Recordings & Info 168. Flodden Field
[There are three known recordings.]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 2862: Flodden Field (4 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Flowden Feilde
Ffodden Ffeilde
Traditional Ballad Index: Flodden Field [Child 168]
NAME: Flodden Field [Child 168]
DESCRIPTION: King James vows to fight his way to London. Queen Margaret tries to prevent him, and Lord Thomas Howard supports her. James vows to punish them when he returns -- but he never returns; the English slay him and twelve thousand men at Flodden
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: c. 1597 (see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: war royalty family promise death
HISTORICAL_REFERENCES: Sep 9, 1513 - Battle of Flodden. James IV and the pride of Scotland's chivalry die in battle with the Earl of Surrey's English army
FOUND_IN: Britain
REFERENCES: (1 citation)
Child 168, "Flodden Field" (1 text plus long appendix)
Roud #2862
CROSS_REFERENCES:
cf. "The Flowers o' the Forest" (subject)
NOTES: Child's only text of this is from Deloney's _Pleasant History of John Winchcomb_. E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947, observes that Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600?) may well have printed the text with some "improvements." It would be very interesting to know what was Deloney's source -- it might well have been nearly contemporary with the actual battle of Flodden.
King James IV was unusually long-lived for a Stewart king; he lived all the way to forty (1473-1513). But it wasn't for lack of trying; he twice went to war with England. The first attempt, in support of Perkin Warbeck, was in 1502, and accomplished nothing.
To cement the post-1502 peace, James IV married Margaret Tudor, the elder daughter of England's King Henry VII. (This was the marriage that eventually brought the Stewarts to the throne of England.) But that didn't prevent his warmongering. In 1513, the new English king Henry VIII was away in a sort of a mock campaign against France. James decided to go to war.
Unfortunately for James, the defense of the border was in the hands of Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey (1443-1524). Surrey was the son of John Howard, Richard III's Duke of Norfolk, and had fought for Richard III at Bosworth. But with Richard dead, Howard was given a partial pardon (being given the Surrey earldom though not the Norfolk dukedom). This may have been because, with Richard and the elder Howard dead, Surrey was the best soldier in England.
Surrey wanted to go to France with Henry (according to Garrett Mattingly, _Catherine of Aragon_, 1941 (I use the 1990 Book-of-the-Month club edition), p. 155, he was "choking with rage and grief" at not being allowed to join the invasion). But he ended up getting his chance to fight.... It was Surrey who led the army which intercepted the invading Scots.
The English and Scottish forces are believed to have been about equal in size, but Surrey outmaneuvered the Scots and inflicted a crushing defeat, killing James, the cream of his army, and about a third of his troops -- a defeat which came to be commemorated in the popular lament "The Flowers o' the forest.". Surrey lost perhaps 5%-10% of his own men.
Scotland -- as always when a new monarch came to the throne -- was plunged into chaos. The border was safe for many years. Surrey received the Norfolk dukedon, which has remained in the Howard family ever since. - RBW
Child Collection Index- Child Ballad 168: Flodden Field
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length --Have
168 Spriguns of Tolgus Flodden Field Jack with a Feather 1992 6:33 Yes
168 Strawhead Flodden Field The Old Lamb and Flag 1992 No
168 Strawhead Flodden Field Late Bottled Vintage - The Classic Tracks 2002 3:07 Yes
168 The Owl Service & Alison O"Donnell Flodden Field The Fabric of Folk 2008 4:00 Yes