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And now, after this slight sketch of the authorities, I will proceed to the story of the campaign, not detaining the reader with any detailed account of the various causes of the war, real or alleged. There were disputes between the two royal brothers-in-law, James IV. and Henry VIII., about Queen Margaret's dowry, disputes by sea and land between the sailors of the two nations, who called one another pirates, and the borderers of the two countries who called one another thieves. But the last incentive to James's enterprise seems to have been supplied by the Queen of France (Anne of Brittany), who, though an elderly lady, sent him her ring and a letter, couched in the romantic language of the times, and calling upon him, as her true knight, to advance, if it were but three steps, into the realm of England, in order to deliver her from a 'traitour knight' who had brought her into deadly peril. This, being translated into the language of prose, meant that Henry VIII. had invaded France and was besieging Terouenne, and that a Scottish attack on his northern border might effect a diversion of his forces highly convenient to Louis XII., the husband of the distressed lady. The result of this appeal was that on the 22nd of August, 1513, James IV. entered England with an army which all the English historians estimate at 100,000 men. The same number is given us by the Scottish chronicler, Lindsay of Pitscottie, but I confess that

Lambe, vicar of Norham. But he has not noticed, probably because he had not met with, the printed edition by Richard Guy, of which there is a defective copy in the British Museum. In the catalogue the place of publication is given as York, the date 1750, the size is duodecimo. Unfortunately, the copy in the British Museum is so mutilated that neither title, nor place, nor date of publication appears upon it. There are some curious pictures over which a former possessor of the ballad has scrawled the names of the heroes represented, as bastard Heron,' Earl Surrey,' and the like.

A new edition of the ballad, by C. A. Federer, was published at Bradford in 1884. It is a painstaking performance, but I do not think it gives a better text than Weber's.

The British Museum Manuscript (not the above printed copy) which is mentioned by Weber (p. xiii.), and which is No. 3,526 of the Harleian MSS, is bound up (as Weber remarks) with several papers on heraldic matters. It occurs to me as probable that all of these came into the possession of the Duke of Norfolk as hereditary earl marshal, and that this is the reason why they are bound up with a ballad which commemorates the exploits of the greatest of the Howards.

Chief among these bold sailors, who might be called pirates or patriots according to the nationality of their nomenclator, was Andrew Barton, who (at a time of peace between England and Scotland) was accused of piratical practices against English commerce, and being attacked by the two brothers Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Howard (sailing under letters of marque) was killed after an obstinate sea-fight (August, 1511).

KING JAMES'S PREPARATIONS.

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I have my doubts whether it is not greatly exaggerated. The English army by which James was eventually defeated, numbered as we know 26,000 men, and it seems clear from the story of the battle that there was no overwhelming inequality of force on one side or the other. No doubt James had not a very firm hold of his men, especially the borderers and the islanders (from the Hebrides), and we hear of many desertions from his standard, but if we put these desertions at 20,000 and suppose that the Scottish army was thereby reduced from an original 50,000 to 30,000, I fancy we shall have attributed to this cause as large an effect as it could possibly produce. The king had made considerable preparations in respect of ordnance, and especially ordered seven great cannons which were called 'the Seven Sisters,' cast by Robert Borthwick, master gunner, to be brought out of the castle of Edinburgh, where they were usually kept. It was while this artillery was being removed, the king himself being at the abbey of Holyrood, that the well-known scene occurred of the midnight summons uttered at the market cross to the king and many of his nobles to appear before the lord of the infernal regions within the space of forty days. It is worthy of remark that this same period of forty days was that assigned by the king's own proclamation as the probable length of the campaign, for which, accordingly, all the king's liegemen were to bring provisions. It is indeed hardly possible that the whole commissariat of the army can thus have been left to the care of the soldiers themselves, but however its details may have been arranged the fact that forty days were mentioned in the king's proclamation seems to me to be an answer to those critics after the event who attributed James's defeat to the fact that the campaign was protracted over the not unreasonable space of

7 Since writing the above I have had the advantage of reading Mr. Sheriff Mackay's Preface to the Scottish Exchequer Accounts (1507 to 1513), which throws a most interesting light on many points in Scottish history in the years immediately preceding the great battle. He puts the number of the actual combatants on the Scottish side higher than I have done. As he says, the estimates vary from the 80,000 of Hall to the 20,000 of Pitscottie. But the Scottish writers after the defeat diminished the proportions of their army, and there can be little doubt that Hall's estimate more nearly answers to the real number. The names of the commanders, as well as those who fell, clearly prove that every district of Scotland was represented. The only baron who is said to have left before the battle was old Angus ('Bell-the-Cat') and his sons and vassals remained. So there seems no authority for Pinkerton's statement that the Scottish host melted away till there remained not above 30,000.' Still we know certainly that the English host numbered only 26,000, and the whole story of the battle seems to imply that there was no great preponderance of numbers in favour of the Scots.

eighteen days. On the English side, though there were haste and bustle, there was not that state of unpreparedness which has so often been found in our history since the days of Ethelred the Unready. For some time it had probably been felt that the relations with Scotland were becoming strained and tended towards war. Wolsey's superb aptitude for business found fitting scope in the preparations for a Scottish war, and his royal mistress, Katharine of Arragon, seconded his efforts perhaps more strenuously than her showy husband, who was then before the walls of Terouenne, would have succeeded in doing. Mr. Brewer, whose admirable impartiality and careful examination of the State Papers make him a most trustworthy guide for the history of this period, attributes to Queen Katharine a large share of the credit for the success of the English arms, and she herself in a letter to Wolsey, written apparently early in August, says 'They are not so busy with war in Terouenne as I am encumbered with it in England. They are all here very glad to be busy with the Scots for they take it for a pastime. My heart is very good to it, and I am horribly busy with making standards, banners, and badges.'

