The last King of Scotland to lead a great national invasion of England.
From the painting in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
The English passed the night in bivouac on the field. All around the Borderers of both armies were plundering indiscriminately, stripping the dead, and committing, doubtless, nameless atrocities. They impartially made prize of Surrey’s tents and baggage and the Scottish artillery oxen, for want of which nearly the whole train had to be abandoned. When morning came it was seen that the Scots’ centre had disappeared. Home had got some of his troops in hand again, and was in line towards the west, perhaps covering the retreat of the centre. His demoralized and half-hearted men were scattered by artillery fire, and drifted away across Tweed; and then Surrey could take stock of his victory. On the slope of Branxton Hill the victors found dead the King of Scots, his natural son Alexander, Archbishop of St. Andrews, two bishops, two mitred abbots, twelve earls, fourteen lords, and hundreds of scions of every noble house in Scotland. The whole Scottish loss can hardly have been less than 10,000; the unmailed Highlanders had been mown down in thousands. The English superiority in troops armed with missile weapons must have had terrible results; and it should be remembered that as a rule quarter was neither asked for nor given. The English put their own losses as low as 1,500. Except in Edmund Howard’s division, they must have been far lower in proportion than those of the Scots; perhaps 4,000 in all is a fair estimate. Prisoners in such a conflict could not have been numerous; the only definite record is that of about sixty taken by the Scottish left wing. Surrey took possession of nearly all the Scottish artillery: five ‘great drakes’ (? 24-pounders), seven ‘great culverins’ (18-pounders), four ‘sakers’ (5-pounders), and six ‘serpentines’ (? 4-pounders)—all beautiful brass pieces wrought by Borthwick’s skilled hand—besides light guns.[J]
[J] Hall gives the total of large pieces at seventeen, including two culverins; but Holinshed says that the ‘Seven Sisters’ were all taken, and it is most unlikely that the Scots could have saved any of these heavy guns.
So ended the Battle of Flodden. On the Scots’ side it was a magnificent display of fruitless courage, very little aided by military skill. On the part of England, all the commanders on the field worked together as one man to gain the victory; and though some of the hasty county levies showed unsteadiness, on the whole they admirably seconded their leaders. The boldness of Surrey’s strategy is remarkable in such an aged man. Napoleon was emphatically of opinion that military leaders lose their boldness with advancing age. Tried by this standard, the only modern leader who can challenge comparison with Surrey is Suvórov, whose greatest triumphs were gained when he was almost seventy.
In Scotland the tendency has been to throw the blame for the catastrophe upon Lord Home. That his Borderers and Huntly’s Highlanders largely dispersed after their successful charge is no doubt true; but seeing how entirely unstable and unreliable they always were in battle, the chiefs can hardly be blamed. After Flodden Home became a partisan of the English alliance, and has therefore been condemned by many writers who regard his action from a narrowly patriotic standpoint. He was clearly not a man of military ability, but there is no reason to doubt that he did his duty. Lord Dacre’s letter to his Government, dated May 17, 1514, effectually disposes of the idea that Home looked on at the defeat of the Scottish centre and right. It was unfortunate for him that he survived the battle only to be put out of the way by the Regent Albany three years later.
Flodden as regards the courage displayed on the field was honourable to both nations. In a sense it was a decisive battle, for it seems to have brought home to public opinion in Scotland that the country might do better than sacrifice itself for France. There were no more great invasions of England. In 1522, and again in the following year, the Scottish nobles refused point-blank to cross the Border against England. But James V. was still disposed to adhere to the French alliance, and Henry VIII.’s somewhat truculent diplomacy did not tend to improve matters. With brief intervals of truce, the weary Border warfare went on for many years. James’s marriage to Marie de Lorraine in 1538 accentuated his leaning to France. In 1542, in order to make a diversion in favour of François I., James drifted into open war. A small English force invaded Scotland, but was badly beaten at Haddon Rigg in Teviotdale. A larger expedition under the Duke of Norfolk (the Admiral of Flodden) was more successful, but had no great results.
To cope with Norfolk, James collected a large army on Fala Muir. Finding that Norfolk had already retired, he would have invaded England; but once more the nobles declined to rush into disaster for the sake of France. Bitterly mortified, James fell back on the assistance of the great Churchmen, upon whom his Gallicizing policy chiefly depended, and raised a new army, variously estimated at from 10,000 to 18,000 men strong. On November 24 it crossed the Border north of Carlisle. The result was the disaster of Solway Moss, the most melancholy affair in Scottish military annals.
James himself did not accompany his army, but remained at Lochmaben. It was thus without a responsible commander, and not apparently until the last moment was it announced that the King’s choice was Sir Oliver Sinclair, Standard-Bearer of Scotland. The effect was disastrous. The nobles present were exasperated at being placed under a mere knight, whose only distinction was that he was his master’s favourite, and the army became an incoherent mass of ill-disciplined contingents without a responsible head. In this condition the Scots were attacked by the English. Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy-Warden of the Western Marches, had collected 3,000 men at Carlisle; and informed by Thomas, a bastard Dacre, and ‘Jacke’ of Musgrave, of the state of the Scots, advanced against them.
The demoralized Scottish force was in a very dangerous position. Some miles behind them were the Esk and the dangerous bogs of Solway Moss. Their van was charged by a detachment of English cavalry and thrown into disorder, and then the whole army, as it seems, began to retreat in a huddled mass to the Esk. In vain the nobles present endeavoured to rally their followers, and dismounted to set them an example. ‘In a shake all the way,’ the demoralized Scots crowded back towards the only point of passage across the Esk, a narrow ford near the hill of Arthuret. The confusion grew worse and worse: prisoners were taken and men lost in the marshes. At the ford every trace of order was lost, and the English, making a final charge, thrust the army into the river and Solway Moss. The rout was piteous. Only twenty men are said to have been slain in fight, but hundreds were drowned and suffocated in the bogs; and 1,200 prisoners taken, including the unfortunate Sinclair, two earls, five barons, and hundreds of gentlemen. Twenty-four cannon, the Royal Standard of Scotland, and all the Scots’ baggage fell into the hands of the victors.