The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

We'll hear nae mair lilting, at the owe-milking;
Women and bairns are heartless and wae:
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—
The flowers of the forest are a' wede away.
Scottish Ballad.

I

'Twas on a sultry summer noon,
The sky was blue, the breeze was still,
And Nature with the robes of June
Had clothed the slopes of Flodden hill;
As rode we slowly o'er the plain,
'Mid way-side flowers and sprouting grain,
The leaves on every bough seemed sleeping,
And wild bees murmured in their mirth
So pleasantly, it seemed as Earth
A jubilee were keeping.

II

And canst thou be, unto my soul
I said, that dread Northumbrian field,
Where War's terrific thunder-roll
Above two banded kingdoms pealed?

177

From out the forest of his spears
Ardent imagination hears
The crash of Surrey's onward charging;

The cotemporary accounts of the battle of Flodden, English and Scottish, are now admitted to be full of error and exaggeration; and, indeed, no circumstantial account, freed from these, was given of it till the days of Pinkerton. Some corrections, even of it, with some additional particulars, will be found in Tytler's Scotland, vol. v. Dr Lingard makes the number of the Scottish army forty thousand; and cotemporary English statements admit the English to have been twenty-six thousand; Mr Tytler remarking, that it is by no means improbable that this was rather a low estimate. It is that assumed in the rare tract entitled The Batayle of Floddon-felde, called Brainston Moor, some years ago reprinted by that eminent antiquary, Mr Pitcairn, whose Celebrated Criminal Trials have thrown such a mass of light on the curious mediæval history of Scotland.

While curtal-axe and broadsword gleam
Opposed a bright, wide, coming stream,
Like Solway's tide enlarging.

The Solway is remarkable for the rapidity with which its tides make and recede. Few things more graphic have ever been penned than the detailed account of the phenomena characterising the spring-tides in the Solway Firth, as given in the novel of Redgauntlet. The line in the ballad of “Lochinvar,”

“Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide,”

is familiar to the memory of all lovers of poetry.

III

Hark to the turmoil and the shout,
The war-cry and the cannon's boom!
Behold the struggle and the rout,
The broken lance and draggled plume!
Borne to the earth with deadly force,
Down come the horseman and his horse;
Round boils the battle like an ocean,
While stripling blithe, and veteran stern,
Pour forth their life-blood on the fern,
Amid its fierce commotion!

IV

Mown down, like swathes of summer flowers,
Yes! on the cold earth there they lie,
The lords of Scotland's banner'd towers,

“Among the slain were thirteen Earls—Crawford, Montrose, Huntly, Lennox, Argyle, Errol, Athole, Morton, Cassillis, Bothwell, Rothes, Caithness, and Glencairn; the King's natural son, the Archbishop of St Andrews, who had been educated abroad by Erasmus; the Bishops of Caithness and the Isles; the Abbots of Inchaffray and Kilwinning; and the Dean of Glasgow. To these we must add fifteen Lords and Chiefs of Clans—amongst whom were Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy; Lauchlan Maclean of Dowart; Campbell of Lawers; and five Peers' eldest sons; besides La Motte, the French Ambassador; and the Secretary of the King. The names of the gentry who fell are too numerous for recapitulation, since there were few families of any note in Scotland which did not lose one relative or another, whilst some houses had to weep the death of all. It is from this cause that the sensations of sorrow and national lamentation, occasioned by the defeat, were peculiarly poignant and lasting; so that, to this day, few Scotsmen can hear the name of Flodden without a shudder of gloomy regret.”—

Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. v. p. 82.

The chosen of her chivalry!
Commingled with the vulgar dead,
Profane lies many a sacred head;
And thou, the vanguard onward leading,
Who left the sceptre for the sword,
For battle-field the festal board,
Liest low amid the bleeding!

178

V

Yes! here thy life-star knew decline,
Though hope, that strove to be deceived,
Shaped thy fair course to Palestine,
And what it wished, full long believed:—

From the circumstance of several of the Scottish nobles having worn at the battle of Flodden a dress similar to the King's, and from the reports that he had been seen alive subsequent to the defeat, many were led long and fondly to believe that, in accordance with a vow, he had gone to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, to merit absolution for the death of his father; and that, on his return, he would assert his right to the crown.—See Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 181.

