full of mourning, Scotland plunged once more into the angry waves,
among the lions of ever-recurring anarchy and strife.

Nothing in all this turbulent and terrible history has ever been so
tragic as Flodden. The nation which had lost the very flower and
strength of its fighting men, its defenders and champions, the families
which had lost their chiefs, their breadwinners--often father and son
together, the master and his heir--were struck dumb with dismay and
anguish. It was only a long time after, when despair had sunk into a
softened recollection, that it was possible even to breathe forth that
wail over the Flowers of the Forest which all Scotland knows. In the
first shock of such an appalling event there is no place for elegy.
There was a broken cry of anguish throughout the country, echoed from
castle and cottage, where the poor women clung together, mistress and
maid equal in the flood of common loss: and there was at the same time a
strained and terrible rallying of all the poor defenders left, the old
men and rusty arms, those of every house upon the Border and every town
upon the road who had been left behind, to meet as well as they could
the no doubt inevitable march of the conquering English army, which
everybody felt sure must follow. When the news reached Edinburgh the
magistrates of the town put forth a proclamation calling upon the
inhabitants to prepare for the defence of the capital, and forbidding
the women--a most significant and heartrending order, perhaps unique in
public documents--to spread dismay through the streets by their crying
and lamentations. The condition into which the community must have
fallen when this became a public danger it is unnecessary to remark
upon. The wail that sounded through all the country must have risen to a
passionate pitch in those crowded streets, where the gates were closed
and all the defences set, and nothing looked for but the approach of the
victorious English with swords still dripping with Scottish blood. While
Edinburgh waited breathless for this possible attack an extension of the
existing wall was begun to defend the southern suburb, then semi-rural,
containing the country-houses of the wealthy burghers and lawyers, the
great convent of the Greyfriars, that of St. Mary in the Field, and many
other monastic houses. This additional wall greatly increased the
breadth of the _enceinte_, which now included a considerable space of
embowered and luxuriant field