Did you know that the Scots never won a battle when they were favorites?
A sense of poetic irony registers when one learns that Scotland has never won a major military battle when the odds were in their favor. In 1513, the largest Scottish army to ever invade England was defeated by a significantly smaller English army at Flodden Field. In only two hours, the Scots lost ten thousand men. History repeated itself in 1542, when a Scottish army of 15,000 men was defeated by only 3,000 English soldiers. Despite their much smaller numbers, the English managed to take 1,200 Scottish men as prisoners. This humiliating defeat eventually contributed to the demise of King James V.
