Andrew Pitcairn of Pitcairn, and his seven
sons, all perished on that battle-field. James's
body, though much defaced, was identified
at the first sight by some private marks by
Lord Dacre, Sir William Scott, Sir John
Foreman, and other Scottish prisoners,
who wept at beholding it.

The Scotch, loth to own that the body
was found, declared that the corpse Lord
Dacre carried to Berwick, and presented to
the Earl of Surrey, was one of several
attendants who wore royal armour. The
absence of the iron belt was one of the
chief arguments of these sceptics;  but
James having that day quite enough
steel to carry, had probably laid by his
girdle of penance. For years it was
believed in Scotland that the king was
still alive, and had gone to Jerusalem on a
pilgrimage. Others declared that they
had seen the king on a dun hackney crossing
the Tweed at nightfall with four men,
who had come to Flodden with straw
on the point of their spears, as a signal to
each other.  It was supposed these men
took him to Home Castle, and there murdered
him;  and there was a rumour, many
years ago, that a skeleton had been found in
a draw-well there, wrapped in a bull's hide,
and with an iron belt round the waist.

In this battle, the English probably lost
not much fewer than five thousand men, and
the Scots at least ten thousand. During
the night Home drew off  "in silent despair,"
and marched homeward unmolested.

King James's body was embalmed and
wrapped in lead at Berwick, and presented
to Queen Catharine at Richmond by the
Earl of Surrey. James's gauntlet was
sent as a trophy to King Henry at Tournay,
which he was then besieging. James's sword
and dagger are now in the possession of
the Corporation of Heralds, to whom they
were given by the Earl of Surrey. The
embalmed body was sent to the monastery
at Sheen. Leo the Tenth in vain requested
Henry to allow the body to be buried at
St. Paul's, but the request was never
granted. At the Dissolution, the brave
man's mummy was thrown into a waste
room, where old lumber, lead, and rubbish
were kept. Some workmen, in mere
wantonness,hewed off the head, and Launcelot
Young, a master- glazier of Queen Elizabeth's,
took it home to his house in Wood-street;
but one day, in a moment of pity,
he gave it to the sexton of St. Michael's,
Wood-street, to bury among some bones
taken out of the charnel-house.

Home has been blamed for not trying
to succour the king;  but no doubt Dacre
kept him in check, and probably his
Borderers had fallen to plundering. No
charge of cowardice or desertion was ever
made against him during his life, and he
continued in great favour at the young
king's court till Albany drove him into exile,
and on his return beheaded him. Many of
Home's kinsmen perished in the battle.

Several relics of the battle besides King
James's sword and dagger are still
preserved. In the Heralds' College is a
drawing of the pennon of the Earl of Huntly,
which was taken at Flodden by Sir William
Molyneux, of Sefton Hall. The motto is
"Call all."  The banner-roll of the Earl
of Marishall is shown at the Advocates'
Library at Edinburgh. The Earl's standard-
bearer, Black John Skirving, of Plewland
Hill, seeing the battle lost, tore off the
banner and concealed it about his body
before he surrendered himself.  Mr. Jones,
the local antiquary whom we have before
quoted, also mentions a leaden cannon-ball,
thirteen and a half pounds weight, found
a few years since while draining Pallinsburn
bog. Another ball was found close
to where Home and Huntly repulsed Sir
Edmond Howard. Two iron balls were
also found on the hill, and at a hundred
yards from the top of Piper's Hill, a
silver coin of Henry the Eighth. When
widening a path by the door of Branxton
Church, many skulls were discovered
heaped on one another. They were
probably the remains of soldiers hurriedly
buried. A short distance from the Wooler-
road, a little to the north-west of the
farmstead of Crookham, West Field, is a
stone often pointed out erroneously as the
burying-place of the king. It is really an
old gathering stone where the Borderers
used to meet before their raids into
England or Scotland.

In her letter to her husband, Queen
Catharine assured him "that the victory is
more honour than if you should win all the
crown of France."

At first the Scotch seemed to have tried
to brave out a claim to victory.  Skelton,
in rough and wild verse, flew at them about
it, saying bitterly:

       Won they the field and lost their king?
       They may well say fie on that winning.

And again:

                    Lo these proud Scots
                    And boasting sots,
                    How they are blind
                    In their own mind,
                    And will not know
                    Their overthrow