Flodden’s legacy

We will soon be recalling that sad day when the Scottish hard-man image took a knock as James IV’s forces were annihilated.

Catherine of Aragon rode in full armour to address her troops with a speech plagiarised 75 years on by her stepdaughter on the eve of another family squabble: the Armada.

Among the Scots slain at
Flodden were 13 earls, five of their eldest sons, 15 clan chiefs, some leading clerics, including James’s bastard son, and many of the landed gentry.

While the inbred hooligans of what passed for Scotland’s noble families were no loss, the extinction of Renaissance Edinburgh’s commercial and cultural elite was a disaster.

Perhaps on Monday, 9 September, it would be best if our First Minister left his clandestine travelling Saltire firmly locked in his wife’s handbag.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews