Ye Olde "diversionary amorous attentions"

 

April 9, 2023--Circular stair at Etal Castle's Tower

Previously mentioned, after spending Easter at Etal and Ford Estate, we took a direct route back to Galashiels on the secondary B6350 road on River Tweed's south bank from Cornhill, passing through Carham and then crossing the bridge southwest of Kelso.  

Historically, the B6350 route was not always a "less important" road.  To the contrary.  In the medieval age, the English Borders citadel of Wark Castle once stood along the route.  Wark was a key linchpin in the network of strongholds in England's fortified defense of the Borders.

Against the counsel of his court, King James IV of Scotland declared an ill-advised war against Henry VIII of England on July 26, 1513.  Allegedly, James IV was "entangled" in the Auld Alliance with France.  And over the centuries since, the Auld Alliance has been foisted as cause.  How much was "entanglement" and how much was opportunistic choice is debatable.

April 9, 2023--Etal Castle tower

In any case, James IV crossed into the English Borders on August 22, 1513 at Cornhill with a force estimated at 60,000 (estimates vary widely from 35,000 to 100,000).  Despite where sources may land in the arguments on the number of troops, this was still one of the largest Scottish forces ever to invade England.  Roughly speaking, the Scottish army marched over the present day B6350 route to lay siege and finally wreck the important English stronghold at Wark Castle.  Its ruins, now merely a tall mound, are only 1.6 miles east of Carham on B6350. 

April 7, 2023--The Black Bull in Etal; our evening meals over Easter

At least as practiced by James IV, chivalry is a thing that we don't do much of these days.  Fortunately or unfortunately depends on one's view.  Among other things, such as basic human foibles, it was chivalry that "did in" James IV.  It imposed impractical if not impossible rules on warfare...to the detriment of those who attempted to follow them.  It was folly for a nostalgia of something that never truly existed in the first place.  War is not, nor has it ever been, "gentlemanly".  

April 9, 2023--Ok, so we're tourists!  Heatherslaw Light Railway at Etal

The Scots did not strictly gain Wark Castle by force of arms.  The castle was betrayed by an Englishman who deserted its garrison.  With Wark fully invested by the Scots, the traitor hoped to curry favor with the Scottish King.  The Scots indeed made use of the Englishman's statements and identified the weakest points of Wark's defense.  As for any favors, though, Scottish King James IV hanged the Englishman--for committing treason against the enemy English.  Such was the age of chivalry. Odd ways.

April 8, 2023--Medieval Twizel Bridge, still standing!

In another example of chivalry, on the morning of 9 September 1513, the Scots watched English columns marching over Twizel bridge to form up.  Scot cannoneers were forbidden to shell these columns, as James IV chivalrously believed that the English were too vulnerable in the column movement.  Catching an enemy in such a vulnerable state, one would think, was the whole objective of the exercise.  Regardless, Scot cannons did not open.  This chivalric war-fighting cost the Scots a nation.  Many thousands of lives.

April 8, 2023--River Till from Twizel Bridge; castle on ridgeline

Twizel Bridge, with its distinctive fluted arches, was completed in 1511.  Though no longer bearing vehicular traffic, remarkably the bridge is still in decent shape.  We walked over it in our brief hike to Twizel Castle.  As the only dry crossing of lower River Till, the bridge was strategically important.  Both armies used it in the Battle of Flodden Field.

April 8, 2023--Twizel Castle above River Till

Bragging rights from razing Wark Castle were short lived.  Less than three weeks later,  James IV, King of Scotland, would be killed along with the better part of his army at Branxton Moor (Flodden Field) late afternoon September 9, 1513, thus earning James IV the dubious sobriquet of being the last British monarch killed in combat.

April 8, 2023--Ford Castle gate

Ostensibly, the casus belli for James IV declaring war was England's invasion of France...but there are notable sub-clauses.  James IV's counselors did not want a war.  And, had James IV been pragmatic, he would have reasoned that the Treaty of Perpetual Peace (enacted by James IV upon oath before the altar at Glasgow Cathedral on December 10, 1503) was more or less holding for the past decade.  So invasion was not a wise choice. 

Besides, as part of that peace deal, James IV married Margaret Tudor, sister of England's King Henry VIII.  The so-called "Marriage of the Thistle and the Rose" at Holyrood (Edinburgh), August 8, 1503.  A 30-year old Scottish King and a 13-year-old English bride. 

April 8, 2023--Walls at Ford Castle

The marriage began producing heirs, which meant that only the future King Henry VIII and his successors (if he was to have any) stood between James IV and succession to the crowns of both Scotland and England.  And Henry VIII was failing to produce heirs.  Patience alone would have yielded James IV or his progeny mastery over the whole of Britain.  So, contrary to heroic portrayals, James IV was not exactly an unwitting haplessly entangled victim bound by the Auld Alliance.  

