Ancient Scottish Battles

Famous Scottish Battles

"Scots Wae Hae wi Wallace bled
Scots wham Bruce has aften led
Welcome tae yer gory bed
or tae victorie"

This verse, taken from 'Scots Wae Hae' by Robert Burns, adequately sums up Scotland's bloody past, by illustrating how fiercely proud and independent the Scots were when it came to fighting for their country.

Throughout Scotland's bloody past, there have been victories and losses on both sides. Over the last 2000 years of bloodshed, it is undoubted that Scotland has lost many battles, some more foolishly than others (see Flodden 1513), but over this vast history, Scotland has NEVER been conquered. The Romans failed, the Normans failed and even the English failed. Never once has Scotland been successfully invaded. This is due to the attitude of the Scots, and their determination never to give in. Scottish Timeline

Mons Graupius	(84 AD) 10,000 Picts and 340 Romans killed when Calgacus fought Agricola. Romans win!
Nechtansmere, Forfarshire	(20th May 685 AD) The Saxon King Egfrid is defeated by the Pictish King Nechtan. Egfrid is slain
Carham	(1018) King Malcolm the 2nd and Owen of Strathclyde defeated the Northumbrian army on the Tweed.
Battle of the Standard	(1138) King David defeated and 10,000 Scots killed by the Normans.
Largs	(1263) King Haaken of Norway and his fleet beaten by the Scot.
Dunbar	(1296) Edward I of England invades Scotland and defeats them at Dunbar.
Battle of Stirling Brig'	(11th September 1297) William Wallace (later Sir William) defeated the English.
Falkirk	(1298) William Wallace and his army defeated by Edward I.
Loudon Hill	(1307) One year after King Robert the Bruce is crowned, he meets his first defeat.
Bannockburn	(23-24th June 1314) The Scots under King Robert the Bruce win an essential battle against the English.
Halidon Hill	(1333) Edward the 3rd of England defeated the Scots.
Nevilles Cross	(1346) King David the 2nd defeated and captured by the English.
Otterburn	(1388) English defeated, Harry and Ralph Percy captured.
Homildon Hill	(1402) Northumberland, England - Scots defeated.
Harlaw	(1411) Donald Lord of the Isles was defeated by an army of Lowlanders.
Flodden	(1513) King James IV loses decisive battle against the English, and is killed on the field.
Pinkie	(1547) Duke of Somerset destroys the Scots, just outside Edinburgh.
Rullion Green	(1666) The Covenanters defeated by General Dalyell.
Killiecrankie	(27th July 1689) First of the Jacobite wars. General Mackay defeated by Viscount Dundee. Viscount Dundee is mortally wounded.
Dunkeld	(21st August 1689) With their leader dead, the Jacobites are defeated by the Coventers.
Sherrifmuir	(1715) Jacobites rise again for King James VIII, and meet the English at Sherrifmuir.
Glenshiel	(1719) Another failed attempt by the Jacobites ends in defeat by the Hanovarian's.
Prestonpans	(19th September 1745) Prince Charles Edward Stuart(Bonnie Prince Charlie) and his army defeat Sir John Cope to achieve the first Jacobite victory.
Falkirk	(17th January 1746) Jacobites defeat the English governments troops.

The Battle of the Standard

Date - 1138 AD
Combatants - King David I of Scotland .v. Prince Stephen of Northumbria
Setting - Northallerton, Northumbria, England
Description -

The Scots, since the reign of Malcolm Canmore (1058 - 1093) had been trying - in vain - to assert their claim on the lands known as Northumbria, in the North of England. This had been carried over to David's reign by way of duty. In 1138, David invaded England and was met by a body of Norman's at Northallerton. The Norman's standard emblem was a wagon with a mast, itself bearing religious standards.

The Scottish army numbered 26,000, but were 'ill formed'. There were 'lowlanders with long spears; men of Galloway with pikes only; men of Orkney and the Isles with their battle-axes; and Higlanders with their swords and small round shields'. Each attack they made was repelled and when a cry went up that David was slain there was further confusion.

Though baffled, David was not dead, and contrary to many other sources, it can be revealed that David was not totally defeated at this battle. He rallied his men and they wasted the English borders until Stephen gave up Northumbria. The rest of his reign was peaceful.

