The Coming of War
On 9 September 1513, 34-year-old King James IV of Scotland, the last British monarch to die in battle, met his end at Flodden in one of the bloodiest encounters in the long centuries of conflict between England and her northern neighbour.
The origins of the battle lay in the ambitions of King Henry VIII. Newly established on the English throne, the young monarch was anxious to enhance his prestige and gain military glory at the expense of England's traditional foe, France. Having joined the Holy League against King Louis, on 30 June 1513 Henry set sail for England's continental outpost of Calais at the head of a splendidly equipped army of some 24,000 men to join forces with the Emperor Maximillian in an invasion of France.
But Henry's action triggered hostilities nearer home. King James IV of Scotland, though he had attempted for several months to avert the looming conflict, was pledged to support his country's long standing French ally. Whilst hoping for peace, the Scottish monarch had also been preparing for war. English suspicions of Scottish intentions were heightened by evidence that James had been purchasing pikes, armour and gunpowder from the Low Countries, and that French military 'advisers' had been despatched to train the Scots in Continental tactics, particularly the use of the pike. On 22 May a formal military alliance was signed between France and Scotland. The stage was set for a major trial between the pike-armed phalanx, employed with great success by practitioners such as the Swiss, and the traditional English arms of longbow and bill.
Before leaving for France, the King had entrusted the defence of his English realm to 70-year-old Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, with the warning: 'My lord, I trust not the Scots, therefore I pray you be not negligent.' The advice was hardly needed, for there was no more experienced a soldier in England than the Earl of Surrey. His military career extended back to the Wars of the Roses, when he had fought at Bosworth for Richard III against King Henry's father. Despite his old allegiance, Surrey became one of the most trusted servants of the new Tudor dynasty, and, though age and infirmity now forced the arrogant, tough old soldier to travel by carriage instead of on horseback, his vast experience and noted guile would render him a formidable opponent.
Surrey and the English Council of State, headed by Queen Katherine, were at first uncertain of enemy intentions. The Scots might limit themselves to border raids, but it quickly became clear that James had a more ambitious strategy. Noted for his chivalry, and his relatively liberal outlook, the Scottish King was determined to honour his alliance with King Louis, and had already promised that if Henry invaded France he would take such actions as would 'make him glad to return.'
Despite extravagant claims made for propaganda purposes by James, and repeated by some later writers, Scottish military aims in 1513 were strictly limited. Now equipped with a powerful artillery train, James planned to repeat his earlier strategy: besiege and capture Norham and other English border garrisons, and, if all went well, bring Surrey to battle in an advantageous situation and inflict on him a reverse that would divert English efforts from France. Believing England's best troops to be on the Continent, James might never have a better opportunity to demonstrate his military prowess.
An earlier action at Millfield had confirmed Surrey's feeling that major hostilities with Scotland were imminent. Heading north to Pontefract with his own small force of household troops, the Earl summoned a Council of War of the leading gentry of the North of England, and issued orders for them to be prepared to muster their tenants at one hour's notice, with a relay of post horses in readiness to carry news to London and the further parts of England.
Rather than mustering his forces prematurely, with the risk that he would be forced to disband through lack of supplies before Scottish intentions became clear, Surrey instead instructed the Constable of Norham to be ready to fight a delaying action, and continued to sift the conflicting reports which reached him from Scotland. Though rumour credited the Scots army mustering on Borough Moor near Edinburgh with 100,000 men, its actual strength of 30-40,000 troops, coupled with its train of artillery and the leavening of experience provided by the French contingent under the Compte d'Aussi and numbering 50 men at arms and 40 captains, which was formidable enough.
The Campaign
On 22 August the Scottish invasion began, with considerable initial success. Wark Castle fell after two days, and the Scots moved against Norham. Despite its commander's boasts that he would hold out until Henry had returned from France, Norham, battered by Scottish guns and hit by successive waves of assaulting troops, surrendered on 29 August, and on 3 September nearby Etal Castle succumbed after a brief bombardment.
News of the Scottish invasion reached Surrey at Pontefract on 25 August, and: 'in the foulest night and day there could be,' he hastened north via York, Durham and Newcastle, picking up reinforcements and the moral support of the fabled Banner of St Cuthbert from Durham Cathedral, and arrived at Alnwick on 3 September. Here Surrey rendezvoused with contingents of levies from all parts of the North of England. Most welcome was a contingent from the English fleet, consisting of about 928 men-at-arms and 300 archers, led by his son, the Lord Admiral, Thomas Howard. A small dark man, 'wyse, hardy and of greate credence and experience', Howard had gained a notable reputation in operations against the French coast, and probably played a key role in events of the coming days. Besides Howard's contingent, Surrey mustered some 11,500 men, mostly mounted billmen and archers, with a few demi-lances. Also coming in as reinforcements were 6,500 similarly equipped troops from Lancashire and Cheshire under Sir Edward Stanley, giving Surrey in all about 20,000 men.
