It is not normally the fate of kings to die in battle. Richard III, the car park king, got too close to the action during the Wars of the Roses as did Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish martial monarch, who fell during the Thirty Years’ War.

A Victorian depiction of hand-to-hand fighting during the Battle of Flodden.
A Victorian depiction of hand-to-hand fighting during the Battle of Flodden.

At Flodden, in Northumberland, on 9 September 1513, it would be the turn of the Scottish king, James IV, to die with his men, some 9,000 of them. English dead would number around 1,700. With James’s brother-in-law, Henry VIII, campaigning in France, the ‘auld alliance’ saw Scotland obliged to support its French allies and James duly invaded the north of England two to three weeks before his denouement, gaily capturing castles while faced with token opposition. He even had some French troops in his army.

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