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Notes on the early Literature of Flodden Field. By 

 William Wilson, B.A., late Scholar of Trinity College, 

 Cambridge. 



The object of the writer in drawing up the following paper 

 is to give a very short account of such early prose and verse 

 accounts of Flodden Field as have fallen under his own notice, 

 and to furnish some intimations regarding other contemporaneous 

 descriptions of an event which some may possibly think has 

 already received a more than due share of literary attention. 



Perhaps the earliest published account of the battle is a 4to 

 black-letter pamphlet of four leaves, entitled "Hereafter ensue 

 the trewe encountre or Batayle lately don betwene. Englade and : 

 Scotlande. In which batayle the Scottshe Kynge was slajne." 

 Then follows a wood-cut representing a camp-scene. The 

 colophon is as follows : " Emprynted by me. Eichard. Faques 

 dwellyng In Poulys churche yerde." There is no date, and 

 only one copy is known to exist, which is in the possession of Mr 

 S. Christie-Miller of Craigentinny, and Britwell, Bucks. The 

 curious in such matters may be interested in learning that at the 

 White Knights Sale in 1819 it brought 13 guineas. It was 

 reprinted in facsimile in 1809 " under revise of Mf Haslewood," 

 and in 1823, at Newcastle, by Wm. Garrett, undor the auspices 

 of the Newcastle Typographical Society, but with this latter 

 reprint the writer is not acquainted. There can bj no doubt that 

 this tract was written immediately after the battle. There are 

 no speculations in it as 'to the supposed fate of King James, 

 whose name and that of his natural son appear first in the " roll 

 of names " of the slain, in this fashion : Firste ye kyns of 

 scotoes / The Archelysshop of / seynt. Androwes. We also 

 find " The. bysshop of. Thyles, / The bysshop of. Ketnes," and 

 among the others "Therle. Arell. Constable." It remains to 

 add that this tract is a fragment, two leaves in the middle being 

 missing; and Mr Haslewood's "revise" is calculated to cause 

 some perplexity to anyone who possesses a copy of it. For he 

 ends the 2nd leaf thus : " George darcy, sone and heyre to the 

 lorde Darcy say/" — the 3rd leaf commencing "-de beynge 

 Capitayne of the first batayle of the Scotths"/, the fact being 

 that the word " sayde " belongs entirely to the 3rd, or more 

 correctly the 5th leaf. The missing portion has now been re- 



