BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT. 29 Scots had all the advantage of the higher ground, a great wind in their favour, and a sudden shower of rain which damped the English bow-strings. They fought manly, and were determined either to win the field or to die.' They were well equipped at all points with defensive armour, so that few of them were slain by the English arrows, but the bills wielded by the Southrons did more damage and did beat them down, though with sore pain and danger to the Englishmen. The Scots' chief arms were a keen and sharp spear, five yards long, and a target before them, and when their spears failed and were spent, then they fought with great and sharp swords, making little or no noise.' 'The bills,' says the Bishop of Durham, writing to Wolsey,39 'disappointed the Scots of their long spears on which they relied.' The battle began at the western end of the line. Here Sir Edmund Howard, with his 3,000 men of Lancashire and Cheshire, was hopelessly outnumbered by Huntley and Home with their 8,000 men. Tunstall was slain. Sir Edmund Howard himself was thrice felled to the earth, and left alone with his standard bearer and two of his servants, when the bastard Heron, already sorely wounded, came up to him and said: "There was never nobleman's son so like to be lost as you this day; but for all my hurts I shall here live and die with you.' At this moment, when it seemed as if the English right wing must be utterly destroyed, an opportune charge by Lord Dacre with his reserve of horse beat back the followers of Huntley and Home, and enabled Edmund Howard with the remnant of his troops to fall back on the admiral, who with the main body of the late vanguard' was now advancing up the hill to the left of them. On his way to join his brother, Sir Edmund met 'Davy Home' of Wedderburn and slew him with his own hand. What fate befell the brave and sore-wounded bastard Heron we are not informed, but his name does not appear among the English slain. The Scottish conquerors certainly do not seem to have improved their victory. It is conjectured (but only conjectured) that Home's wild borderers may have dispersed to strip the slain and to plunder the English homesteads now lying defenceless below them. A more probable explanation of their conduct is that Piper's hill, which was situated between the Scottish left and centre, shut out from the victors 39 Calendar, 4,461. the view of the fight at Branxton vicarage, and that Home and Huntley were really ignorant of their king's necessity till it was too late to succour it. Certainly the accusation brought by the Scots of a later day against Home was rather of inactivity than of too hot pursuit of the beaten foe. According to Pitscottie, when Home and Huntley were standing in arrayed battle' at the close of the day, very few of their men having been either hurt or slain, the Earl of Huntley desired my Lord Home that he would rescue the king in his extremity, seeing he was overset with multitudes of men. But the Lord Home answered: 'He does well that does for himself, for we have foughten our vanguard and won the same; therefore let the rest do their parts as well as we have done.' Huntley replied that he could not see his native prince overcome by his enemies before his eyes, sounded his trumpet and gathered his men together, but found it was then too late to save his king from defeat. The decisive moment of this earlier part of the battle appears to have been Dacre's well-timed and vigorous charge, which not only enabled Edmund Howard to escape to his brother, but restored to that brother, the admiral, confidence in success. A short time before, when he saw the four great battles of the Scots all on foot with long spears, like Moorish pikes, advancing towards him, he had sent to Surrey his Agnus Dei that hung at his breast, and begged him to move up the rearguard speedily, since he himself was not able to encounter alone the whole battle of the Scots.' Now, this earnest petition being granted, his left being covered by the advancing soldiers of his father, and his right (probably) made more secure by Dacre's brilliant charge, the admiral was strong enough to fight his foes. The many lords, knights, and gentlemen who were in this part of the host fought all with spears on foot, but the lord admiral and his company acquitted themselves so well that with pure fighting they brought a great number to the ground, and both the Earls of Crawford. and of Montrose were slain.' Of course the angry votaries of St. Cuthbert had their share in this victory, to which probably Sir Marmaduke Constable and the men of Holderness also contributed. But in the centre of the line, where fought the two generals-inchief, James and Surrey, the fight was far more obstinate. Seeing from Flodden height the defeat of the English right, James pressed THE BATTLE IN THE CENTRE. 31. impetuously down the hill, eager to mingle in the fray. Of course the nobles who surrounded him, longing to distinguish themselves in their sovereign's presence, added to the ardour of the onset. They put away their horses that they might not slide in the slippery descent, kicked off their boots and shoes and trod the hostile soil with naked, or at least with 'stockinged' feet.40 The king himself fought on foot in the foremost ranks. O, what a noble and triumphant courage was this,' says Hall, 'for a king to fight in a battle as a mean soldier.' But admirable as was the courage which led him thus to share the dangers of the poor peasants who were venturing their lives in his quarrel, it is evident that he would have served his people better, if he had remained on the high ground in their rear, and from thence given to the different divisions of his army the guidance which they sorely needed. Surrey also was near the great mêlée in the centre, but, as we may perhaps infer, somewhat behind the front rank, and acting more as a commander, and less as an old Homeric combatant, than his kingly foe. The battle in the centre, though it must have caused great loss in the ranks of the Scottish nobility, would perhaps have remained doubtful, or even resulted in a Scottish victory, but for the events which were passing on the English left. Here, Sir Edward Stanley, though he seems to have been last in coming into line, pressed forward with great impetuosity up the central ridge. Probably as the Scottish line at the other end overlapped the English, so the English at this end overlapped the Scottish, for Stanley's men seem to have been unopposed in their ascent of the hill. Like their foes, they kicked off boots and shoes in order to get a firmer footing. With panting chests, and limbs streaming with perspiration, they stood at the top of the ridge almost ere the Scots perceived their advance. The Highlanders and Islanders under Lennox and Argyle offered a weaker resistance than any other part of the Scottish line. Probably they were worse provided with defensive armour, for we hear of great havoc wrought among them by the grey goose-wings' of the terrible archers of Cheshire. Whatever the cause, both the leaders, Lennox and Argyle, were soon slain, and their division of the Scottish host hope40. The said Scottes were so plainly determined to abide battle and not to flee, that they put from them their horses and also put off their boots and shoes and fought in the vampis of their hooses.'-Gazette, p. 7. "Ballad, dxli. lessly beaten. From the vantage ground which Stanley had thus gained he surveyed the whole field below him, and saw the desperate battle which was still raging in the centre. Swooping down with his victorious men of Lancashire and Cheshire, he attacked King James in his flank and rear. Dacre about the same time made a similar charge from the English right. The Scottish reserve under Bothwell had been already drawn into the fray, and could offer no resistance to these manoeuvres. Possibly the English arrows, flying from behind, may have been more deadly than when aimed at the Scotsmen's targets. According to the ballad, it was from an arrow in his forehead that the king received his first wound; but though half-blinded with his blood, he called to his men to fight on and not to be dismayed by his wounds, 'for Fortune yet might turn her scale.' But in truth we have hardly any accurate information-and no wonder that we have it not concerning this last desperate encounter. Scott's imagination, we instinctively feel, has beheld the terrible scene as vividly as any of the combatants saw it, and his words are as true as those of any chronicler : 'The English shafts in volleys hailed, In headlong charge their horse assailed: That fought around their king. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Unbroken was the ring: The stubborn spear-men still made good Each stepping where his comrade stood, No thought was there of dastard flight :- Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded king.' The night was now closing in but darkness came too late to save the gallant little band of surrounded herces. According to Holinshed 'when the king saw Adam Forman, his standard-bearer beaten down he thought surely there was no way for him but death: wherefore to |