Scotland's greatest military disaster. James IV invaded England as a French ally while Henry VIII fought in France. His army of perhaps 30,000 took up a commanding position on Flodden Hill but descended to fight on worse ground. The English billmen and artillery destroyed the Scottish pike formations. James IV himself was killed — the last British monarch to die in battle — along with thirteen earls, fourteen lords, an archbishop, a bishop, and perhaps 10,000 men. The song 'Flowers of the Forest' laments the dead. Scotland lost an entire generation of leadership in a single afternoon.
c.10,000 Scots killed including James IV and most of the nobility
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
Research a location near Northumberland