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Now for the next eighteen days let us arrange the chief events of the campaign calendar-fashion, taking the dates from the historian. Hall who seems to have recorded them correctly. James's antagonist is the Earl of Surrey, lord treasurer and marshal of England, about whom I will say a little more presently. King Henry VIII. has left Surrey in England for the express reason that he cannot trust the Scots, and Surrey, chafing and fuming at being thus shut out from the prospect of distinguishing himself in France, is hoping if ever he meet the king of Scots in battle to make him as sorry as he is himself.' On receiving the tidings of James's intended invasion Henry has appointed Surrey lieutenant-general of the north, and all the various wardens of the marches are put under his orders.

22nd August, 1513. James IV. enters England and lays siege to Norham castle. (This castle was the stronghold of the bishops of Durham in the northern part of their possessions, and an attack upon it, though needful from a strategic point of view, had the disadvantage of at once embroiling King James with the church, and terrifying some of his more superstitious followers with fears of the vengeance of St. Cuthbert.)

Calendar of State Papers, No. 4,398.

CALENDAR OF THE CAMPAIGN.

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25th August (St. Bartholomew's Day). The Earl of Surrey hears of the siege of Norham.

26th August (Friday). Lord Surrey who is at York sets off for Newcastle. He is much hindered by the foul weather which makes the roads almost impassable.

28th August (Sunday). Norham castle is taken on the seventh day of the siege, the governor having spent his ammunition too freely at first, and a treacherous inmate of the castle having pointed out to King James the side from which it might be most advantageously assaulted.

In the week beginning on the 28th August (apparently) the castles of Wark, Etal, and Ford are taken by King James. The castle of Ford is set on fire.9

30th August (Tuesday).

Lord Surrey hears mass in Durham abbey. He is informed of the capture of Norham and receives from the prior the banner of St. Cuthbert. There is a terrible storm on the night of the 29th-30th and he is in great alarm for the safety of his son, the admiral, who is coming by sea with 1,000 men to join him.

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On the 30th of August he reaches Newcastle. He has summoned all the gentlemen of the shires with their retinue' to meet him at Newcastle on the 1st of September. Lord Dacre, Sir William Bulmer, and Sir Marmaduke Constable repair to him there, and the accommodation at Newcastle being somewhat scanty for the numbers of soldiers who are pouring in, he marches forward to Alnwick.

3rd September (Saturday). Lord Surrey is at Alnwick. As all his soldiers have not yet joined him by reason of the foul ways' he waits there till

4th September (Sunday), when he is joined by his son, the admiral, who has, after all, made his voyage in safety.

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From Alnwick he sends a herald, Rouge Cross,' to the king of Scots challenging him to fight. King James is at this time lying at Ford castle. Instead of returning a message by Rouge Cross the king. keeps that herald prisoner in his camp, and returns a defiant answer

9 Pitscottie says of Ford, that the Scots, 'Kest it doun quhilk did gritt skaith to the Kingis men, in the falling with the timber thairof.' But the destruction in any case was not complete, since some days after this the king's headquarters were in the castle (the king lay at Ford), and much of the earlier work is still visible.

by his own herald 'Ilay.' But while these heralds are passing to and fro with their messages let us use the interval to examine, a little more at leisure, the chiefs of the two armies.

James Stuart, fourth king of that name, is now forty-two years of age, strong, brave, and handsome, a brilliant king, but with some of those faults of fickleness and self-indulgence which often go with brilliancy.10 He has succeeded in making the wild inhabitants of the Hebrides subject in fact as well as in name to his authority, and they are now marching under his orders to the battle. His army thus consists of four great divisions, whose diverse arms and equipments are so admirably described by Scott in the fifth canto of Marmion, the highlanders, the lowlanders, the islanders, and the borderers. All of them have fire and courage, but at least two divisions, the islanders and the borderers, are still greatly deficient in discipline and stability. And the leaders, the flower of Scotland's nobility

'that roll of names

Who followed thee, unhappy James,
Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle,
Ross, Bothwell, Forbés, Lennox, Lyle;
Why should I tell their separate style?
Each chief of birth and fame,

Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle,
Foredoomed to Flodden's carnage pile.'

There are two only, not mentioned in this list, to whom I would direct your attention. One is a natural son of King James, a youth of fine talents, who gives fair promise of intellectual eminence, Alexander Stuart, archbishop of St. Andrews. It is a curious illustration of the state of the Scottish church on the eve of the Reformation, that a young bastard of royalty, however genial and accomplished, could be promoted to a position analogous to that of

10 In his admirable Introduction to the poems of William Dunbar, published for the Scottish Text Society, Mr. Sheriff Mackay says, 'The king is of course the central figure in these poems. Every trait in his variable and inconsistent character finds its poem or its line-the licentiousness of his youth, his penitence and remorse, the desire of novelty and dabbling in science which made him the prey of impostors and flatterers, the love of amusements of all kinds, from the tournaments of knights and contests of poets to card-playing and the jests of fools, and his liberality extended even to quite unworthy objects. Yet Dunbar never seems to have quite lost faith in James, and his feeling, even when his satirical shafts fly very near the royal person, is that of a dutiful subject, warning the king against his weaknesses and remonstrating against his vices. He appears to have thought that there was an under-current of virtue, which, if it could get the upper hand, would overpower his faults.' (pp. li.-lii.)

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