The Scottish herald had his requisite
degree of insolence strictly mapped out.
He required the instant withdrawal of the
English army from France. The young
English prince, scornful and passionate,
treated James as a perjured peace-breaker,
and sent him word that he was not of
sufficient importance to determine a quarrel
between England and France. The herald
returned, but his master never heard his
message:  war had already broken out.
The very day the Scottish herald passed
through the gateway at Terouenne, Lord
Home, James's chamberlain, crossed the
Border with three or four thousand troops.
They burnt and plundered, and were
returning with great booty from the Southron,
across Millfield Plain, near Wooler, when
Sir William Bulmer, of Brumspeth Castle,
and an ambuscade of English Borderers,
fell upon the robbers, slaying five hundred,
and taking four hundred prisoners.

In the mean time, James, eager to redeem
his pledge to the French queen, to redress
his wrongs and vex the old enemy of the
Lothians, collected on the Borough Moor,
near Edinburgh, and round the royal standard
on the Hare Stone, an army of one
hundred thousand men. The Borough
Moor in those days, according to Drummond
of Hawthornden, was a spacious field,
"delightful by the shade of many stately
and aged oaks."  The very stone from which
the blazoned standard of James was
displayed is still to be seen built into the
wall, on the left hand of the road to Braid,
not far from Bruntsfield Links. There were
assembled, says Pitscottie, all the king's
earls, lords, barons and burgesses, and all
manner of men between sixteen and sixty.
The Scotch also boasted twenty-two large
brass cannons, including seven large-bore
and celebrated pieces of fine workmanship,
known as the Seven Sisters—described
after the battle by their captors as "the
neatest, the soundest, the best-fashioned,
the smallest in the touch-hole, and the
most beautiful of their size and length that
ever were seen."

Many efforts were made by the queen
and her friends to stay the rash king's
march. The priests arranged certain
convenient supernatural appearances. An old
man dressed to represent St. John, in a blue
robe, sandals, and a linen girdle, entered the
church in Linlithgow where the king was
at mass, and bade him forbear his journey,
for it would not thrive. The saint also
cautioned him against following the counsel
of women, and when Sir David Lindsay
sought to lay hands on him, he disappeared,
some said vanished, among the
crowd. It was also said that a ghostly
herald had been heard in the dead of the
night at the Market Cross of Edinburgh,
summoning the king and many of his
nobles. But the passion for war was hurrying
James along like a torrent. Andrew
Forman, the Bishop of Moray, brought over
by France, wrote to the king to urge him
to what he called a certain victory, represent-
ing the cowardice of delay, while Delamotte,
the French ambassador, pressed the
advance at all risk.

On Sunday, the 21st of August, 1513,
the Scottish army camped at Coldstream
and along the Lees Haugh, and the next
morning the great host crossed into England
by the ford at the mouth of the Leet,
and the one at the Haugh, a little to the
west of the Deddar, and nearly opposite
the mill at Cornhill. The Borderers, under
Lord Home, led the way as guides and
scouts, eager for revenge, Lord Home's
brother having been captured by Bulmer
in the "Ill Raid."  Wark Castle was
instantly taken, and, a week after, Norham,
the great fortress of the Bishops of Durham.
Tradition says, a traitor within tied
a letter to an arrow, and shot it over the
Tweed into James's camp. This letter told
him to remove his guns from Ladykirk
Bank to the Haugh, a place near the
Tweed, close to the north-east corner of the
castle wall, which was the weakest part.
The king is said, after his success, to have
hanged the traitor in a field near the castle,
still known as the Hangman's Land.
Etall Castle then fell, and Ford Castle, on
the river Till, was invested. This fortress
was the great barrier for the East
March against Scotland. James would be
peculiarly anxious to beat down Ford,
because its owner, then a prisoner in
Scotland, was the natural brother of the outlaw
who had slain Kerr of Cessford. The castle
was then occupied by Lady Heron, a
treacherous beauty, who is said to have
beguiled and betrayed the Scottish king.
Nevertheless, whatever stipulation the lady
made, certain it is that the castle was partly
burnt and destroyed. This castle, about a
mile from Flodden Field, now the seat of
Louisa Marchioness of Waterford, commands
a fine view of the low fertile valley
of the sullen Till, and of the blue Cheviots.
The king's bedroom, in the upper part of
the south tower, is still shown.

In the mean time, the white coats and
red crosses of England had been gathering