Battle of Largs

Date - 1st October 1263
Combatants - King Alexander III of Scotland .v. King Haakon of Norway
Setting - Largs, Scotland
Description -

Since the reign of King Kenneth MacAlpin(843 - 937), the Vikings had been attacking and raiding the outer isles of Scotland. By the 1260's, Alexander III was anxious to rid Scotland of the Vikings. After several spectacular raids against the Vikings, by 1263, they were left only with possession of Orkney and Shetland.

Angered at having lost another part of the Scottish isles (the Western Isles) to the Scots in August of that year, King Haakon set out to win them back. On October 1st, they landed at Largs, and were subjected to a ferocious assault from the Scots. The Norwegians eventually managed to get some backing from a couple of ships that managed to get to their aid with fresh troops. But after nightfall the weary Norwegians fled to their ships. Haakon had to ask for a truce to bury his dead. He left with the tattered remains of his once magnificent fleet, sailing round the isles which were now lost to Norway forever. One night, when they reached Orkney, he ordered the chronicles of his ancestors, the pirate Kings, to be read to him. Around midnight, as they were being recited, he died.

Battle of Dunbar

Date - 1296
Combatants - Guardians of Scotland .v. King Edward I of England (longshanks)
Setting - Dunbar, Scotland
Description -

Scotland, was divided into the Highlands north of Perth, and the Lowlands from Perth to the border, mostly garrisoned by the English army or Scottish lords who had been forced to give their allegiance to Edward the first, the English King. After the tragic death of King Alexander at Kinghorn, Edward the first, always cast an avaricious eye towards Scotland, his chance came after the demise of the little Maid of Norway.

No fewer than thirteen noble claimants to the crown of the northern kingdom had come forward; the land was threatened by vicious civil war.

The Lords of Scotland appealed to Edward that he might graciously arbitrate, he accepted, with gilded crown and chain in hand; the Lion would now adjudicate the Unicorn Edward as regal bearer of this self-sought Scottish manacle was more than willing to apply it; he demanded that on the 10th of May 1291, at his castle at Norham, the Lords of the north attend him. For the purpose of a hearing of the primary claimants, now reduced to eight. The long adjudication began, the Scottish people had desired a King with nothing but Celtic blood and one of undivided loyalty, this was declared the issue of Edward's mandate to arbitrate.

Weeks passed, and the finalists were reduced to the families of Balliol and Bruce.

The Scots Lords, now painfully aware of their feet on alien soil and a foreign king deciding the fate of their crown, silently watched as the two remaining claimants in turn swore to abide by Edwards's decision as their liege and sovereign Lord of the land.

Edwards's final favor fell upon his dependent John Balliol. With this choice the Unicorn was finally chained and the die cast for a suicidal war of escape from England's strangling chains. The smile on the teeth of the Lion was warm for his new Scottish subjects as John Balliol was crowned the puppet king at Scone on November the 30th, 1292. Edward removed the famous 'Stone of Destiny' and removed it to Westminster Abbey, where it remained for 700 years - being returned only recently. Dutifully, Balliol appeared later to do homage to Edward at Newcastle bearing with him the ancient seal of Scotland.

Shock however, attended the faces of his faithful followers as Edward took the old and regal seal in his hands and broke it into four pieces and ordered that they be placed in the English treasury as a token of his English dominion. This act gave Edward the first the legal right to Scotland under Norman Law. He asserted his domination by touring Scotland, removing relics that were special to Scotland, and subduing uprisings. Edinburgh castle was garrisoned with English troops for the first time in it's history.

However, Scotland's law even then, differed from English law, in that it was the people in the form of the Scottish parliament that made the law in Scotland and not just the King. Edward had always been aware that in order to rule and hold Scotland that he had to give lands in England to the Scottish nobles and effect marital unions between the daughters of Scottish noble families to his Norman English Lords, this was not acceptable to the Scottish nobility.

When a marriage was arranged between Balliol's son and the Count of Anjou's daughter, one of Edward's French enemies. Edward was so infuriated that he sent an English force into Scotland in 1296. Berwick was the first town in Scotland, Edward hung over 10,000 of its inhabitants from their own doorframes to show what he was capable of, giving a clear message to all that might oppose his will.

His army then moved to Dunbar to defeat a Scottish army and capture most of its leaders, which included Sir William St.Clair of Rosslyn, Sir Symon Fraser of Neidpath, Sir Gilbert Hay of Borthwick, and Sir Edward Ramsay of Dalhousie.

