REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1902 279 



fighting which might perhaps have ended in a drawn battle 

 had not Sir Edward Stanley, who commanded the English 

 left wing, so utterly routed the Highlanders and Islesmen 

 opposed to him that he was able to double round and fall 

 upon the flank of the Scottish king. Here then in the centre 

 of the two armies, probably near the present vicarage of 

 Branxton, occurred that terrible scene of carnage in which 

 the flower of the nobility of Scotland fell, rt)und the standard 

 of their fallen king. 



"The stubborn spearmen still made good, 

 Their dark impenetrable wood ; 

 Each stepping where his comrade stood 



The instant that he fell, 

 No thoaght was there of dastard flight ; 

 Linked in the serried phalanx tight. 

 Groom fought like noble, sqnire like knight, 



As fearlessly and well, 

 Till utter darkness closed her wing 

 O'er their thin host and prostrate king." 



There is nothing more that need be said as to the field 

 of Flodden, except that while the Scottish ordnance under 

 Robert Borthwick seems to have signally failed to answer 

 the expectations of its possessors, the English cloth-yard shafts 

 were, almost for the last time in the history of war, potent 

 winners of victory: and that the so-called "King's Stone" 

 in a field near Pallinsburu, which used to be said to mark 

 the site where the king's body was f»)und, has, we may say 

 with certainty, no connection with the battle of Flodden, but 

 is rather a pre-historic monument of immemorial antiquity. 



Dr Hodgkin, during the reading of his paper and after its 

 conclusion, answered several questions which members asked 

 him. As various points were identified around us, as we stood 

 on Piper's Hill, someone asked of Dr Hodgkin: "And now, 

 please, show us Barmoor." He answered: "I can show you 

 the direction in which it lies," as he pointed eastwards, "but 

 it was precisely for the reason which made the Earl of Surrey 

 bivouac there, the night before Flodden was fought, that I 

 9,m unable to-day to show it to you, and ths^t is, that frooft 



