NOTES TO CHAPTER XI
Reading edition
Note A. North-country readers will not need to be told that the commander-in-chief at Flodden was Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, afterwards second Duke of Norfolk, and that his eldest son, who appears so frequently in this book as the third Duke of Norfolk, was his second in command. The latter was then simply Lord Thomas Howard, Admiral of England. He played an important part in the campaign. Holinshed gives him the credit of suggesting the strategy which placed the English forces between the Scots army and the Border. In the field he commanded the vanguard, with the centre of which he fought. He was said to have gone into battle loudly challenging the King of Scots to single combat, and to have performed great deeds, slaying the Earl of Crawford with his own hand. At the moment when the issue was most doubtful,—when the dying Marmion cried:—
“Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down:—my life is reft;
The Admiral alone is left,”—
Lord Thomas was actually standing firm in the face of the Scottish attack; taking the Agnus Dei from his neck, he sent it to his father as a token to hasten to his assistance. He was regarded as the hero of the day no less than Surrey[1266].
Note B. M. Bapst has shown that the correct date of the letter from Norfolk to Cromwell, printed in L. and P. XI, 21, as belonging to 1536, is really 1537[1267].
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