Edward made the captured Scottish nobles swear Fealty and allegiance to the English crown before they were released, this they did with tongue in cheek, and were allowed to return to their lands.

Battle of Stirling Brig'

Date - 11th September 1297
Combatants - William Wallace of Elderslie .v. Earl of Surrey (commander-in-chief of Scotland under Edward I)
Setting - Royal Burgh of Stirling, Scotland
Description -

First of all. Forget everything you've seen in Braveheart. Wallace's victory was not in a field, it was over a bridge - Stirling Bridge. This is the real account of what happened at the battle. This is quite a long report, so I've highlighted a few main point if you don't want to read the whole thing.

Stirling Brig

The beginning of the description Wallace goes into action as he hears of the English approach The account of the battle

With many of his Barons hostile, Edward was desperately trying to raise an army to use against France. This situation left him with no troops to send north against the Scots. He therefore decided to release several of the Scottish nobles he had been keeping prisoner since Dunbar. Among them were Alexander Comyn and the Earl of Buchan, who were released on the condition that they quell the disturbances.

When the nobles arrived north, they found the situation far worse then they had been told. They sent various letters to King Edward expressing their loyalty and hopes of success. In the meantime they actually did nothing and waited to see how matters turned out. They also made no effort to prevent their retainers from joining the rebels.

Wallace and Moray had not been idle. By the end of August they had captured Inverness, Elgin, Nabff, Aberdeen, Irvine, Fife and Dundee. The entire country of Scotland, north of the Firth of Forth, was in Scottish hands.

Finally, the Earl of Surrey, Edwards Viceroy in Scotland, decided he should do something. He was an elderly soldier who had learned over the years that hundreds of foot soldiers could be scattered by just a few mounted knights. He was convinced that with most of the Scottish nobility and therefore their knights either on the sidelines, in prison, or in the service of Edward, that he could wipe out the commoners of Wallace and Moray with ease. Gathering a large host of heavy horse and foot soldiers, he marched towards Sterling, which was they key to crossing the Forth, and therefore, the key to the North.

On hearing of this approach, Moray and Wallace joined forces and moved south to meet him and defend Stirling. Overlooking a loop in the Forth river, which was crossed only by a single bridge, was an abrupt rock called Abbey Craig, from which a small neck of ground led back to give safe retreat. Below the northern end of the bridge was an area of bogy ground almost entirely encircled by the forth. The Scots deployed their men upon the crag.,p The English were camped on the south side of the river. As no army of foot soldiers had ever prevailed against a large force of heavy cavalry, they were extremely self confident.

James Stewart and the Earl of Lennox were hovering on the outskirts with a troop of cavalry, uncertain weather to join Moray and Wallace. They didn't feel the Scots had much of a chance and were hesitant to risk their force. In an effort to prevent the annihilation of the countrymen, they approached the Earl of Surrey with the suggestion that they initiate a parlay. The earl agreed but Wallace and Moray refused. Two Dominican friars were then dispatched to Moray and Wallace with offers of generous treatment if they would yield. "Tell your commander", Wallace replied, "that we are not here to make peace but to do battle to defend ourselves and liberate out kingdom. Let them come and we shall prove this in their very beards."

At dawn on September 11, a party of English foot soldiers were sent over the narrow bridge but were recalled because the Earl had overslept. Hugh de Cressingham was fuming with impatience. He urged that no more time be wasted and the earl gave him the order to cross. He arrogantly led his cavalry across the bridge two by two.

When approximately half of his force had crossed the bridge, Wallace and Moray gave the signal to attack. The main force of the Scots fell upon the leading ranks on the causeway that lead from the bridge to the more solid ground some distance from the bridge. A hand picked detachment seized the bridgehead and began to cut away its timbers. Jostled from the causeway, the heavy horses of the armored knights plunged into the deep mire on either side, unable to move or charge, throwing their riders to the ground.

Painting of the Battle

Behind them the rest of the English army was powerless to help as the bridge was now destroyed. A massacre now took place. Hugh de Cressingham was flayed and pieces of his skin were sent throughout the country as tokens of defiance. Legend has it that Wallace had a baldrick made from a large piece of it.