Before setting out from Alnwick to confront the invader, Surrey re-organised his army. It was formed into two main divisions, or 'battles', each supported by two smaller formations known as 'wings'. The exact strength of each division is unknown, but the 'vaward' under the Admiral seems to have been the strongest, with perhaps 7,000 men, whilst Surrey's 'battle' may have totalled up to 5,000.
As Surrey may have learnt from intelligence sources, King James was by now facing problems. His levies had expected to serve for no more than forty days, and, supporting the idea that only a short campaign had been planned, the contracts of the professional gunners manning the Scottish artillery would shortly expire. Many of the King's senior commanders felt that they had now fulfilled their obligations to the French, and favoured returning home, and this opinion was expressed in more practical form by an unknown, but evidently significant, number of their men who deserted. And although supplies were for the moment adequate, maintaining the army in the field would soon become a problem.
On Monday 5 September, Surrey began a cautious advance towards Bolton, about eight miles from the current Scots position. At the same time he sent King James a formal challenge to battle on the following Friday, which was apparently accepted. However the Scots King, whatever chivalric statements he made for public consumption, perhaps hearkening to his French advisers, had no intention of fighting at a disadvantage. Surrey discovered on 7 September that the Scots army was drawn up in a strong defensive position on Flodden Hill, protected by marshy ground which would crowd any English attack onto a narrow frontage overlooked by the Scots guns.
Approach to Battle
Early on 8 September, in continuing foul weather, the entire English army marched some eight miles directly north to Barmoor Wood, which lay to the east of Flodden Hill. Next day, probably at Thomas Howard's suggestion, it was decided to cross the River Till and swing westwards in order to threaten the Scots position from the rear. It was a high-risk strategy, which left the road into England open to James, and Surrey possibly trapped with his back to the River Tweed. Nevertheless, it also placed the English squarely between the Scots and home, and Surrey and his commanders probably calculated that this would be unacceptable to James' levies.
As the English mounted columns, headed by the Admiral's division, crossed the River Till at Milford and Twizel Bridge, they were dangerously vulnerable to a flank attack, but the Scots, although the first stages of the enemy movement must have been partially visible from Flodden Hill, remained inactive. It may be that they were uncertain of Surrey's intentions, believing him to be heading for Berwick in order to re-supply. Equally possibly, divisions in the Scots Council of War, which were a feature of the campaign, again surfaced, paralysing decision-making at a critical moment. By mid-morning, however, it had become apparent that the English objective was 300-foot-high Branxton Hill, about a mile north of Flodden Hill, where they would block the Scots line of retreat and force them to assault a formidable defensive position.
James ordered his men to about-face and occupy Branxton Hill first. With the movements of both sides partially obscured by smoke from burning refuse in their abandoned camp, the Scots army, marching in five colums, four roughly in line abreast and one in reserve, headed north, and reached the crest of Branxton Hill ahead of their opponents.
It would still have been possible for James to have reverted to his defensive strategy, and again await an English attack in a position of advantage, and he has frequently been criticised for ensuing events.
However, the prospect which greeted the leading Scots troops as they crested Branxton Hill at about 2pm seemed ripe with opportunity. The English army had become considerably strung out in crossing the River Till, with the result that the Admiral's division was perhaps a mile and a half ahead of the rest, and further disordered by crossing boggy ground in the valley of the Pallin Burn. If James moved quickly enough, he might be able to destroy his opponents piecemeal.
Approaching Branxton Church, Thomas Howard sighted enemy columns massing on Branxton Hill, and sent a desperate message to his father, urging haste. At the same time he halted his own advance at the foot of the hill. As Surrey's division came up it gradually deployed on Howard's left, but for almost two hours the English remained dangerously vulnerable to attack.
James proved unable to grasp the opportunity. The massive Scottish columns were both slow-moving and difficult to deploy. By the time that James had brought up the bulk of his troops, at about 4pm, the English were prepared to receive them.
The Armies Arrayed
The Scots, by this time possibly totalling about 30,000 men, were deployed on the crest of Branxton Hill, with four columns forward, about 200 yards apart, and some of their lighter guns probably stationed in the intervals. On the left was the division, perhaps 3,000 strong, commanded by the Earls of Home and Huntley, consisting of Borderers, some of whom had been involved in the defeat at Millfield, and levies from the Aberdeen area. Next came the larger column led by the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, consisting of up to 5,000 levies from Perth, Forfar and Fife. King James himself, marching under his banner of St Andrew, commanded probably the largest division, formed from the men of Stirling, Linlithgow and the Lothians. As with the divisions to his left, James and his nobles and gentry, in their full plate armour, formed the first rank of the column, with the more lightly equipped levies in up to 20 ranks to their rear. On the right of the Scottish line was the division led by the Earl of Argyll. Consisting mainly of Highlanders, more lightly equipped than the remainder of the army, this was the least effective of the Scots divisions.