By others the Earl of Home was accused, not only of having failed to support the King in the battle, but of having carried him out of the field, and murdered him. Sir Walter Scott, in a note on the sixth canto of Marmion, says that “this tale was revived in my remembrance, by an unauthenticated story of a skeleton, wrapped in a bull's hide, and surrounded with an iron chain, said to have been found in the well of Home Castle; for which, on inquiry, I could never find any better authority than the sexton of the parish having said, that if the well were cleaned out, he would not be surprised at such a discovery.”

No doubt can be entertained that James fell on the field, where he had fought less with the discretion of a leader than the chivalrous feelings of a knight. He was found on the following day among the slain, and recognised by Lord Dacre, although much disfigured from the number and magnitude of his wounds. It is mentioned by Hereford, in his Annals, (p. 22,) “that when James's body was found his neck was opened in the middle with a wide wound; his left hand, almost cut off in two places, did scarce hang to his arm, and the archers had shot him in many places of his body.”

The remains of James were carried from the field, first to Berwick, and then to Richmond, where they were interred. His sword and dagger are preserved in the Herald's College, London, where they may still be seen.

An unhewn pillar on the plain
Marks out the spot where thou wast slain:
There pondering as I stood, and gazing,
From its grey top the linnet sang,
And, o'er the slopes where conflict rang,
The quiet sheep were grazing.

VI

And were the nameless dead unsung,
The patriot and the peasant train,
Who like a phalanx round thee clung,

[21]

From a contemporary chronicle we learn that the battle commenced between four and five in the afternoon of the 5th September, and lasted till “within the night;” distinctly disproving the assertion of Dr Lingard, that the conflict was decided in little more than an hour. In the curious Original Gazette of the Battle of Flodden, printed by Pinkerton, from the French MS. in the Herald's Office, (Appendix to vol. ii. No. X.,) the Scottish King is stated to have been killed within a lance's length of the Earl of Surrey; and from the same source we learn that, though a large part of his division were killed, none were made prisoners—“a circumstance,” as Sir Walter Scott remarks, “that testifies the desperation of their resistance.”

To find but death on Flodden plain?
No! many a mother's melting lay
Mourned o'er the bright flowers wede away;

It is ascertained that the well-known and beautiful verses now sung as “The Flowers of the Forest” are the production of a lady of family in Roxburghshire, evidence of this fact having been produced by the late Dr Somerville of Jedburgh, to Sir Walter Scott; but it is equally true that the stanzas were only engrafted on the floating remnants of an ancient, and probably nearly contemporary ballad—the lines of the first stanza,

“I've heard them lilting, at the ewes' milking,”

and the concluding one,

“The flowers of the forest are a' wede away,”

being all that remain to tell of its existence, save another imperfect line, which, however, conveys an affecting image—

“I ride single on my saddle,
For the flowers of the forest are a' wede away.”

To the great delight of all the lovers of Scottish music, the original melody of the song, along with those of “Bonny Dundee,” “Waes my heart that we should sunder,” “The last time I came o'er the Muir,” “Johnny Faa,” and several other established favourites, was recently discovered in the Skene MS.—a collection of ancient music, written between the years 1615 and 1620; and bequeathed, about twenty years ago, by Miss Elizabeth Skene of Curriehill and Hallyards, to the Faculty of Advocates. It was published in 1838, under the able editorship of Mr Dauney. By competent judges the old air is declared to differ from the modern one only in being at once more simple and more beautiful; and knowing it to have been sung by the bereaved of Flodden Field, does not destroy a single association, or disturb a single sentiment. By how many smoking hearths, through how many generations, has it caused tears to flow!

And many a maid, with tears of sorrow,
Whose locks no more were seen to wave,
Pined for the beauteous and the brave,
Who came not on the morrow!

VII

From northern Thule to the Tweed
Was heard the wail, and felt the shock;
And o'er the mount, and through the mead,
Untended, wandered many a flock;

179

In many a creek, on many a shore,
Lay tattered sail and rotting oar;
And, from the castle to the dwelling
Of the rude hind, a common grief,
In one low wail that sought relief,
From Scotland's heart came swelling!