for
"War's the Borderer's game,
Their gain, their glory, their delight,
To sleep the day, maraud the night,
O'er mountain, moss, and moor."
Flodden Field
There, too, were the Celts, with savage eyes looking out wildly through red and sable hair, with sinewy frames and legs bare above the knees, their chiefs known by the eagle's plumage. They wore the skin of the red deer, a graceful bonnet, and a plaid hung from the shoulders, and carried as weapons a broadsword, a dagger, and quivers, bows, and shafts.
The Isles-men, too, were there, carrying the ancient Danish battle-axe. While the army was mustering together, James feasted the chiefs in Holyrood Palace, for at dawn they were to march southward.
"Well loved that splendid monarch aye
The banquet and the song,
By day the tourney, and by night
The merry dance, traced fast and light,
The maskers quaint, the pageant bright,
The revel loud and long.
This feast outshone his banquets past;
It was his blithest and his last."
And hazel was his eagle eye,
And auburn of the darkest dye,
His short curl'd beard and hair.
Light was his footstep in the dance,
And firm his stirrup in the lists;
And oh! he had that merry glance,
That seldom lady's heart resists."
Yet no fair lady was as dear to James as his own Queen Margaret, who sat alone in the tower of Linlithgow weeping for the war against her native country, and for the danger of her lord.
On the morrow, James marched south, crossed the Tweed, and encamped on the banks of the Till, near Twisel Bridge. The Scottish army moved down the side of the Tweed to Flodden Hill taking Norham Castle, and the Border towns of Etal, Wark, and Ford. Much time was wasted in these petty enterprises, time which should have been spent in marching to Newcastle before the English were prepared to offer resistance. When the castle of Ford was stormed, Lady Heron, wife of Sir William Heron, then a prisoner in Scotland, was taken, and this beautiful and artful woman induced James to idle away his time until all chance was lost of defeating the enemy.
The army suffered severely from want of provisions, and many of the Highlanders and Isles-men returned home, many who had come only for booty, deserted, and the numbers were reduced to about thirty thousand.