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While there is logic to this statement I fail to see why an unsourced opinion makes it into the article, simply stating that Scotland could not support an army of 30,000+ may have some validity but the fact of the matter is that, theoretically, it could have and there is no evidence to suggest it did not. Until a verified and respected historical source can be found I think this should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.89.234 ( talk) 12:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
The Scottish reserve section mentions the Duke of Argyll, who was he? Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll, was present and died on the field. The Campbells were not made Dukes until the 18th century.
The text suggests that Flodden "was a major milestone on the way to unifying the kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707." That statement seems counter-intuitive. One could just as glibly and irrelevantly claim that Flodden formed a fundamental plank in the revival of Scottish Nationalism in the late 20th century. Pedant17 20:55, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)
The text briefly mentions that the Scots agreed to attack the English for the French. In fact, there existed a formal treaty between Scotland and France, since 1295, namely the Auld Alliance. dduck
so "the Scottish reserve led by .... Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll (c.1507-1558), who was to pay for this inaction with his head many years later, watched impassively as King James and his army was destroyed". ??!!!
This seems rather harsh, given that Archibald Campbell (c.1507-1558) was only six at the time of the battle.
I have taken the liberty of making two revisions. The first is to shed a little more light on the infantry fighting. The second is to mention the unique Flodden Window in Middleton Parish Church, near Manchester.
Dr. Barry Worthington 1 March, 2006
I've removed this section because-as previously indicated-the information given is wrong and misleading. Argyll was killed in the course of the battle. The first Campbell chief to be beheaded was the eigth earl in 1661. The execution of Hume had absolutely nothing to do with his own part in the battle. Rcpaterson 00:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
In the battle chart there is a line "Also called the Battle of Branxton (Image created by Richard Hayton)". There is no link to an image however. -- Dogfish 04:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I've expanded this article to give a much fuller account of one of the most important battles in Scottish history, and the largest ever fought on the borders. It deserves a more detailed telling. There are several points where I take issue with the previous version. These are
NUMBERS. The Scottish army was nowhere near '60000' strong, a number quite beyond the capacity of the Scottish state of the time to equip. The number is difficult to determine with precision; but the best figure I can come up with is about 30000, making the two forces roughly equal in strength. The English dead are calculated to be around 1500, not upwards to 4000.
MANOEUVRES. I've given much more space to Surrey's manoeuvres because these are of crucial significance in understanding the brilliance-and completness-of his victory.
SCOTS ARTILLERY. Yes, the Scots artillerymen were poorly trained, but the real point is that the guns were too heavy and could not be deployed at a sufficiently sharp angle to fire into the English in the dead ground below Branxton. In essence they fired over the heads of the enemy.
PIKEMEN. Actually Scottish tactics had changed considerably since Bannockburn. Although the divisions at Flodden gave the apperance of the traditional schiltron, they were organised, as I explained, in the contemporary landsknecht formations, which had a fearsome reputation on the Continent. They were ,moreover, not armed with schiltron spears but European pikes, still in use well over a hundred years later. The problem was that the Scots had probably not fully mastered the landsknecht technique, and the hilly country did not favour half-trained pikemen. Rcpaterson 10:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that this'll be removed. Brendandh 01:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that this happened on any significant scale? Surely the point is that as a pike formation becomes disrupted, it becomes possible to close to shorter range; and at much less than 18 feet (and certainly at less than nine feet, where you essentially end up with a rather cumbersome staff), a pike becomes nearly useless. That was why they carried swords to use at close range as a backup weapon; it wouldn't have been necessary to lop the heads off the pikes. I'm also a bit dubious how easy that would have been in practice, with both the billman and the pikeman moving. If it had been easy to lop the head off a pike, they would have been much less formidable weapons. See, for example, the article on Zweihänder. Contemporary authorities found it implausible that you could cut the head off a pike with either a halberd or a two handed sword, which would have had as much (if not more) cutting power than a billhook. -- Merlinme ( talk) 07:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. This appears to be inference after the fact based upon snippets from the primary sources such as "spears failed and were spent" and "our bills quitted them very well, and...shortly disappointed the Scots of their long spears". No evidence at all for hewing of pike heads - just disruption of pike formations and forcing the Scots to draw their swords. If any breakage was going on, it's more likely a result of repeated thrusts against armoured bill-men.-- JonathanSFerguson ( talk) 10:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I could only imagine that if a pike was hit with a billhook, it would only knock sideways, or out of his hands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.224.133 ( talk) 11:27, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
"Flodden was essentially a victory of bill over pike." I'm always critical of such phrases. The battle was essentially a Scottish blunder rushing poorly trained recruits into battle with weapons that needed rigid training to be effective. With the same reasoning the Macedonian wars are cited for the superiority of Legions over Phalanxes although in all battles less than 50% of the troops were from Rome/Macedon fighting in their respective styles. Whenever one side does not employ the strengths of its weaponry it usually became the losing side.
