Cherie's Place

Synopsys (from book cover):

In the breadth of bitter-sweet Scottish history there is not more poignant, nor more important, battle than Flodden.  Before Flodden a proud country under its dynamic Stewart king James IV was emerging as a distinct and flourishing nation within Europe.  With defeat the inevitability of Scotland’s reformation and union with England is hard to deny.  Flodden was an ignominious and disastrous moment for the Scots, all the more so for being a largely unnecessary encounter, fought with superior numbers and arms, which left the country weak, exposed and leaderless.

Review:

I picked up this book during my visits to the places that were significant in the Flodden campaign.  It looked interesting and I thought it would give a more in depth background than could be gained from the various guide books.

The book is written in a very sympathetic way and the style is more that of a novel than a history book which makes it very readable.  It covers the political, military and historical background that led up to the battle taking place.  It describes the two opposing forces in detail, the commanders that led each army, the weapons and tactics involved and describes their relative strengths and weaknesses.  The book explains the routes that the two armies took to arrive in their eventual battle positions, which gives insight on how the English army had managed to cut the Scottish army off from it’s homeland.

There are plenty of maps to show the relative positions in the build up to the battle and the positions during the battle.

The book is well researched and you can almost feel yourself on the battlefield alongside the two armies.  I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has an interest history, military history or battlefields of England or Britain.

***Index to my posts on Flodden.***

Tags: Battle, Book Review, Books, Flodden Field, Reading, The Battle of Flodden