2?8 REPORT 0^ MEETINGS JPOR 1902 



the chroniclers take no notice. It seems, however, tolerably 

 clear that the bloodiest part of the battle was fought round 

 the little village of Branxton (nearly two miles in a N.W. 

 direction from Flodden Hill), and it may probably have extended 

 nearly a mile along a line running east and west from this 

 point. A number of bones were found some forty years ago 

 on Piper's Hill, a little eminence S.W. of Branxton Church, 

 and that is the spot generally connected with the fierce encounter 

 between the English right and the Scottish left, in which 

 Sir Walter Scott imagines Marmion to have fallen. 



The armies numbered 60,000 on the Scottish side and 40,000 

 on the English. It is probable that the inequality in numbers 

 was fully compensated by the superior discipline and cohesion 

 of the English force. It is important to remember that while 

 Surrey's men all belonged to the same race, and were, in fact, 

 chiefly drawn from two or three shires, James's army consisted 

 of two races, the Saxon and the Gael, who did not understand 

 one another's language, and who were often at deadly war 

 with one another. Especially one imagines that the men from 

 the Hebrides and the more distant Highlands, though brave 

 almost to foolhardiness, would be so unseasoned and so little 

 inured to discipline that they might be even an absolute 

 source of weakness in the Scottish army. 



The battle began on the English right, where Sir Edmund 

 Howard (son of Earl Surrey, and father of the girl who was 

 one day to be Queen Katharine Howard) with young Sir 

 Bryan Tunstall and a number of gentlemen of Lancashire and 

 Cheshire stood opposed to the Earls of Huntley and Home. 

 Here the Scottish left made a successful charge. Tunstall was 

 slain and Edmund Howard sorely pressed. It seemed for a 

 time as if the day was lost for the English, and the Scottish 

 borderers under Huntley and Home began to plunder the 

 English camp. Gradually however the Admiral, Surrey's 

 eldest son, much aided by an opportune charge of cavalry 

 under Lord Dacre, succeeded in rolling back the tide of battle 

 and restoring the English line. The Earls of Crawford and 

 Montrose, the Admiral's immediate antagonists, were slain ; 

 and the Admiral, who had begged earnestly for help from 

 his father, was now able to hold his own. In the centre there 

 was desperate fighting between old Surrey and the king, 



