Battle of Flodden

The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton or Brainston Moor was fought on 9 September 1513 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland as part of the War of the League of Cambrai, and resulted in an English victory. The battle was fought near Branxton, in the county of Northumberland, in northern England, between an invading Scots army under King James IV and an English army commanded by the Earl of Surrey. In terms of troop numbers, it was the largest battle ever fought between the two kingdoms.

After besieging and capturing several English border castles, James encamped his invading army on a commanding hilltop position at Flodden, awaited the English force that had been sent against him and declined a challenge to fight in an open field. Surrey's army, therefore, carried out a circuitous march to position themselves in the rear of the Scottish camp. The Scots countered that by abandoning their camp and occupying the adjacent Branxton Hill and denying it to the English.

The battle began with an artillery duel followed by a downhill advance by Scottish infantry armed with pikes. Unknown to the Scots, an area of marshy land lay in their path, which broke up their formations. That gave the English troops the chance to bring about a close-quarter battle for which they were better equipped. James IV was killed in the fighting and became the last monarch from Great Britain to die in battle. That and the loss of a large proportion of the nobility led to a political crisis in Scotland.

British historians sometimes use the Battle of Flodden to mark the end of the Middle Ages in the British Isles; another candidate is the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Centuries of intermittent warfare between England and Scotland had been formally brought to an end by the Treaty of Perpetual Peace which James IV, King of Scots, and Henry VII of England signed in 1502. However, relations were soon soured by repeated cross-border raids, rivalry at sea leading to the death of the Scottish privateer Andrew Barton and the capture of his ships in 1511, and increasingly bellicose rhetoric by King Henry VIII of England in claiming to be the overlord of Scotland. Conflict began when James IV, King of Scots, declared war on England to honour the Auld Alliance with France by diverting Henry's English troops from their campaign against the French king, Louis XII. At this time, England was involved as a member of the "Catholic League" in the War of the League of Cambrai, defending Italy and the Pope from the French, a part of the Italian Wars.

Pope Leo X, already a signatory to the anti-French Treaty of Mechlin, sent a letter to James threatening him with ecclesiastical censure for breaking his peace treaties with England on 28 June 1513, and subsequently James was excommunicated by Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge. James also summoned sailors and sent the Scottish navy, including the Great Michael, to join the ships of Louis XII of France. The fleet of twenty-two vessels commanded by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran, departed from the Firth of Forth on 25 July accompanied by James as far as the Isle of May, intending to pass around the north of Scotland and create a diversion in Ireland before joining the French at Brest, from where it might cut the English line of communication across the English Channel. However, the fleet was so badly delayed that it played no part in the war; unfortunately, James had sent most of his experienced artillerymen with the expedition, a decision which was to have unforeseen consequences for his land campaign.

Henry was in France with the Emperor Maximilian at the siege of Thérouanne. The Scottish Lyon King of Arms brought James IV's letter of 26 July to him. James asked him to desist from attacking France in breach of their treaty. Henry's exchange with Islay Herald or the Lyon King on 11 August at his tent at the siege was recorded. The Herald declared that Henry should abandon his efforts against the town and go home. Angered, Henry said that James had no right to summon him, and ought to be England's ally, as James was married to his (Henry's) sister, Margaret. He declared:

And now, for a conclusion, recommend me to your master and tell him if he be so hardy to invade my realm or cause to enter one foot of my ground I shall make him as weary of his part as ever was man that began any such business. And one thing I ensure him by the faith that I have to the Crown of England and by the word of a King, there shall never King nor Prince make peace with me that ever his part shall be in it. Moreover, fellow, I care for nothing but for misentreating of my sister, that would God she were in England on a condition she cost the Schottes King not a penny.