His troops, lying in a barren country, where they soon consumed all the provisions, began to be pinched with hunger; and as the authority of the prince was feeble, and military discipline during that age extremely relaxed, many of them had stolen from the camp, and retired homewards. Meanwhile, the earl of Surrey, having collected a force of twenty-six thousand men, of which five thousand had been sent over from the king’s army in France, marched to the defence of the country, and approached the Scots, who lay on some high ground near the hills of Cheviot. The River Till ran between the armies, and prevented an engagement: Surrey therefore sent a herald to the Scottish camp, challenging the enemy to descend into the plain of Milfield, which lay towards the south; and there, appointing a day for the combat, to try their valor on equal ground. As he received no satisfactory answer, he made a feint of marching towards Berwick; as if he intended to enter Scotland, to lay waste the borders, and cut off the provisions of the enemy. The Scottish army, in order to prevent his purpose, put themselves in motion; and having set fire to the huts in which they had quartered, they descended from the hills. Surrey, taking advantage of the smoke, which was blown towards him, and which concealed his movements, passed the Till with his artillery and vanguard at the bridge of Twisel, and sent the rest of his army to seek a ford higher up the river.
An engagement was now become inevitable, and both sides prepared for it with tranquillity and order.[*] The English divided their army into two lines: Lord Howard led the main body of the first line, Sir Edmond Howard the right wing, Sir Marmaduke Constable the left. The earl of Surrey himself commanded the main body of the second line, Lord Dacres the right wing, Sir Edward Stanley the left. The front of the Scots presented three divisions to the enemy: the middle was led by the king himself; the right by the earl of Huntley, assisted by Lord Hume; the left by the earls of Lenox and Argyle. A fourth division under the earl of Bothwell made a body of reserve. Huntley began the battle, and, after a sharp conflict, put to flight the left wing of the English, and chased them off the field: but on returning from the pursuit, he found the whole Scottish army in great disorder. The division under Lenox and Argyle, elated with the success of the other wing, had broken their ranks, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and entreaties of La Motte, the French ambassador, had rushed headlong upon the enemy. Not only Sir Edmond Howard, at the head of his division, received them with great valor, but Dacres, who commanded in the second line, wheeling about during the action, fell upon their rear, and put them to the sword without resistance. The division under James and that under Bothwell, animated by the valor of their leaders, still made head against the English, and throwing themselves into a circle, protracted the action, till night separated the combatants. The victory seemed yet undecided, and the numbers that fell on each side were nearly equal, amounting to above five thousand men: but the morning discovered where the advantage lay. The English had lost only persons of small note; but the flower of the Scottish nobility had fallen in battle, and their king himself, after the most diligent inquiry, could nowhere be found. In searching the field, the English met with a dead body which resembled him, and was arrayed in a similar habit; and they put it in a leaden coffin, and sent it to London. During some time it was kept unburied; because James died under sentence of ex-communication, on account of his confederacy with France, and his opposition to the holy see:[**] but upon Henry’s application, who pretended that this prince had, in the instant before his death, discovered signs of repentance, absolution was given him, and his body was interred.
* Buchanan, lib. xiii. Drummond. Herbert. Polyd. Virg. lib.
xxvii. Stowe, p. 493. Paulus Jovius.
** Buchanan, lib. xiii. Herbert.
The Scots, however, still asserted that it was not James’s body which was found on the field of battle, but that of one Elphinston, who had been arrayed in arms resembling their king’s, in order to divide the attention of the English, and share the danger with his master. It was believed that James had been seen crossing the Tweed at Kelso;* and some imagined that he had been killed by the vassals of Lord Hume, whom that nobleman had instigated to commit so enormous a crime. But the populace entertained the opinion that he was still alive, and having secretly gone in pilgrimage to the Holy Land, would soon return and take possession of the throne. This fond conceit was long entertained among the Scots.
The king of Scotland and most of his chief nobles being slain in the field of Flouden, (so this battle was called,) an inviting opportunity was offered to Henry of gaining advantages over that kingdom, perhaps of reducing it to subjection. But he discovered on this occasion a mind truly great and generous. When the queen of Scotland, Margaret, who was created regent during the infancy of her son, applied for peace, he readily granted it; and took compassion of the helpless condition of his sister and nephew. The earl of Surrey, who had gained him so great a victory, was restored to the title of duke of Norfolk, which had been forfeited by his father for engaging on the side of Richard III.
1514.
Lord Howard was honored with the title of earl of Surrey. Sir Charles Brandon, the king’s favorite, whom he had before created Viscount Lisle, was now raised to the dignity of duke of Suffolk. Wolsey, who was both his favorite and his minister, was created bishop of Lincoln. Lord Herbert obtained the title of earl of Worcester; Sir Edward Stanley, that of Lord Monteagle.
Though peace with Scotland gave Henry security on that side, and enabled him to prosecute in tranquillity his enterprise against France, some other incidents had happened, which more than counterbalanced this fortunate event, and served to open his eyes with regard to the rashness of an undertaking, into which his youth and high fortune had betrayed him.