Similarily there's mentioning of the effective use of longbows while it is mentioned they were pretty useless due to the weather earlier...
Sounds more like nostalgic dwelling than worthy facts. 84.154.28.225 ( talk) 21:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Primary sources all refer to 'bills'. These will have differed in profile, and are not dissimilar to contemporary spiked 'halberts', but are distinct in having a tall recurved primary blade. I agree with the points made above - a single weapon type rarely if ever wins the field, but can often hide a multitude of sins for the loser. -- JonathanSFerguson ( talk) 10:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I am going to jump on this wagon and urge the editors to change the reference to the tactical usefulness of longbow; there is no evidence that longbow played a decisive role in Pinkie Cleugh just as there is no evidence that the weapon was decisively superior in this battle. In fact the English victory in Battle of P.C., which allegedly proved the continued effectiveness of the longbow, was attributed to the use of arquebus and artillery fire. -Jonathan Chin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.136.185.215 ( talk) 06:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, on this point, the English could have, if their resources were not committed at the battle of the Spurs, marched on to Edinburgh and Stirling and captured Margaret Tudor and James V at Linlithgow. Unoquha ( talk) 15:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Could someone add in that Catherine o Aragon, at that time Queen Regent, rallied the English troops with a speach, and rode North with some of them(even while pregnant at the time) Im not sure were this could be added —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.79.248 ( talk) 20:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
There's also a letter that went along with james IV bloody coat to Henry VIII in France that is a read good read and filled with good quotes. If anyone knows where the text of that is, providing some cites from it would add to this article. 140.251.135.222 ( talk) 15:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
This article uses text from My Wound is Deep to which Wikipedia is not legally entitled, lacking proper licensing by the publisher. The bulk of text was added in this edit and this edit. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Rcpaterson for more information. Examples of some of the problematic text include [1]; [2]; [3]; [4]; [5]; [6]; [7] (p. 145); [8]; [9]; [10]; [11]; [12]; [13]; [14]; [15]. I am heartily sorry to note that it seems the article will need to be rewritten to remove the text by this contributor, since he has verified that the publisher did not license its use. I am blanking the article accordingly and listing it at the copyright problems board. I hope that the contributors to this article will be able to help salvage it. Alternatively, it is possible to restore to a point before the introduction of this text. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Highly irresponsible to edit out the entire description of the battle and make no effort to replace the content. Now we have an article about Flodden Field that says nothing about the battle of Flodden Field. Vidor ( talk) 18:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I have corrected the opening paragraph to read that James IV was the last Scottish monarch killed in battle. I see that the article first incorrectly stated that he was a British monarch on 14.08.2008 and that it was altered to ‘Scottish’ this edit. A rather awkward (and still incorrect) compromise was made this edit and the article was changed back to ‘British’ this edit.
The Kingdom of Great Britain was created from the two kingdoms of England and Scotland by the Act of Union in 1707. Queen Anne was the first British monarch. Making this correction now brings this article back into agreement with the Wikipedia articles: List of British Monarchs and List of Scottish Monarchs.
I thought it worthwhile making this small matter clear in case any later editors should be tempted to alter the text to ‘British’ again. (Scottish and English editors in particular will have no difficulty here, but some foreign editors can confuse England and Britain and hence not understand the distinct differences between ‘British’, ‘Scottish’ and ‘English’).
In trying to figure out another reason why ‘British’ was used, it occurred to me that previous editors could have been uncomfortable with the phrase “last Scottish king” as they might have felt this implied that a non-Scottish monarch had been killed in battle during a subsequent reign. In fact, none of the four succeeding Scottish monarchs (James V to Charles II) died in battle, nor any of the English monarchs to 1707 (Henry VIII to Anne), nor any of the British monarchs from 1707 to the present day (Anne to Elizabeth II).
I think that inserting a tedious explanatory sentence to this effect for the reader to ponder right at the start of the article would really be something of a stumbling block. Offhand, I cannot come up with a short, pithy phrase or sentence explaining the above subtleties and, in any case, do not believe it necessary. Others may disagree and perhaps a better editor than me can compose a suitably short and incisive phrase that does not disrupt the narrative flow. But, on balance, I consider that ‘Scottish’ is perfectly accurate and more than adequate. Best to keep it simple. Freeman501 ( talk) 13:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Freeman501 ( talk) 16:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Apologies - there was no need to post this reply as I have belatedly noticed that Unoquha has already independently edited in line with my first suggestion. Thank you. Freeman501 ( talk) 16:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
"The English do not have a monopoly on Britishness, the Kingdom of Great Britain was a political construct, Scotland has as much claim to being part of Britain, the island, as either Wales or England as her territory covers the northern third of it, whatever current political zeitgeist is."