The Earl of Surrey had not crossed the bridge, aghast at the carnage, he fled straight to the border. The foot soldiers and the baggage trains were not as fortunate. As they retreated, James Stewart and the Earl of Lennox, who were lurking in the woods on either side until they saw the outcome, fell upon the fleeing groups.

The effect was immediate, for the first time, commoners had defeated mounted knights. The dissenting barons were so shocked that immediately patched up their disagreements with the King.

Battle of Falkirk

Date - 1298
Combatants - Sir William Wallace (Guardian of Scotland) .v. King Edward I of England
Setting - Falkirk, Scotland Description -

After Wallace's victory at Stirling, he was knighted and given the title 'Guardian of Scotland'. Edward I, on the other hand, was in Flanders, hoping to secure new land for the English crown. On hearing of the defeat of his entire northern army, he headed home.He then marched north with 87,500 troops. Wallace could only muster about one third of that. When Edward arrived in Kirkliston, he considered retreating after he saw the Lothians had become a desert. However, two Scottish knights sent a message to him, betraying Wallace's whereabouts. The following day, Edward's army rode to Falkirk where they attacked the Scots. The Scottish knights also betrayed Wallace, turning and riding from the field at the vital moment. Like most of the Scottish nobles, they would rather have fought for the English where they believed chivalry was best served.

The Scots army suffered severe slaughter. The retreating body of Wallace's men was too small to hold Stirling and had to pass it by. There was little gain in Edward's victory, but he had defeated Wallace. On the banks of the River Forth, Wallace sadly renounced his guardianship. He was now an outlaw again.

Battle of Loudon Hill

Date - 1307
Combatants - King Robert the Bruce .v. King Edward I of England
Setting - Loudon, Scotland
Description -

After Wallace's execution in 1305, there was little hope for Scotland. Edward was making the final plans to merge Scotland into England. Edward was an old man though, and would not last much longer. In 1306, something happened that tore the very heart out of Edwards plan's. On the 27th March, 1306, Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and claimant to the throne of Scotland, crowned himself at Scone. As you can imagine, Edward I was outraged and immediately headed north to topple King Robert. At Loudon hill, King Robert met his first defeat. He was now an outlaw, forced to seek shelter wherever he could. Hardly befitting for a King.

Scotland would have been finished then and there if it wasn't for the greatest stroke of luck ever to happen to Scotland. On 7th July 1307, Edward marched north for the last time, his aim - to seek out Robert the Bruce. Thankfully, as he was just about to cross the border, he collapsed and died. If this hadn't of happened, then it is probable to conclude that Scotland would no have existed today.

Edward was replaced by his much weaker son (Edward II) who had no interest whatsoever of continuing the campaign in Scotland. The army returned home, and King Robert came out of hiding.

Battle of Bannockburn

Date - 23rd and 24th June 1314
Combatants - King Robert the Bruce of Scotland .v. King Edward II of England
Setting - Bannockburn, outside Stirling, Scotland
Description -

Bannockburn - Scotland's Greatest Battle!

By the time of the Battle of Bannockburn, the 23rd and 24th of June, 1314, the Scots had all but driven the king's forces back to England. Stirling Castle, the gateway to the Highlands, King Edward's last stronghold in Scotland, was under siege. The castle's weary governor agreed with Robert the Bruce's brother to surrender if the king's army did not relieve him by midsummer. Meeting the challenge, King Edward II assembled a heavily-armored fighting force, possibly as large as 100,000 men, but probably closer to 20,000. He did so, most likely, not only to save Stirling but to annihilate Robert the Bruce and re-occupy Scotland. To intercept the English army, Robert assembled a smaller less-heavily-armed force of only 6,000 men. The two armies met at Bannockburn, where, despite overwhelming odds, the Scots defeated the English. That dramatic victory paved the way for a free Scotland with Robert the Bruce as her king.

Robert the Bruce At one point during the evening before the battle of Bannockburn Bruce was riding on a pony with only a battle-axe as a weapon. An English knight, Sir Henry de Bohun, recognised the king by the gold coronet on his helmet and rode full speed at Bruce on his huge war-horse. Just as he closed in, Bruce turned his nimble pony aside and avoided the thrust of de Bohun's lance. Instantly, Bruce stood up full-height in his saddle and with one blow of his axe on de Bohun's helmet, felled him to the ground. The Scottish lords blamed Bruce for taking too much of a risk, but he only replied "I have broken my good battle-axe."

