The King's Stone

As regards the King's Stone, which members had viewed that morning, it had really nothing to do with the battle [of Flodden]. It was, in fact, a very ancient Tribal Gathering or Trysting Stone, which had evidently been transported from the cherty magnesian limestone quarry at Carham, either mechanically or by glacial action.

The prevailing misapprehension about the King's Stone has probably been perpetuated by, if it did not originate in, Scott's Notes to Marmion - "An unhewn column marks the spot where James fell, still called the King's Stone." As a matter of fact it is situated about three-quarters of a mile Northward from the locality of the final scene of the battle, on the farm of Crookham Westfield, formerly a Moor.

There is interesting incidental evidence that just thirty-two years after Flodden, this rugged column was known as the Standing Stone. The Earl of Hertford, on one of his expeditions into Scotland, left Newcastle in September 1545, "and all his army had a day appointed to mytte at the Stannyngston on Crocke-a-More (Crookham Moor)."