Britishness is a political, not a geographical construct, in these terms, and does not have a proper application before 1603. Thus Gibraltar can be British, but is obviously nowhere near these islands. "Britishness" only came in a big way with the expansion of Empire.- MacRusgail ( talk) 16:12, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
It's doubtful whether many people in the early sixteenth century would have identified with any current notion of nationhood. The majority of the population were ruinously poor, ill-educated, superstitious, feudally indentured and rarely travelled more than a few miles from their home. Lofty ideals of statehood were far removed from the daily reality of remaining clothed and fed. Most of those fighting at Flodden (or indeed any mediaeval battle) were there because they had no alternative or because they expected to receive some personal advancement from the exercise. Naturally, when things started to go wrong, they escaped as best they could. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.199.236.88 ( talk) 20:44, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this insistance on the longbow, but aside from all the mist eyed english nationalist historiography about the longbow, what period sources tell us is that the english army's archery did nearly nothing: the scots reached the lines and their armour was hardly affected at all. The bit about it being the last battle with effective use of the longbow is unsourced anyway. 216.252.76.72 ( talk) 20:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
The modus operandi of the longbow crops up repeatedly in historical debate and has never been fully established. Certainly, it's unlikely to have been the "killer weapon" that some people claim. Its effectiveness probably stemmed from the impact of concentrated volleys which compressed and disrupted attacking formations, creating unmanageable crowd-crushes and leaving the attackers unable to coordinate their weapons against the receiving infantry - and in some instances driven forwards onto the points of their opponents swords by the weight of the troops behind them. This is almost certainly what happened at Halidon Hill, Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, and very likely (to some degree) at Flodden too. To state that the arrows didn't claim many victims, is to miss the point (no pun intended)... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.199.236.88 ( talk) 21:27, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Although, and not emphasized in this article, the fatal wounds of James IV included an arrow in his forehead according to 16th English century sources. Unoquha ( talk) 20:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Any chance of limiting references for the Scottish casualty names to just one good source for each, and removing the page numbers from the display page? I would gladly do this myself, except I cannot understand the present system, or use it. I would say the record publications, ER, TA, RMS, RSS, though primary sources, should here be preferred over miscellaneous genealogical collections. Unoquha ( talk) 18:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi boys and girls, as you'll mostly all be aware, it is the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden Field next month, the battle that marked the end of the medieval period for Scotland. Can I appeal to any other editors to help get this article up to Good article status. There is particularly a problem with the casualty list, which is over referenced, and duplicates certain characters. It would be nice to push for this, if in a small way, to commomerate those that fell in this fatal battle. Look forward to working on this. Brendandh ( talk) 15:33, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
In the Notable men who died section there appear to be multiple Earls of Rothes slain: two entries for William Leslie, 3rd Earl of Rothes, which can probably be combined, and one for George Leslie, 2nd Earl of Rothes. According to the latter's own wiki article he "died unmarried before March 1513, and was succeeded as Earl by his brother, William". Even if this is incorrect and they did both die at Flodden, unless the 2nd Earl died first and the 3rd Earl very briefly succeeded him before also perishing, some aspect needs correction here. Mutt Lunker ( talk) 23:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
I've done heavy pruning of the casualty list, but more is needed. I'm inclined to say only individuals in the following categories should even be considered for inclusion:
The English should also be mentioned - if only in passing - were there any significant deaths on their side? The list of English knights also should go.
More seriously I've removed all referencing. When the final listing is established the referencing should be put back in, properly formatted...-- Nilf anion ( talk) 23:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
This is why I abhor military history articles on Wikipedia. The nucleus of an English Army under the Earl of Surrey had been tasked with DEFENDING the North of England and rose to that challenge by swelling in size and marching to Flodden. After the defeat of James IV that task had been decisively accomplished and not only that it COMPLETELY removed the Scots as a threat for decades with most of their leading men dead including their KING for goodness sake!!!
Until I get a satisfactory explanation as to why this battle cannot be described as decisive, I will keep changing it. Or better yet provide a certified non-biased citation and reference.
So without providing a reference the article has been locked. I feel there is an agenda here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Killercucumber ( talk • contribs) 11:09, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Guidance at Template:Infobox military conflict/doc deprecates the use of "decisive" in the infobox specifically to avoid such disputes and because of the subjectivity that might be associated with its use. I note no use of the word in the article. I also note the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Use of decisive. Regards, Cinderella157 ( talk) 11:40, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
I've reverted the latest addition of "Decisive" in the infobox. Notwithstanding the restrictions placed by the template documentation and the MILHIST Manual of Style on use of qualifiers for the result parameter, the main body of the article does not discuss how the battle was decisive, therefore there is nothing to support the insertion of this word into the infobox, per MOS:LEAD. Factotem ( talk) 13:49, 13 March 2018 (UTC)