Before the Battle, Bruce spent two months training his army. He wanted to make sure his forces were mobile, since immobility had proved the undoing of the Scottish army under Wallace at Falkirk. He organized his horsemen into a light cavalry of about 500 (who faced the 2000 heavily armored English cavalry). There were 4 Scottish Divisions of foot soldiers, and a few archers from Ettrick Forest. It is claimed that the Camerons, Campbells, Chisholms, Frasers, Gordons, Grants, Gunns, Mackays, Mackintoshes, Macphersons, Macquarries, Macleans, MacDonalds, MacFarlanes, MacGregors, MacKenzies, Menzies, Munros, Robertsons, Ross, Sinclairs, and Sutherlands were there. Bruce prepared the battle field by digging rows of camouflaged pits and laying calthrops to maim the cavalry horses.

On the 23rd June, lightly armed Scots numbering 7,000 faced an English army of 20,000. The battle began. Bruce's army were drawn up in mighty 'shilterns' (as in Braveheart), to stop the cavalry charging at the undefended troops. The day passed without any real gains on either side. Bruce began to realize that he could lose this battle.

A painting of the Battle of Bannockburn

However, Bruce's luck did not desert him. During the night, the English changed their position, and Bruce, seeing this in amazement, realized at once that he had what he needed - a major tactical blunder. No one knows why Edward had moved his mighty force into a confined area of marshland, but Bruce exploited the error to the full. Both armies fought valiantly all that second day, but it ended at last in a bloody and disastrous rout of the English. Eventually, it turned into a massacre, as the fleeing English were cut down defenseless. Edward was lucky to escape.

But the story continues. By the time of the Battle of Bannockburn, June 1314, the Scots had all but driven the king's forces back to England. Stirling Castle, the gateway to the Highlands, King Edward's last stronghold in Scotland, was under siege. The castle's weary governor vowed to surrender if the king's army did not relieve him by midsummer. Meeting the challenge, Edward assembled a heavily-armored fighting force, possibly as large as 100,000 men, but probably closer to 20,000. He did so, most likely, not only to save Stirling but to annihilate Robert the Bruce and occupy Scotland. To intercept the English army, Robert assembled a smaller less-heavily-armed force of only 8,000 men. The two armies met at Bannockburn, where, despite overwhelming odds, the Scots defeated the English. That dramatic victory paved the way for a free Scotland with Robert the Bruce as her king.

What about the secret history?

The Battle of Bannockburn took place on Saint John's Day, June 24, a day of particular importance to the Knights Templar. But accounts of the battle leave much to be desired. Even the location stands in question. Historians agree, though, that the English vastly outnumbered the Scots, and that the Scottish army consisted mostly of pikemen, with relatively few horsemen. Furthermore, those horsemen could have been no match for Edward's heavily-armored knights. The amazing Scottish victory, then, rests on a mysterious event.

During the battle, with all Scottish units engaged between Bannockburn (burn means stream) and the River Forth, something strange happened. A fierce charge erupted with banners flying from the Scottish rear. Historians describe the charge as consisting of camp-followers, even children, non-combatants whom the English somehow mistook for a fierce fighting unit. The charge, history tells us, arose spontaneously from the camp-followers who made banners from sheets and gathered weapons from the dead and wounded. Incredibly, this charge, which by necessity would have been launched on foot, inspired such fear among the armored English knights, who were mounted, that they fled en masse.

This almost romantic history appeals to Scottish patriotism. It is the stuff of legends, or of Braveheart II. The idea, however, of unmounted peasants driving off a massive English army does not appeal to common sense. That the charge swept panic through the English ranks, though, seems clear. King Edward and 500 of his knights fled the battlefield followed by his foot soldiers. And while some accounts speak of slaughter, chronicled English losses were slight. The rout appears then to have resulted from sheer panic alone.

The Temple and the Lodge by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh points convincingly to the mysterious attackers at Bannockburn as having been the Knights Templar, easily recognized by their banners and splayed crosses, the only fighting force of the time that could have inspired such fear and confusion. The authors demonstrate that many Templars fled to Scotland while the Inquisition hunted them down all over Europe. And at Bannockburn, where a mounted Scottish charge is known to have occurred, the victorious Scots marched behind an Ark-shaped receptacle known as the Monymusk Reliquary, a model of the Temple of Solomon which figures prominently in the Templar tradition.

