"Day set on Norham's castle steep
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates, where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow luster shone."
There is but a fragment of that castle remaining, and this, familiar to those who study Turner in the National Gallery. A little village with one broad street and curiously receding houses attempts to live in the shadow of this memory. The very red-stone tower has stood there at the top of the steep bank since the middle Eleven Hundreds. Henry II held it as a royal castle, while his craven son John—not so craven in battle—regarded it as the first of his fortresses. Edward I made it his headquarters while he pretended to arbitrate the rival claims of the Scottish succession, and to establish himself as the Lord Superior. On the green hill of Holywell nearby he received the submission of Scotland in 1291—the submission of Scotland!
Ford castle is a little higher up the river, where lodged the dubious lady with whom the king had dalliance in those slack days preceding Flodden—the lady who had sung to him in Holyrood the challenging ballad of "Young Lochinvar!" James was ever a Stewart, and regardful of the ladies.
"What checks the fiery soul of James,
Why sits the champion of dames
Inactive on his steed?"
The Norman tower of Ford (the castle has been restored), called the King's tower, looks down on the battlefield, and in the upper room, called the King's room, there is a carved fireplace carrying the historic footnote—
"King James ye 4th of Scotland did lye
here at Ford castle, A. D. 1513."
Somehow one hopes that the lady was not sparring for time and Surrey, and sending messages to the advancing Earl, but truly loved this Fourth of the Jameses, grandfather to his inheriting granddaughter.
Coldstream is the station for Flodden. But the village, lying a mile away on the Scotch side of the Tweed, has memories of its own. It was here that the most famous ford was found between the two countries, witness and way to so many acts of disunion; from the time when Edward I, in 1296, led his forces through it into Scotland, to the time when Montrose, in 1640, led his forces through it into England.
"There on this dangerous ford and deep
Where to the Tweed Leet's eddies creep
He ventured desperately."
The river was spanned by a five-arch bridge in 1763, and it was over this bridge that Robert Burns crossed into England. He entered the day in his diary, May 7, 1787. "Coldstream—went over to England—Cornhill—glorious river Tweed—clear and majestic—fine bridge."