Battles of English HistoryGeorge, H. B. (Hereford Brooke)
History
Battles of English History
George, H. B. (Hereford Brooke)
Battles -- Great Britain
On September 7, Surrey reached Wooler, a few miles from the Scottish
camp: on the previous day James moved from the low ground near Ford,
and took up his position on Flodden Edge. The lower course of the
Tweed, where it forms the boundary between England and Scotland, is
towards the north-east. About ten miles from its mouth, a mile or two
above Norham, the Till falls into it on the English side, nearly at
right angles. Flodden Edge is a high ridge a mile or more in length,
running east and west, nearly south of the mouth of the Till, and
about five miles off; its easternmost end almost reaches the Till,
just above Ford. The descent is abrupt on the south to the wide plain
of Millfield, stretching along the Till nearly to Wooler. On the north
the slope is more gradual, and is broken by a hollow rising to another
lower ridge, beyond which the descent is continued to Brankston.
Flodden Edge was an excellent position in which to await attack, at
any rate from the south, but an impossible one for long occupation,
being badly supplied with water, though not quite destitute of it.
Local ingenuity, anxious to gratify the lovers of poetry, and devoid
of military insight, points out a scanty spring on Flodden Edge as the
"Sybil's Well" beside which the wounded Marmion was laid to die. As
will be seen from the details of the battle, it is simply impossible
that any Englishman should have come there, still more impossible that
Marmion should have left Clare there under charge of his squires. Sir
Walter Scott is not however in any way answerable for this mistake: in
a note he expressly says that Sybil's well must be situated somewhere
behind the English right. The well was of course the creature of
his own imagination; and from the shape of the ground no spot in
that quarter could have given the dying Marmion a view of the whole
battle-field.
Surrey, on arriving at Wooler, and discovering where the Scots were,
tried to play once more on James' weakness: he sent him a letter
reproaching him for having quitted the level ground, and challenging
him to come down on the appointed day and fight on the Millfield. This
time however James refused even to hear the herald; either he was
visited by a stray gleam of common sense, or his nobles prevented the
purport of the message from reaching him. Surrey was not at all the
man to attack a formidable position if he could manœuvre his enemy
out of it. Accordingly on September 8 he crossed the Till at Wooler
and marched down its right bank, but far enough from the river to be
concealed from the Scots by the high ground east of it. Halting for the
night on Barmoor, he continued his march next morning, and recrossed
the Till with his vanguard and artillery at Twizel Bridge close to its
mouth, the rest of his army crossing by fords higher up the stream.
Surrey was now between the Scots and their country: James must fight,
and his promise was given to fight on that day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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