and drank out of vessels of gold and silver, while the soldiery were supplied with most excellent beer.40

James was perfectly well aware of Surrey's advance to Barmoor, and no doubt concluded that he was on his road to Berwick, which indeed would have formed a good base of operations. If we could believe Leslie, the king was actually marching forward to surprise the camp at Barmoor, on the morning of the battle when he found it had already been broken up.42

According to Holinshed's English Chronicle, Surrey's march from Barmoor to Twizel had not been decided on when he left Wooler, but was the consequence of a reconnaissance of Flodden made by the lord admiral from a hill on the right bank of the Till on the evening before the battle :-Thomas lord Howard sonne and heire to the earle of Surrie, from the top of this hill beholding all the countrie on euerie side about him, declared to his father, that if he did eftsoons remooue his campe, and passe the water of Till againe in some place a little aboue, and by fetching a small compasse come and shew himselfe on the backe halfe of his enemies, the Scottish king should either be inforced to come downe foorth of his strength and give battell, or else be stopped from receiving vittels or anie other thing out of Scotland.'

By noon the English vanguard and artillery had accomplished the passage of the Till at Twizel bridge, mentioned by Leland in 1538, as ' of stone one bow, but greate and stronge,' and Surrey proceeded to lead his rear-guard through a ford called in the inscription on his monument 'Twizell forth, 243 but more generally 'Milford.' There are

40 Cal. of State Papers, Venetian, ii. p. 148. Holinshed, Chronicles of Scotland, ed. 1577, p. 420, gives a curious view of the camp at Flodden with one of the soldiers swilling out of a very long glass, plenty of good cheer being roasted, and no absence of womankind. The castle in the distance is not much like either Ford or Etal.

41 Buchanan, ed. Elzevir, p. 494.

42 And qhen the day of the feild was cumin, and the king marchand forwart toward the place quhair his enemye did campt the nycht preceiding, quhair he had the avantage of grund, he was schortlie advertised of the craft of the Inglis men.'-Leslie, History of Scotland, p. 94.

43 the next Morning toke his passage ouer the water of at Twisull forthe.' -Weever, Funeral Monuments, ed. 1767, p. 558. The only hint of Surrey's having crossed the Till by Etal bridge is to be found in Paolo Giovio, Hist. sui temp. i. p. 147. (Surreius) bipartito exercitu binisque pontibus uno tempore flumen transmittit.' But both with regard to the passage of the Till and that of Brankston bog it seems that the English army did not mind wading as long as the artillery was got safely across on the principle of keeping the powder dry.

PASSAGES OVER THE TILL.

361

many reasons for supposing that this was the ford near Heton mill. It is very improbable that he crossed the river by any of the fords in the neighbourhood of Etal which would have been dangerously near the Scots. Indeed had he not been afraid of being attacked by them before all his troops were on the left bank, he would never have been at the trouble of marching so far north as Twizel, and instead of any uncertain fords, would have preferred to make use of the stone bridge that seems to have been in existence at Etal at the time, since Leland found it there in 1538, and the account of it three years later as 'decayed and fallen down of late to the great trouble, hurte and annoyaunces of the inhabitants thereabouts whiche had allwaies redy passage when the said river is waxen greate and past rydinge up on horsebacke,44 points both to its having been no recent construction and to the impossibility of using the fords near it when the Till was so swollen as it was on the morning of Flodden. The Border Commissioners of 1541 proceed to express the opinion that 'much necessary it were to have it reedified again as well for the purpose aforesaid as for the conveying of ordnance and armies into Scotland over the same.' Though Surrey cannot well have crossed it during his advance, there is little doubt that the Scottish artillery captured at Flodden was brought over it to Etal castle that night.

Once safely over the Till, Surrey's strategy, it seems, consisted in leading James to suppose that he intended to carry the heights of Flodden by storm.45 The whole English army probably marched up the left bank of the river. Three hundred years ago this district, in many parts rough and uneven, was in some places a mere rushy, swampy morass.46 The movement of a large force with artillery in its van was necessarily very slow through such a country. A yet more formidable obstacle, though it was one that protected them from the Scots, lay before them in the great bog that then stretched towards the Till for about a mile and a half from just north of the village of Brankston.

4 Border Holds, i. p. 38.

45 James, we are told, considered that Surrey was bound in honour to attack him in his position at Flodden by noon that day, instead of which Surrey pretended to keep his word by crossing the Till before the hour settled for the commencement of the battle :-(Jacobus) statariam pugnam expectat. Sed Angli dolis intenti, locum et horam belli statuto die detrectantes, pugnam dissimulant.' -Epist. Reg. Scot. p. 187, quoted in Ridpath, Border History, p. 492 n.

46 Letter of Jones to White, Arch. Ael. N.S. iii. p. 233.

Near the centre of this swamp was a strip of rather firmer ground, where at the end of the last century there was 'a small narrow rude bridge, which went by the name of 'Branx bridge,' and which was always pointed out by the old people as the bridge over which part of the English army crossed when marching to Flodden Field.'47 This tradition, so far as the swamp is concerned, is admirably substantiated by the earliest accounts of the battle. The English army was forced to wade through a certain marshy pass, leaving their artillery in their rear48-mons ita erat munitus et defensus tormentis bellicis ut exercitus Anglorum cogeretur indagare quandam viam paludosam relictis post se tormentis.49 The contemporary Italian poem also gives as the reason of this difficult passage of Brankston bog by the lord admiral, the necessity he was under of avoiding the extensive artillery of the enemy:'Vero e che per la molta artegliaria

nimica, ando per certa via fangosa

et convenne lassar la sua per via.50

The Scottish artillery had by this time no doubt been drawn up opposite Crookham to prevent the advance of the English on Flodden - across the little burn.

'A brook of breadth a taylor's yerd,'51

that issued from the east end of the morass to soon join the Till near the hamlet of Sandyford. In the sixteenth century, this burn was called after the hamlet, which in its turn may have derived its name from a neighbouring ford over the Till.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when the Scots sighted the English vanguard (consisting of Edmund Howard's wing, 3,000 strong, followed by the lord admiral with from 12,000 to 14,000 men,

47 lbid.

48 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, ii. p. 134.

49 Letter to Card. Bainbridge, Rotta de Scocesi, App. p. 4.

50 Ibid. p. 30.

51 Floddon Field, 7th fit, v. 47. On Surrey's monument the battle is said to have taken place 'on a hill besidis Bramston in Northumbrelond, very neer vnto Sandiford.'-Weever, Funeral Monuments, ed. 1767, p. 558. As Twisull forth' is mentioned in the same inscription as the place where Surrey crossed the Till, the two crossings were, it is evident, perfectly distinct, and should never have been confused as they have been through that most treacherous of all guides popular etymology. In the same way the burn has been dubbed Pallinsburn,' and the name connected with St. Paulinus, for which there is not a shred of historical authority or real tradition. Burn' in place-names is often a form of 'burh,' see Border Holds, i. p. 302 n., and the 'Pallin' in question was much more probably a former owner of the place like Paulane of Roddam, in king Athelstan's jingling charter, than the first missionary in the North.