381. on O’. o’ may mean old.
62 follows 63.
168
FLODDEN FIELD
From Deloney’s Pleasant History of John Winchcomb, in his younger yeares called Jacke of Newberie, etc., London, 1633; reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, London, 1859, p. 48.
Printed in Ritson’s Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 115; Evans’s Old Ballads, 1810, III, 55.
A booke called Jack of Newbery was entered to Thomas Millington, March 7, 1597: Arber, Stationers’ Registers, III, 81. The edition of 1633, the earliest which Mr Halliwell-Phillipps had met with, was the ninth, published by Cuthbert Wright. The author has introduced several pieces of verse into his tale, two of them popular ballads, ‘The Fair Flower of Northumberland’ and this of Flodden, of which Deloney says, “in disgrace of the Scots, and in remembrance of the famous atchieved historie, the commons of England made this song, which to this day is not forgotten of many:” p. 47.
King James has made a vow to be in London on St James’s day. Queen Margaret begs him to keep faith with her brother Henry, and reminds him that England is hard to win; for which James says she shall die. Lord Thomas Howard, the queen’s chamberlain, comes to the defence of his mistress, but the king in his rage declares that he shall be hanged and she burned as soon as he comes back. But James never came back; he was slain at Bramstone Green with twelve thousand of his men.
1, 2. St James’s day is selected, as being the king’s. King James’s letter to King Henry is dated the 26th of July, the day following St James’s day, and the Scottish herald delivered it in France, and announced war to the king of England, in consequence of the unsatisfactory answer, on the 12th of August, or shortly before.
3–5. Queen Margaret’s remonstrance is historical. James, says Lindsay, would “give no credence to no counsel, sign nor token that made against his purpose, but refused all godly counsel which was for the weal of his crown and country; neither would he use any counsel of his wise and prudent wife, Margaret, queen of Scotland, for no prayer nor supplication that she could make him.... She assured him, if he past in England at that time, that he would get battle. Yet this wise and loving counsel could not be taken in good part by him, because she was the king of England’s sister.” Cronicles, 1814, p. 267 f.
6. The Earl of Surrey, uncle by marriage to Margaret Tudor, had the charge of escorting her to Scotland in 1503, and this is ground enough for the ballad’s making him her chamberlain ten years later.