This Day in History: 1513-08-01

By 1st August 1513, an English army of Henry VIII, under Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey, had arrived at Pontefract Castle setting up camp and recruiting additional troops prior to the impending Battle of Flodden Field on 9th September against James IV of Scotland. Surrey had sent Sir William Bullmer to round up a troop of mounted archers to patrol the border region. On 3rd August, Bullmer’s one thousand archers ambushed a Scots’ raiding party at Millfield of between seven to eight thousand men, led by the Earl of Home, sustaining only sixty men lost to the Scots’ five hundred slain and four hundred taken prisoner. James IV was killed at Flodden Field (the last monarch from the British Isles to die in battle) along with eleven to twelve thousand of his compatriots with twelve hundred captured in less than two hours. The English lost about four thousand men with 120 taken prisoner.