Flodden 1513

Old Duffer's Book Corner

Reviewed by Charles Vasey

Niall Barr for Tempus

A slimish volume but, considering its subject's lack of sources, perhaps not as bad as that might sound. Barr has read his sources, but I do not have much respect for his analysis or his written style. His portrayal of the Scots army as being modern and the English as old-fashioned needs to be balanced with the observation that the former was inexperienced with its new weapons and the latter had great faith in theirs. He seems to believe that the English were surprised by the lack of effect of their archers on the armoured Scots forces. But the oddest analysis is the strength of the Scots' position. James IV had equipped the army to fight as a pike force in Swiss/German fashion.

These forces attack, they do not usually defend. So being sat on a hill is not really much use for the Scots Army unless they are determined to come off it. It is difficult to see what the reasoning was with the hill position, but it was certainly a mixed blessing (it does not seem to have helped the artillery and Barr has the pikes' tripping up in the stream as they come down the slope). There are number of examples of Barr identifying just what "must" have happened. These should be treated as guesses. Not a very rigorous work, but some interesting points (the re-organisation of the English during their approach march for example, as well as the effect on subsequent Scots' campaigns).

Old Duffer's Book Corner Book Reviews

Back to Perfidious Albion #103 Table of Contents
Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2004 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com