That excuse does not exonerate James IV.  He had a number of options short of a large-scale invasion.  Foremost, he could have kept his oath made before the altar in Glasgow--maintain the peace.  Chivalrous behavior, it seems, is highly selective.  Instead, he foisted the Auld Alliance and war.  "Auld" was an understatement.  A mutual assistance treaty dating back to 1295, the alliance was built upon shared interests of France and Scotland...as they may have been in 1295.  Respective interests were not necessarily the same 220 years later, when James IV declared war.  Europe had changed.  So had Scotland. 

April 8, 2023--Saint Michael and All Angels; Ford Estate

If anything, James IV was an opportunist.  Looking for any pretext to exercise the Auld Alliance and an invasion, the Scots claimed they sought to revenge the murder of Robert Kerr, Warden of the Scottish East March.  Kerr had been killed by a Northumbrian (John 'the bastard' Heron) in 1508.  Invading five years after the fact was, at best, a suspect and very delayed revenge, considering Sir William Heron, Lord of Ford Castle and half-brother of 'the bastard', was being held hostage in Fast Castle (a coastal fortress in Berwickshire) for the deeds of his kinsman...as was common justice in that age.  If you can't find the fugitive, jail his next of kin.  Sir William's absence from Ford Castle would play a large role in James IV's defeat at Flodden Field.

  

April 7, 2023--Church of St. Paul at Branxton received body of King James IV

Casting about for excuses to invade, James IV next claimed revenge for English privateer seizures of Scottish merchant ships.  In that day, piracy was de rigueur.  They all did it.  Lastly, James IV alleged he only received partial payment of Margaret's marriage dowry.  Thin gruel to justify war...having remained married for the past 12 years.

April 7, 2023--Branxton church

An aside, but lessons on foreign entanglements were well studied by our American Founding Fathers.  In his farewell address (September 19, 1796), President George Washington admonished Americans "to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."  

This is not to say that Washington sought to dishonor all existing international treaties.  To the contrary.  Washington qualified his comments, adding:  "...so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements."  He made no call for isolation, as some now claim.  It was more an appeal to caution and wisdom.  

Following the sack of Wark and the chivalric hanging of the English deserter, the Scots made an about-face.  They marched back on the same B6350 route and laid siege, bombarding and finally capturing Norham Castle after five days.  

[Norham Castle will be discussed in a separate post.]

April 8, 2023--Norham Castle

After the prize of Norham was bagged on August 29, 1513, the Scots made another about-face and marched west to the River Till, seizing Twizel Castle (or what remained of it after it was wrecked in 1496 during Scotland's abortive support for a pretender to the English throne).  James IV next took Etal Castle and Ford Castle.  At this point, the invasion was more a large-scale border raid.  That is how the Scots may have perceived it...at their own peril.

When James IV arrived at Ford Castle, it was occupied only by Lady Elizabeth Heron and her daughter.  A fortuitous circumstance for James IV.  But not so much his army.  

James IV was a known womanizer.  Besides his legitimate children, he had numerous illegitimate with many mistresses.  Unlike nearby Etal, James IV did not sack Ford.  Without definitive proof, many have speculated that Lady Heron purposely engaged in "diversionary amorous attentions" with James IV...as did her daughter. 

Robert Lindsay of Pittscottie (Scottish chronicler, c. 1532-1580, about whom very little biographical information is known beyond his authorship of the Chronicles of Scotland) crudely called the dalliance between James IV and Lady Heron a "bout of stinking adultery and fornication".  Harsh words.  And also an opinion written perhaps 40 years or more after the events had unfolded.  Still, Lady Heron did have vested interests--she wanted to spare Ford Castle and get her hostage husband released.

April 7, 2023--View toward Scotland; St. Michael's; Ford Estate

Over the ensuing five centuries, many have speculated that Lady Heron was part of an elaborate English scheme to delay James IV.  If she was, it worked.  James did stay too long at Ford "dallying".   By the time he finally moved, the English had assembled their forces, were on the march and were nearly in position.   

Scottish accounts cast Lady Heron as a villainess and lay the defeat at Flodden Field entirely at her feet.  Yet, while she may have distracted or delayed James IV with "diversionary amorous attentions," she had far less to do with the outcome than did James IV himself.  Branxton Moor would have largely been avoided had James IV opened a cannonade upon Lord Surrey's English vanguard with its limbered artillery in tow as they crossed River Till on Twizel bridge the morning of September 9, 1513.  The English would have been caught dead to rights, one might say.

April 7, 2023--Farm at Flodden Field in burn where thousands of Scots perished

Instead, a misguided unrequited chivalry intervened and Scotland was lost with The Fluuers o the Forest.