No thought was there of dastard flight;
Link'd in the serried phalanx tight
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;
Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king."
No defeat had ever less in it of disgrace. The victory of the English
was hard won, and the valour displayed on the stricken field saved
Scotland from any further results of Surrey's triumph. The results were
severe enough. Although the Scots could boast of their dead king that
"No one failed him; he is keeping
Royal state and semblance still",
they had lost the best and bravest of the land. Scarcely a family record
but tells of an ancestor slain at Flodden, and many laments have come
down to us for "The Flowers of the Forest". But, although the disaster
was overwhelming, and the loss seemed irreparable at the time, though
the defeat at Flodden was not less decisive than the victory of
Bannockburn, the name of Flodden, notwithstanding all this, recalls but
an incident in our annals. Bannockburn is an incident in English
history, but it is the great turning-point in the story of Scotland; the
historian cannot regard Flodden as more than incidental to both.
When James V succeeded his father he was but one year old, and his
guardian, in accordance with the desire of James IV, was the
queen-mother, Margaret Tudor. Her subsequent career is one long tale of
intrigue, too elaborate and intricate to require a full recapitulation
here.
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