Some distance to the rear, and perhaps still moving up, was a fifth column, of about 1,500 men, under the Earl of Bothwell, consisting of his own and some Lothian men, together with the French men-at-arms.
The English army was deployed about 600 yards away, along a lower ridge which ran parallel to Branxton Hill, just to the south of Branxton village. Surrey had amended his original organisation so that his army now formed four divisions corresponding to those of the Scots, with a small reserve of Border horse. On the right was the division which had originally been one of the wings of the 'vaward', but now consisting of about 3,000 mainly Lancashire and Cheshire levies under Sir Edmund Howard, Surrey's younger son. To its left, perhaps 7,000 strong, was the division led by Thomas Howard, the Lord Admiral, consisting of his men from the fleet and the Durham levies. Next, with about 5,000 men, was Surrey's own division, now termed the 'rearward'. As well as Surrey's household troops it included about 3,000 Yorkshire troops, with a small Lancashire contingent under Sir John Stanley. On Surrey's flank the English main line was completed by Sir Edward Stanley's division of about 3,000 Lancashire and Cheshire men. Surrey's artillery was positioned in the intervals of his divisions. The reserve, of about 2,000 Borderers under Lord Dacre, may have included both mounted and dismounted troops. They were of decidedly mixed quality, a number having already slipped off to steal the horses that the dismounted English army had left in the rear.
The Battle Begins
Proceedings opened with an generally ineffective exchange of artillery fire. It has been suggested that the English cannon fire stung the Scots into launching a piecemeal assault, but it seems more likely that James had always intended a general attack, to be delivered, according to accepted Continental tacics, by the columns in echelon, starting from the left, but which rapidly became disorganised. James himself was condemned both at the time and later, for his decision to place himself in the front rank of one of the attacking columns. In 1497 the French ambassador had noted of the King: 'He is courageous, even more than a king should be. I have seen him often undertake the most dangerous things . . . he is not a good captain, because he begins to fight before he has given his orders. He said to me that his subjects serve him with their persons and goods, in just and unjust quarrel, exactly as he likes, and that therefore he does not think it right to begin any warlike undertaking without being the first in danger.' It was, of course, still the expected role of a monarch to demonstrate active leadership in battle, and it was claimed by Tudor propagandists that Henry VIII had to be dissuaded by his councillors from similar involvement at the battle of the Spurs. It is also unclear, once his initial dispositions had been made and fighting begun, what significant influence on the conduct of the battle James could have had if he had remained aloof from the fray.
The pike phalanx relied for its effectiveness on keeping its formation and the impetus of its assault. The Scots advance was certainly hindered by the slippery descent down Branxton Hill, followed by a 200 yard ascent to the English-held ridge, and to some extent by enemy archery and artillery fire, some of whose shots brought down eight or nine men at a time in the close-packed Scots ranks. But it seems likely that the effects have sometimes been exaggerated. The English guns cannot have fired many shots in the relatively short time it took the Scots to advance 600 yards, whilst the bowmen were hindered both by firing into a strong wind and by the damp conditions which had slackened their bow strings. Their fire also fell mainly on the well-armoured front ranks of the Scottish column.
Certainly the impetus of Home's Borderers was little affected. First to make contact, they fell on Edmund Howard's division. Many of Howard's men quickly broke under the onslaught, although Sir Edmund himself and some of his men fought on desperately around his standard, until rescued by an opportune countercharge by Lord Dacre and those of his Border horse that had not fled at the first sound of cannon fire. Howard and his survivors reformed on the flank of the Admiral's division, now locked in its own fierce contest.
Observers noted the discipline with which the two centre Scots columns, of Crawford and Montrose and King James, advanced: 'in good order, after the Almayn's manner, without speaking a word.' Few details are known of the engagement between the Admiral and Crawford's column, except that, possibly aided by the uneven ground, and possible superiority of numbers, the English held their ground against the first shock of the attack, and a fierce struggle began, in which the Admiral ordered that no quarter be given.
Very shortly afterwards the King's column came into contact with Surrey's division, which recoiled under the impact for perhaps 300 yards. Then the English rallied and the Scots column came to a halt.