It took another 15 years until the English finally recognized Scottish independence by form of the Treaty of Northumberland 1328. However, this battle was a substantial victory for Scotland, and it showed the English invaders that Scotland would not be dominated. More

Battle of Otterburn

Date - 19th August 1388
Combatants - Earl of Douglas (the Black Douglas) of Douglas, Scotland .v. Sir Henry Percy of Northumbria
Setting - Otterburn, Northumbria, England
Description -

This battle was in reply to an English raid of three years previous. This time, the Scots were a more powerful force. The Earl Douglas, with 300 lances and 2000 infantrymen advanced as far as Durham to return laden with booty. In Newcastle, Douglas took the greatest prize - or loss- to a knight; the pennon of Northumberland's Sir Henry Percy. Douglas boasted he would place it on his tower in Dalkeith. Percy vowed it would never leave Northumberland, and Douglas challenged him to take it from his tent that night if he dared.

The English barons restrained Percy from such a foolhardy attempt. They suspected it to be a trap leading them into an ambush by a supporting army of Scots, for they had no intelligence as to the size of the Douglas' force.

However, on the 19th August, both sides met and fought in the moonlight. During the course of the battle, the Earl of Douglas, who was in the thick of the battle, suddenly fell to the ground with three spears protruding from his body. He was dragged to safety, and away from the sight of his troops. There, dying, he instructed his second-in-command - his son the next Earl of Douglas - to shout the Douglas war cry ('A Douglas, A Douglas !!'), and press forward into the battle again. This was done, and on hearing the war cry, Douglas' troops plunged forward and drove the English back. Sir Henry Percy was captured and the Scots won the battle. That is how - 'a dead man won the fight'!

The Battle of Flodden
September 9, 1513

King James IV of Scotland was killed, along with a very large number Scots of all ranks, including George Sinclair of Keiss, Earl of Caithness. Hardly a household in the land was spared loss. Shortly afterwards, Jane Elliott wrote the poem "Flowers of the Forest," which has since traditionally been used to commemorate newly deceased relatives.

from History of Scotland
John Hill Burton
Historiographer-Royal for Scotland
Vol III pages 73-79

King James issued summonses to the feudal force all over the land to gather at the Boroughmuir of Edinburgh-the ground now covered by the suburb called Morningside. It is hardly possible to believe what the chroniclers tell us, that a hundred thousand men in fighting condition assembled there, knowing, as we do, that the cause in which they met was not popular. All contemporary testimonies to the passing events enlarge eloquently on the persuasives and influence borne in upon the king to turn him from his unhappy purpose, but all in vain. Stories were afterwards remembered of portents and prophecies-stories which perhaps took their color from the gloomy events which they professed to have foreshadowed. A visionary seer appeared before him, while he was at his devotions in the church of Linlithgow, who, after a solemn warning to him to desist from his purpose and abjure the counsel of women, vanished into the world of spirits, whence he had come.

At the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, at dead of night, a herald from the other world, after the form and fashion in which the assemblages of the kings host were proclaimed, summoned by name a muster-roll of the Scots gentry to appear before his master in the other world; and it was afterwards said that the names so called over were all names of persons who fell in the battle that followed, save one who heard the proclamation, and refused on the spot to give obedience to it.

The army entered England in August 1513, and encamped in the neighborhood of the Till and Tweed. The opportunity was taken to pass an Act for dispensing with the usual feudal taxes on succession in favor of the heirs of those who might be slain in the war-it was common to pass such measures after, but not before a great battle. The Castle of Norham was attacked and easily taken, strong as it was, by such a force, plentifully supported with artillery - and the small Castle of Werk followed.

These were poor achievements for a great army; but the next, which was the siege of the castle or fortified house of Ford, was followed by heavy charges against the king. It is said that, fascinated by the attractions of the Lady Ford, he forgot the heavy responsibilities of the leader of a large army, and wasted several days in dalliance. The Scots chronicles describe the character and conduct of the lady with a blunt coarseness that leaves nothing to imagination or suspicion; and if what they thus say be true, it is easy to believe the further charge that she carried to Surrey, the English commander, all the information she gathered through the spell she cast over her new admirer.

