Rev. R. Jones on ths Battle of Floclden Field. 375 



for the encounter. Surrey had challenged the king to 

 meet him on Friday the Oth September, and James had 

 accepted the challenge, telling him, that had he been in 

 Edinburgh, he would gladly have hastened to obey the sum- 

 mons. At this time the king was strongly encamped on the 

 eastern end of Flodden Hill, a position that commanded a 

 view of the country to the north and east, and looked directly 

 across that part of Northumberland over which he expected 

 the English army to march. The Till, a deep, slow, slug- 

 gish river, lay on the north side, and extended with its tribnt- 

 aries from the neighbourhood of Wooler to the Tweed by 

 Twizel bridge; consequently, he neither expected nor dreaded 

 an army from that quarter. 



Surrey, on the afternoon of Tuesday the 6th, removed his 

 army from the field at Bolton to Wooler haugh, where he 

 encamped till the morning of the 8th. After having tried 

 different plans to induce James to meet him on Milfield 

 Plain, but without success, he gave orders for his men to 

 break up their encampment and to march in the direction of 

 Doddington, through which village the English army passed 

 on their way to Barmoor Wood, where they encamped for-the 

 night. 



This sudden movement of Surrey caused James to turn 

 his watchful eye towards Scotland. All was surmise and 

 conjecture throughout the camp on Flodden Hill, and no one 

 could assign a satisfactory reason why he marched on the 

 north side of the Till in a direct line for the banks of the 

 Tweed. But no sooner had the fatal day arrived, when the 

 two armies, in accordance with the challenge given and 

 accepted, Avere to meet, than Surrey's host was on the move 

 and the mystery was revealed. Orders v>^ere given that the 

 artillery and heavy baggage were to pass over the bridge at 

 Twizel, and the van-guard under Lord Thomas Howard was 

 to march in the same direction. The passing of the English 

 army over the bridge at Twizel^ is thus graphically drawn by 

 Scott in his poem of Marmion : — 



From Flodden ridge 

 The Scots beheld the English host 

 Leave Barmoor Wood, their evening post, 

 And heedful watched them as they crossed 



The Till by Twizel Bridge. 

 High sight it is, and haughty while 

 They dive into the deep defile, 

 Beneath the cavern cliff they fall — 

 Beneath the castle's airy wall, 



^ B 



