Battle of Flodden (1513): James IV of Scotland Killed in Battle

The Battle of Flodden was fought on 9 September 1513 near Branxton in Northumberland, in the north of England, between an invading Scottish army under King James IV and an English army led by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. It ended in a crushing English victory. James IV was killed together with thousands of his soldiers and a large part of the Scottish nobility, making Flodden the largest battle, by numbers engaged, ever fought between the two kingdoms and one of the heaviest defeats in Scottish history.

Background: the Auld Alliance and a broken peace

Scotland and France had been allies against England since 1295, an arrangement Scots called the Auld Alliance. In 1502, however, James IV signed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Henry VII of England, and in 1503 he married Henry’s daughter, Margaret Tudor. For a decade the border was relatively quiet.

The peace weakened after Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509. Henry joined Pope Julius II’s Holy League against France, and relations with Scotland soured over border raids, unpaid parts of Margaret’s dowry and the killing of the Scottish sea captain Andrew Barton by English ships in 1511. In 1512 James renewed the alliance with France.

In June 1513 Henry VIII crossed to France with a large army. Louis XII appealed to James to strike at England, and Queen Anne of Brittany reportedly sent him a ring and a romantic plea to act as her champion. James sent a formal declaration of war to Henry, who was besieging Thérouanne. The Pope had threatened excommunication for anyone breaking the Anglo-Scottish treaty, and James was excommunicated for doing so.

The invasion and the armies

James crossed the River Tweed into England on 22 August 1513 with one of the largest armies ever raised in Scotland, probably 30,000 to 40,000 men at the start, though desertion and disease had reduced it by the day of battle. He brought a powerful train of heavy artillery, including great guns from Edinburgh Castle, and quickly took the English border castles of Norham, Etal and Ford.

Henry VIII had left England in the care of his queen, Catherine of Aragon, as regent. The defence of the north fell to Surrey, a veteran commander aged about seventy who had fought for Richard III on the losing side at Bosworth. He gathered an army of roughly 26,000 men from the northern counties at Newcastle and marched north, joined by his son Thomas Howard, the Lord Admiral, who brought soldiers and sailors from the fleet.

The two armies were differently equipped. On French advice, many Scots had been trained to fight in deep blocks of long pikes, the method used so successfully by Swiss infantry on the Continent. The English infantry mostly carried the bill, a shorter pole weapon with a hooked blade, supported by archers.

Manoeuvres before the battle

The Scots took up a very strong position on Flodden Edge, a ridge protected by marshy ground and the River Till. Surrey sent a herald proposing battle on Friday 9 September, but James refused to leave his position. Rather than attack uphill, Surrey made a bold flanking march. On 8 and 9 September his army crossed the Till, part of it at Twizel Bridge, and swung round to the north, placing itself between the Scots and the road home.

James responded by moving his army to Branxton Hill, a short distance to the north, which still gave him the high ground. Both armies drew up in several divisions facing each other across a shallow valley.

What happened on 9 September 1513

The fighting began in the late afternoon, around 4 p.m., with an exchange of artillery fire. The heavy Scottish guns, firing downhill from a height, did little damage, while the lighter English field guns were more effective in hitting the Scottish ranks.

On the Scottish left, the division of Lord Home and the Earl of Huntly charged down and routed the English right under Edmund Howard, Surrey’s younger son. The English line was steadied by a reserve of mounted Border troops under Lord Dacre, and Home’s men did not return to the main fight.

The main Scottish divisions, including the one led by the king in person, then advanced downhill in pike formation. At the bottom of the slope they met a small stream and boggy ground, and the pike blocks lost the tight order on which they depended. Once the formations broke up, the long pikes became a handicap, and the English billmen cut the heads off the pikes and attacked the men behind them. The fighting at close quarters was savage and lasted perhaps two to three hours.

On the Scottish right, the Highland division of the Earls of Argyll and Lennox was attacked in the flank by troops from Lancashire and Cheshire under Sir Edward Stanley, who had climbed the hill unseen, and it broke. James IV fought on foot in the front ranks and was killed, reportedly within a spear’s length of Surrey’s position. By nightfall the Scottish army had been destroyed.

The dead

The scale of the Scottish loss shocked contemporaries. Estimates of Scottish deaths are usually around 10,000, though figures from about 5,000 to 17,000 have been suggested. English losses were much lower, commonly put at around 1,500 and possibly more.

Among the Scottish dead were the king, his illegitimate son Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews, bishops and abbots, and a large share of the higher nobility, often counted as around nine to twelve earls and more than a dozen lords. Very few noble families in Scotland escaped without a death. The Scottish artillery was captured.

James’s body was recognised on the field, taken to Berwick and then south. Because he died excommunicate it could not be buried in consecrated ground. It was embalmed and kept at Sheen Priory in Surrey, and was later lost after the priory was dissolved in the English Reformation. Catherine of Aragon sent a piece of the king’s bloodstained surcoat to Henry VIII in France as proof of the victory.

Key people

• James IV of Scotland (1473–1513): an energetic Renaissance king who built up Scotland’s navy and artillery. His decision to fight at Flodden cost him his life.
• Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey (1443–1524): the English commander. His victory restored the family fortunes, and in 1514 he was made Duke of Norfolk.
• Catherine of Aragon: Henry VIII’s queen, regent of England during the campaign, who organised forces in support of Surrey.
• Lord Home: chamberlain of Scotland, whose division won the only Scottish success of the day but then stayed out of the battle, which later brought him suspicion.

Consequences

The new king, James V, was only seventeen months old. His mother, Margaret Tudor, became regent, and Scotland entered a long period of minority government and factional struggle. England did not follow up with a conquest, and the war petered out.

Flodden did not end the Auld Alliance, nor wars between the two kingdoms, which went on through the century. But it weakened Scotland for a generation. Through Margaret Tudor, James IV’s great-grandson James VI eventually inherited the English throne in the Union of the Crowns of 1603.

Myths and facts

• Myth: The battle was fought on Flodden Hill. Fact: The Scots camped on Flodden Edge, but the fighting took place around Branxton Hill to the north.
• Myth: The whole Scottish nobility died. Fact: The losses were enormous, but many nobles survived, among them Lord Home and the Earl of Huntly.
• Myth: James IV survived the battle. Fact: Rumours that he escaped circulated for years, but his body was identified by people who knew him.

Timeline

• 1502, 24 January: Treaty of Perpetual Peace between Scotland and England.
• 1503, 8 August: James IV marries Margaret Tudor.
• 1513, 30 June: Henry VIII lands at Calais to invade France.
• 1513, 22 August: James IV crosses the Tweed into England.
• 1513, 29 August: Norham Castle surrenders to the Scots.
• 1513, 9 September: Battle of Flodden; James IV is killed.
• 1514, 1 February: Surrey is made Duke of Norfolk.
• 1910: A granite memorial cross “to the brave of both nations” is raised on Piper’s Hill.

Why it matters

Flodden was the last time a reigning British monarch died in battle, and it was among the bloodiest days in Scotland’s history. It shaped Scottish politics for decades and is still remembered through the lament “The Flowers of the Forest” and the Border common ridings. Together with Bannockburn two centuries earlier, it stands as one of the defining battles of Anglo-Scottish history, fought in the reign of Henry VIII.