September 9th – Today (9th September 2013) is the 500th
anniversary of the Battle of Flodden Field, one of the bloodiest ever fought on
British soil, between the English and the Scots.
According to Stow,
in his “Survay of London written in the
Year 1598” (*), sometime after the battle, the decapitated head of the
defeated Scottish King, James IV, ended up being buried in the church of St Michael, Wood Street, just
off Cheapside.
The church was
later burnt down in the Great Fire of
1666, rebuilt by Christopher Wren
between 1670-75, and modified in
1887-88, only to be demolished in 1897.
Nothing
remains of it at its former site, now occupied by the “Red Herring” public
house.
 |
| St Michael's Wood Street - the Wren version rebuilt after the Great Fire |
The site is
visited on our special “Lost Wren Churches of London” walk.
Please note that this walk, and
indeed any of our others, can be booked by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.co.uk) or phone
(020-8998-3051).
(*) The relevant part of the text
reads more-or-less in full as follows: “There is … , … without any outward monument, the head of
James, the fourth king of Scots of that name, slain at Flodden field, and
buried here by this occasion: After the battle the body of the said king being
found, was enclosed in lead, and conveyed … to the monastery of Shene in Surrey
… . Since the which time workmen there,
for their foolish pleasure, hewed of his head; and Lancelot Young, master
glazier to her majesty [Elizabeth I], … seeing the same dried from all
moisture, and yet the form remaining, with the hair of the head, and beard red,
brought it to London to his house in Wood Street, where for a time he kept it …
, but in the end caused the sexton of that church to bury it amongst other
bones … “.
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