checks the fiery soul of James,Why sits the champion of dames
Inactive on his steed?"
The Norman tower of Ford (the castle has been restored), called the King's tower, looks down on the battlefield, and in the upper room, called the King's room, there is a carved fireplace carrying the historic footnote—
"King James ye 4th of Scotland did lye
here at Ford castle, AD 1513."
Somehow one hopes that the lady was not sparring for time and Surrey, and sending messages to the advancing Earl, but truly loved this Fourth of the Jameses, grandfather to his inheriting granddaughter.
Coldstream is the station for Flodden. But the village, lying a mile away on the Scotch side of the Tweed, has memories of its own. It was here that the most famous ford was found between the two countries, witness and way to so many acts of disunion; from the time when Edward I, in 1296, led his forces through it into Scotland, to the time when Montrose, in 1640, led his forces through it into England.
"There on this dangerous ford and deep
Where to the Tweed Leet's eddies creep
He ventured desperately."
The river was spanned by a five-arch bridge in 1763, and it was over this bridge that Robert Burns crossed into England. He entered the day in his diary, May 7, 1787. "Coldstream—went over to England—Cornhill—glorious river Tweed—clear and majestic—fine bridge."
It was the only time Burns ever left Scotland, ever came into England. And here he knelt down, on the green lawn, and prayed the prayer that closes "The Cotter's Saturday Night"—
"O Thou who pour'd the patriot tide
That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart,
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
But still the patriot and the patriot bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!"
Surely a consecration of this crossing after its centuries of unrest.
General Monk spent the winter of 1659 in Coldstream, lodging in a house east of the market-place, marked with its tablet. And here he raised the first of the still famous Coldstream Guards, to bring King Charles "o'er the water" back to the throne. Coldstream is the Gretna Green of this end of the Border, and many a runaway couple, noble and simple, has been married in the inn.
Four miles south of Coldstream in a lonely part of this lonely Border—almost the echoes are stilled, and you hear nothing but remembered bits of Marmion as you walk the highway—lies Flodden Field. It was the greatest of Scotch battles, not even excepting Bannockburn; greatest because the Scotch are greatest in defeat.
It was, or so it seemed to James, because his royal brother-in-law Henry VIII was fighting in France, an admirable time wherein to advance into England. James had received a ring and a glove and a message, from Anne of Brittany, bidding him
"Strike three strokes with Scottish brand
And march three miles on Scottish land
And bid the banners of his band
In English breezes dance."
James was not the one to win at Flodden, notwithstanding that he had brought a hundred thousand men to his standard. They were content to raid the Border, and he to dally at Ford.
"O for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or well skill'd Bruce to rule the fight,
And cry—'Saint Andrew and our right!'
Another sight had seen that morn
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn,
And Flodden had been Bannockburn!"
The very thud of the lines carries you along, if you have elected to walk through the countryside, green now and smiling faintly if deserted, where it was brown and sere in September, 1513. One should be repeating his "Marmion," as Scott thought out so many of its lines riding over this same countryside. It is a splendid, a lingering battle picture—
"And first the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennon flew,
As in the storm the white sea mew,
Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war;
And plumed crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave,
But nought distinct they see.
Wide ranged the battle on the plain;
Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain,
Fell England's arrow flight like rain,
Crests rose and stooped and rose again
Wild and disorderly."
Thousands were lost on both sides. But the flower of England was in France, while the flower of Scotland was here; and slain—the king, twelve earls, fifteen lords and chiefs, an archbishop, the French ambassador, and many French captains.
You walk back from the Field, and all the world is changed. The green haughs, the green woodlands, seem even in the summer sun to be dun and sere, and those burns which made merry on the outward way—can it be that there are red shadows in their waters? It is not "Marmion" but Jean Elliott's "Flower of the Forest" that lilts through the memory—
"Dule and wae was the order sent our lads to the Border,
The English for once by guile won the day;
The Flowers of the Forest that foucht aye the foremost,
The pride of our land are cauld in the clay.
"We'll hear nae mair liltin' at the eve milkin',
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin'—
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away."
I know not by what alchemy the Scots are always able to win our sympathy to their historic tragedies, or why upon such a field as Flodden, and many another, the tragedy seems but to have just happened, the loss is as though of yesterday.
