The saddest story in Scotland's history

Early on the afternoon of September 9, 1513, James IV's huge army faced the English across the low hills at Branxton, in Northumberland, only a few miles from the Scottish border. With Henry VIII away fighting in France, the English were putting up their second best army. Smaller, more weary, less well equipped than the Scots, these troops had every reason to feel nervous. Even though James had moved his men from an impregnable position at the last minute, victory for him seemed assured.

But as we all know, within a matter of hours Scottish hopes lay dead, along with 10,000 or more men, including the king and his son. The English were not only triumphant, but had suffered a fraction of the casualties. They could proudly inform Henry that his troublesome neighbour, who had plotted to bring about his downfall with Henry's arch-enemy, the French, had been silenced forever.

The scale of Scotland's defeat that dark, rain-sodden day, still has the power to shock. When the news first reached home, there must have been terror. Once the first danger of invasion faded - Edinburgh's magnificent Flodden Wall shows just how seriously that threat was taken - the more sober business of keeping the country running had to be addressed. With so many of the country's aristocracy, bureaucrats and clergy killed, things could have fallen into chaos. And I am sure that, for a short spell, they did. Records show, however, that with so many men slaughtered, women initially stepped into the breach. Margaret Crichton, for instance, wife of the collector of customs in Edinburgh, quickly filled her husband's shoes, along with her friend Janet Paterson.

All over the country, women took over farms, fishing boats and family businesses until order could be restored. Some historians believe that thanks to the sophisticated systems James IV had put in place for running the country's affairs, the death of thousands made little administrative impact, as the heirs of the deceased took over the reins of power, or simply the handles of the plough. The infant King James V was crowned within days of the battle, and the well-oiled administrative machine continued to roll.

I wonder if it was a simple as that. A two-year gap, for example, in the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland's accounts following Flodden suggests a disruption in court affairs. For a decade and more, as the various factions around the widowed queen and the young king jockeyed for position, Scotland was plunged into a degree of political turmoil that makes the Sicilian mafia look like a model of transparency and charity. And even if the nation's bureaucracy did continue like clockwork, it is hard to believe that given the losses sustained among men in their prime, the economy and society at large, did not suffer.

The problem is, this period remains almost another dark age. Historians seem to have skipped over it, as if nothing much had changed. Nobody seems able to tell us, for instance, what the repercussions of Scotland's defeat in terms of trade with England were, yet surely the ripples of a tremendous enmity and the need to humiliate Scotland, would have been felt throughout the country?

As for the impact of Flodden on the people and the way they lived, very little is known. Historians have been more keen, it seems, to rehabilitate James's reputation as a Renaissance king than to investigate the wider impact of his army's defeat.

I am curious as to why more attention is paid to the character and times of the man who brought his country to the edge of ruin than to the immediate impact this disaster had on his people. To my mind, the social and economic aftermath of the battle, and its influence on ordinary Scots, matters as much as political ramifications or justifications. This lost bit of history is a vitally important part of the tale, even though, to paraphrase Ford Madox Ford, it may well prove the saddest story we have ever heard.