BLOOD DIVIDE – Review by Phil Hodges

A novel based on the Battle of Flodden. The year is1513 to be exact in what was the bloodiest of battles to be fought on English soil between the English and Scots.

Now, Flodden is well documented enough; Scotland rushes headlong across the border to take on what was basically the ‘reservists’ of The English and Welsh armies (King Henry VIII was in France with the cream of his English knights and Welsh bowman scrapping the French in their own backyard). Scotland decides to break free from its ‘English masters’. Again. (Sounding familiar?). The English and the Welsh give the Scots the hardest of slappings at Flodden and the bloodiest of noses to boot.

So what about the novel? Well, it’s kind of Mills & Boon meets Flashman. The book appears to be almost Shakespearean at first glance. A list of characters and their offerings to the story appears on page one and a hint of a play looms. Now, I’m no fan of Shakespeare; shock horror and to my American cousins reading this nor do I live near London or know the Queen (though I do wear a bowler hat to work). But, I was somehow drawn to this novel and I shall make this clear again; it is fictional. The characters who have a ‘part to play’ in the book are based on genuine historical people who were at or involved some way in the battle. Thomas Howard – Earl of Surrey, George Darcy or King James IV of Scotland (soon to be disembowelled) to name but a few. The story is based on exploits that are, in some cases, though by no means all, fictional. Confusing?



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