Remembering the Battle of Flodden 500 Years On

Instead, the king stayed the Scottish hand. He watched while the men from Cheshire and Lancashire marched with reckless vulnerability into the open.  James allowed the English time to position themselves, where they at least had a fighting chance of surviving.  Only then did he give the command to charge.

What he hadn't reckoned upon was a fatal flaw in the weaponry supplied to his Scottish forces, nor the deadly effectiveness of a new English tactic in archery and cannon-fire.

The 'Treaty of Everlasting Peace', which James had signed with the English monarch only ten years before, was disastrously broken.  Scotland and the whole Medieval history of chivalry in battle with it.

Britain now had the grim, deadly reality of Renaissance warfare, and an English hegemony to wield it.

James IV himself had provided much needed diplomatic credence for the Tudors by marrying Henry's own sister.  Then he'd caused them trouble by lending support to the Plantagenet pretender Perkin Werbeck. 

Henry was desperate for the kind of respect, which would transcend such dependence upon the whims of foreign rulers.  He was ruthless and aggressive. He just wanted to win, and the result would always justify the means.

James IV was the epitome of a Medieval monarch. He had the grace and security to approach warcraft as a true knight.  He misjudged Henry, in thinking that they were abiding by the same rules. As the Tudors were Welsh, James had studied the Arthurian legend and figured it had resonance.

It didn't.  Henry's father and family name were Welsh.  He owed his kingdom to a Welsh army.  But he was born and bred in England.  He spent his entire life playing down that Welsh heritage and debt.  He was more English than the English, and the first monarch to attempt to ban the Welsh language.

The two kings disagreed over one key point.  James IV saw himself as monarch over an independent Scotland.  Henry VIII considered himself the Overlord of the entire of Britain.  That difference of opinion is what led to the battlefield of Flodden, but it had already played out in correspondence and manoeuvrings for years before.

James IV had considered all of that play-acting.  It was a substitute for the war that had been avoided by the Treaty of Everlasting Peace, signed between their nations in 1503.  Henry VIII was simply preparing for war.

James entered Flodden in the belief that he was dealing with the army of an honorable knight.  Instead he came face to face with English forces formed by a man, whose massive inferiority complex emerged in fury and absolute power.

In short, it was like someone bringing a machine gun to win a game of cricket.

For the Tudor monarchy, this state of affairs was not at all ideal.  Particularly since most of the English nobility (secretly) considered them to be Welsh upstarts.  The danger of defection, just as soon as a viable alternative became available, was even higher for them than any other dynasty in Europe.

So Henry VIII began experimenting with something new. It was put into practice at the Battle of Flodden.

It was actually his queen, Catherine of Aragon, who commanded his forces at Flodden, through the Earl of Surrey.  Henry was at the helm of a second English army in France. But all of the military tactics originated with him. 

Renaissance warfare collected all of the small militia companies into blocks of larger forces.  Their lords were placed at the back. Everyone answered to a single commander instead.

Thus it was at Flodden that ranks of commoners faced rows of Scottish nobles.  It must have seemed at the start like it would be the English who'd be slaughtered en masse.  But one more major insertion turned the traditional leadership, employed by the Scots, into a desperate disadvantage.

The Welsh and English longbows had been destroying armies for over a century.  Cannons and muskets had entered the battlefield during the Wars of the Roses.  In both cases, they were deadly but inaccurate.  There was also a lull after each missile had been fired.  It could take up to eight minutes to refill and prime a 16th century cannon.

Renaissance warfare introduced a startling new idea.  It arranged the archers in two or more rows, one lower than the others.  One row of archers fired, the other crouched down to reload their weapons.  At a signal, they swopped places.

Such a strategy unleashed a constant storm of arrows and cannonballs into the oncoming forces. There was no pause in which to dash forward.  It was co-ordinated in a straight line. There was no opportunity to dodge out of the way.

Those Scottish nobles leading from the front were the first to die.  There was no-one left alive to command the troops, nor sound the retreat.  Waves upon waves of untrained commoners merely rushed forward, following their fallen lairds into the slaughter.

Before Flodden, a battle was won once the commander was captured or killed. Now he or she is merely replaced and the fighting goes on.  In this way, wars can last for years.

Before Flodden, there were few tactics for the battlefield.  Weaponry developed and became upgraded, that's all. After Flodden, everything was about strategies, working out how to kill as many people as possible.  Though the survivors didn't know it, they had witnessed the opening salvo of the arms race.

We're still suffering for that.  The centuries have gradually moved from an idea at Flodden - better deployment of archers - into mutually assured destruction of today.  The killing machine became industrialized and so much bigger.

Before Flodden, those ordering men into battle knew every one of them personally. He would have to live in the vicinity of their families afterwards. He shared their danger by leading them into the melee.

Today, generals can be miles away.  They might not even know the names of the people whom they order into the fray.  

But worst of all, Flodden demonstrated very well how effective one large, centrally commanded army can be. 

Imagine how many wars could have been avoided, if nations called upon their militia only when necessary, and let them return to their farms, forges and fields for the rest of the year. But that will never happen today, it's for that reason, if no other, we should lament Flodden.

It changed our world for the worse.