Flodden

On the evening of 9 September 1513, the King of Scots died a spear's length from the English commander's standard, and the largest army Scotland ever raised died around him. A king, an archbishop, nine earls, and thousands of husbands and sons fell in three hours on a rain-soaked Northumberland hillside. Scotland has been singing its grief ever since.

But Flodden was not fate. It was chosen step by step, against the best advice in the kingdom, by the most gifted king Scotland ever had.

This is the whole story, told as narrative history: the penitent king who wore an iron chain for his part in his father's death; the golden court that built Europe's biggest warship and a Renaissance in the north; the marriage to Margaret Tudor that was meant to end the ancient war and instead armed it; the insults, the dead sea-captain, and the stolen legacy that dismantled the peace; the French queen's ring that summoned a king to be her knight; the greatest army in Scotland's history crossing the Tweed; the castles falling in days; and the old English earl who could not win a battle unless his enemy gave it to him and knew exactly how to ask.

Drawing on contemporary accounts, state papers, and modern battlefield archaeology, Flodden tells how a modern, confident European kingdom organised its own catastrophe and how a nation turned the worst day in its history into a wall, a law, a riding, and the most heartbreaking tune ever written.

The first book in the Scotland's Battles series, from the author of Killiecrankie.