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FLODDEN FIELD. |
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FLODDEN FIELD.
From Kitson's Ancient Songs, ii. 70.
" The battle of Flodden, in Northumberland, was fought the 9th of September, 1513, being the fifth year of King Henry the Eighth (who, with a great army, was then before Terouen in France), between Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, commander-in-chief of the English forces, and James the Fourth, King of Scots, with an inferior army of 15,000 men, who were entirely routed with great slaughter, their heroic sovereign being left dead upon the field.
" The following ballad may possibly be as ancient as any thing we have on the subject. It is given from The most pleasant and delectible history of John Winch-comb, otherwise called Jack of Newberry, written by Thomas Deloney, who thus speaks of it: 'In disgrace of the Scots, and in remembrance of the famous atehieved victory, the commons of England made this song, which to this day is not forgotten of many.'"
This ballad is very evidently not the work of Deloney, but derived by him from tradition.
There is a piece called Flodden Field in Herd's Scottish Songs, i. 86. It is made up of certain ridiculous anonymous verses, and of the stanzas written by Miss Jane Elliot and by Mrs. Cockburn to the old air The Flowers of the Forest,—"I've heard them lilting," and " I've seen the smiling." The first and last lines of the first stanza of Miss Elliot's verses are from an ancient and now forgotten song. |
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