Bloodbath
A new phase of the battle now began. If the initial assault of a phalanx failed to break its opponent, its long pikes were ineffective in close-quarter hand-to-hand fighting. 'Disappointed of their long spears upon which they relied', the leading Scots ranks fell on with maces and swords. However, they quickly found themselves at a disadvantage against the more lightly armoured and mobile English billmen and halberdiers, who handled their weapons with a deadly skill the Scots proved unable to match. In savage combat, the slower moving plate-armoured men of the leading Scots ranks found themselves engaged individually by teams of two or three English billmen, working in close co-operation: 'who did beat and hew them down with some pain and danger to Englishmen, [for] these fellows [the Scots] were such large, strong men, that they would not fall when four or five bills struck them.' It was brutal bloody fighting, in which the packed Scots ranks proved at a disadvantage, for as the men of the first ranks fell dead or wounded or became exhausted, it was very difficult for the less well-armed men in the rear to move up to replace them.
The impetus of his assault lost, and Crawford's column possibly already breaking, King James urgently needed support. As we have seen, Home's column had broken Edmund Howard's men, but the Borderers failed to follow up their success. Various reasons have been suggested for this, including Home's reputed refusal to move against the flank of the Admiral's division with the comment: 'He does best that does for himself', and rumours of a tacit deal done with Dacre's Borderers. Although Home was afterwards made a scapegoat for the Scots defeat, and accused of treachery, it is difficult to see what advantage he could thus have gained. It is more likely that, with a number of leaders casualties in the first engagement, he was unable to rally his loosely disciplined men in time to intervene before the outcome in the centre – Home's view of which was in any case largely hidden by the Piper's Hill ridge – had been decided.
Some at least of Bothwell's men managed to join up with the King's column, but James' men were in increasing difficulties as the Admiral's division, having broken Crawford's column, began to turn against their left flank. Worse was about to follow.
On the far Scot's right the advance of Argyll's column, intended to be the last to hit the enemy, seems to have been particularly disrupted and slowed by the uneven ground. This was fortunate for the English, as the opposing division of Sir Edward Stanley was the last to form up. Argyll does not actually seem to have made contact with Stanley's main force, whose archery may have had more effect on the lightly armoured Highlanders than was the case elsewhere, and may have been preparing to move in support of the King when he was hit by a flank attack by part of Stanley's division concealed by the uneven ground. Already wavering after the loss of several of their chieftains to enemy fire, the Highlanders broke and fled, and Stanley was free to turn against the right flank and rear of James' column.
Isolated and under attack from all sides, the fate of the King's column was sealed. James' men died hard. Gradually pushed back into a clump around the Standard of St Andrew they fought on grimly. An English writer agreed that the Scots: 'fought manly, and were determined either to win the field or to die, they were also as well appointed as was possible at all points with arms and harness, so that few of them were slain with arrows, how be it the bills did beat and hew them down with some pain and danger to Englishmen.'
It is not clear when King James fell. As the body later rather uncertainly identified as his, with an arrow wound to the face and several bill injuries, was found just in front of Surrey's original position, he may have been struck down quite early in the battle. In any event, by the time dusk put an end to further fighting, with the effective destruction of the King's division, the English, though they were not fully aware of it until daylight, had won a resounding victory. Home's division, which had remained in the vicinity during the night, retreated at dawn, leaving Surrey's men to take possession of the abandoned Scots artillery.
Aftermath
As well as their King, the Scots had lost the flower of their nobility and up to 10,000 other dead. English losses were in the region of 1,500.
The bloodbath of Flodden did not end the conflict, as raid and counter-raid continued along the Anglo-Scots border, but the first great contest between pike, bow and bill had resulted in a decisive success for the latter weapons. More importantly for King Henry, with the threat from his northern neighbour effectively removed, he was free to pursue the chimera of military glory in France.
by John Barratt
Suggested reading
Burne, A. H, Battlefields of England, (London, 1951)
Cornish, Paul and McBride, Angus, Men at Arms 191: Henry VIII's Army, (Osprey Publishing, 1991)
Cruickshank, Charles, Henry VIII and the Invasion of France, (Stroud, 1990)
Durham, Keith and Mc Bride, Angus, Men at Arms 279: Border Reivers, (Osprey Publishing, 1995)
Elliot, Fitzwilliam, The Battle of Flodden and the Raids of 1513, (Tonbridge, 1991)
Mackay, Mackenzie W. The Secret of Flodden, (London 1931)
Miller, Douglas, Men at Arms 94: The Swiss, 1300-1500, (Osprey Publishing, 1976)
Miller, Douglas and Embleton, Gerry, Men at Arms 94: The Swiss, 1300-1500 (Osprey Publishing, 1979)
Oman, Charles, A History of War in the Sixteenth Century, (London, 1987)
Phillips, Gervase, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-1550, (Woodbridge, 1999)
About the author
John Barratt has a lifelong interest in military history, especially of the 16th and 17th centuries, and has contributed articles to a number of journals. He is also the author of Cavaliers: the Royalist Army at Warto be published by Sutton in 2000.