Scottish army

The Scottish army is the principal invading force in the northern campaign of 1513, advancing into England while the English king and much of the kingdom’s strongest military command are overseas in France. Its appearance turns a strategic vulnerability into an immediate threat to the capital and the Tudor succession. The narrative presents the army not only as an enemy in the field, but as the pressure against which Katherine of Aragon’s administrative preparation, military judgment, and claim to rule are tested.

Identity and Strategic Position

The Scottish army enters the campaign under the Scottish king, James IV of Scotland, at a moment when England’s military resources are divided. Henry VIII and the principal English force are in France, and the English troops there are described as a masking force rather than a body committed to decisive battle. The Scottish advance therefore exploits England’s exposed northern frontier while its king is absent.

The invasion is also linked to the wider conflict with France. Katherine of Aragon receives word that the French king has promised to recognize James IV of Scotland if he wins the battle against England. In this account, the Scottish campaign is not simply a border raid: its outcome carries implications for international recognition as well as the immediate security of England. When Katherine asks whether the incursion is only a raid, the answer confirms the scale of the danger.

Advance into England

The Scottish army crosses the border and moves through the border country, recruiting soldiers and taking food as it proceeds. Its advance is rapid and destructive. It has already captured northern castles, and its progress south threatens to turn the absence of the king and the English army into an opening for a larger invasion.

Reports put the Scottish force at at least sixty thousand, perhaps more; Katherine presses for an unvarnished estimate because she does not want to lead troops against an enemy larger than she has been told to expect. At another point, the possibility of one hundred thousand Scots is raised directly. These figures are presented as estimates conveyed to Katherine, not as a settled count. Their dramatic function is clear: the threat is large enough that she must plan for successive defeats and retreats, rather than assume a single engagement will decide the war.

English Defense and the Campaign Plan

Katherine responds by ordering a new muster from towns across the country, using lists she had already prepared. She calls out the London militia and inspects it in armor on a white horse before it marches north. The scene makes visible the change from queen consort to wartime leader: the defense is being assembled through administrative work as well as public command.

The force raised under Katherine’s direction numbers forty thousand. She rides at its head beneath the royal standard, making herself recognizable to the soldiers both on the march and, should battle come, in the field. Twice each day she rides along the column to encourage men trudging in the rear through the dust raised by the wagons. Her routine also gives the march a religious rhythm: she rises at dawn for Mass, receives Communion at noon, and prays at midnight for the realm, the king, and herself.

Katherine and Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, coordinate separate forces through a constant exchange of messengers. Surrey is to engage the Scots if an opportunity arises, slowing their southward advance. If his force is defeated, Katherine’s army is to meet the invaders and prevent them from sweeping through the southern counties. A further fallback plan provides for the defense of London: regrouping, raising a citizens’ army, building earthworks around the city, and, if necessary, retreating to the Tower of London until Henry VIII can bring reinforcements from France.

This arrangement reflects Katherine’s insistence on keeping a reserve rather than combining the forces for one supposedly decisive battle. She refuses Surrey’s preference to wait and join their armies, because a defeat with both forces committed could leave the road to London open. The campaign is therefore conceived as a sequence of positions and contingencies, not as a single gamble. Katherine tells her attendants that she has planned where to fall back, regroup, and fight again if necessary.

Terrain, Battle, and Defeat

When Surrey reports that the Scottish army is encamped on high ground at Flodden, Katherine studies his sketch of the site. The hill commands the southern approach; attacking uphill would expose English troops to Scottish archery from above and then to a charge by the Highlanders. She advises Surrey to send spies to find a route around the Scots, preferably to approach from the north. Her proposed alternatives are to feint and draw them onto open ground, or to reach them from behind. A stream marked on the map may make the route boggy, and Katherine recognizes that this obstacle could complicate the plan. She makes the distinction between strategic advice and field command explicit: Surrey must judge the terrain and decide for himself, but she is certain the Scots cannot safely be attacked uphill.

The news of victory confirms the destruction of the Scottish leadership, though the account does not describe the battle’s full course. A messenger reports that James IV of Scotland is dead, along with twenty Scottish lords, bishops, earls, and abbots. He calls it a defeat from which the Scots will not recover and says that half of their great men have died in a single day. The English commander’s message credits the trained and armed troops Katherine raised with carrying out her instructions and calls the victory hers.

As proof, the messenger presents the torn, slashed, bloodstained surcoat taken from the dead king’s body. The body itself is in the process of being embalmed. Katherine immediately orders a report dictated for the clerk so that she can write to Henry VIII. The campaign’s outcome is thus recorded both through physical evidence of the king’s death and through an official account intended for the absent monarch.

Significance in the Narrative

The Scottish army’s advance gives the narrative a concrete measure of the difference between military ambition and defensive command. Katherine had helped prepare ships, supplies, armories, muster rolls, and coastal defenses; when invasion comes, those preparations become the basis for assembling a land force and planning its movements. Her conduct is marked by attention to provisioning, numbers, terrain, reserves, and retreat routes, rather than confidence in victory alone.

Its defeat also changes the political meaning of Katherine’s command. The messenger says she has made England safe from Scottish invasion, and the narrative credits her with defending the kingdom while Henry VIII is away. The Scottish army consequently functions as more than an external opponent: its presence forces the court and the country to confront who can exercise royal authority in the king’s absence. By the end of the campaign, the danger has been answered by a victory publicly attributed to the queen and to the army she raised, trained, and equipped.