Meanwhile provisions began to run short. Such an army carried no regular commissariat with it. The feudal array, as they were obliged to attend the host for a given period, had also to find their own provisions. The region they were in was barren, and the hostile army gathering on English ground would have defeated the old resource of sending plundering parties southwards. The Scots thus scattered in multitudes to fetch provisions from their own distant homes. Many of them did not return. Thus the great host decreased, but it is reported to have still numbered some fifty thousand. With these the king took up a strong position on the crest of Flodden, a gentle rising ground strengthened by the river Till, a deep stream with high broken banks. With Surrey challenge and acceptance had been exchanged, after the fashion rather of the arrangement of a passage at arms, where all advantages are abandoned, than the preparation for a battle. Surrey sent a herald to remonstrate against the position taken up, as being "more like a fortress or camp" than the "indifferent ground " on which a fair battle could be waged- The herald who brought this got no access to the king, so that Surrey had to take his place and tempt the king to leave his advantage. Descending by the right bank of the Till he reached Twisel Bridge, and there, by a tedious process, brought over his army in a narrow file -a portion, it is said, getting over by an adjoining ford.

The standing reproach against King James is that, as a general, he did not bring his army down by the left bank of the river, and attack the English before they had all crossed and formed on his own side.

He would then have repeated-and probably with like success-the tactic of Wallace at Stirling Bridge; but the objects of the two commanders were quite different. Wallace's was to save his country by destroying an invading army; King James, wanted a stand-up fight, that he might display his prowess: the one was in eamest-the other, it may be said, in sport. Hence he flung back with scorn the advice of Angus and the other veterans, whose aim had ever been in the old wars to make the most of the opportunity. It is said that Borthwick, the commander of the artillery, besought leave to cannonade the bridge while the English passed, but only got a peremptory refusal. Here, however, it must be remembered that Twisel Bridge is in a straight line at least four miles distant, and probably by any practicable road was six miles distant from the eminence of Flodden; and if the army did not move down in force it might not have been easy to protect artillery within range of the English army,

Surrey formed his order of battle on the plain called Brankstone, and the Scots descended to meet him there; whence in the English dispatches the battle of Flodden, as it came afterwards to be named, is called the battle of Brankstone. The English are described as ranged in two battles or squadrons, subdivided so as to make virtually four, while the Scots were divided into five.

The fighting began at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th of September. There was in this battle no one conspicuous false tactic giving emphasis to the result, like the rash charge of the cavalry at Bannockburn, or the array of -archers at Halidon. It was sheer hard fighting on both sides, with a general equality; but there were circumstances which made it in the end tell heavily against the Scots. For the first time, at least in later warfare, a Highland force fought along with a Lowland, and probably was not handled according to the right method of dealing with such a force, the action of which is not steady, like that of the Lowland spear men and axe men, but the rapid rush, and immediate retreat if this is ineffective. The rush was beaten back by the heavy columns of the English, and in its retreat brought confusion among the Scots. King James had with him a fine park of artillery, with some guns of caliber unprecedented; but they seem to have been too heavy to be worked by the engineering skill o@ the day, leaving the English bow as the deadlier weapon. The commander of the Scots artillery, indeed, was killed at the beginning of the battle. The great misfortune, however, was that the Scots were led by a champion bent on feats of personal prowess rather than by a general. The king was in front fighting with his own hand, thus signally justifying what the Spanish ambassador had said of him. With the true spirit of the soldier, the flower of the army gathered round him and took their share in the result of his lamentable blunder. Thus the chief gentry of Scotland were gathered into a cluster for slaughter. Leaders were drawn from their posts, and their followers,. left to themselves, were broken and dispersed. Ten thousand of the Scots were reported to the English Court as ' killed. The king himself fell close to the English commander, to whom he seems to have been fighting his way in the hope of a personal combat. His body was conveyed to Berwick, and thence to London.

From other battles Scotland has suffered more unhappy political results, but this was the most disastrous of all in immediate loss. As a calamity rather than a disgrace, it has ever been spoken of with a mournful pride for the unavailing devotedness which it called out. The soldier has ever one alternative for the protection of his honor amidst the direst disaster,-death on the field; and this alternative was cheerfully chosen. It was reported to the Court of England that of the Scots army but one man of note-the Lord Home-remained alive; and long afterwards it was said that you could not point to a worshipful family in Scotland that did not own a grave on Brankstone Moor.

caltrop or calthrop - an iron ball with four projecting spikes so disposed as when the ball is on the ground one of them always points upward: used to obstruct the passage of calvary.