Flodden Field Kills a Scottish King

September 9, 1513

James IV of Scotland invaded northern England to honor an old alliance with France. On a boggy hillside near the village of Branxton, English billmen cut down the Scottish pikemen, their king, twelve earls, and most of the Scottish nobility. A generation of leadership died in an afternoon. The defeat left Scotland with an infant king and a power vacuum that destabilized the kingdom for two decades.