In Fatal Rivalry, George Goodwin marks the quincentenary of the Battle of Flodden with a book that is both a narrative account of the events leading to the defeat of the Scots army and death of James IV in 1513 and a comparative study of Renaissance monarchy in an age of celebrity kings. This is the second book by Goodwin dedicated to a key battle in British history; the first, Fatal Colours, recounted the political machinations that led to the bloody Battle of Towton during the War of the Roses. In Fatal Rivalry, the author follows a similar line of inquiry, this time charting the long, complicated, and bellicose history of Anglo-Scots relations in a study that is first and foremost about princes, palaces, and prestige, with Flodden served up as the tragic denouement. Goodwin also ponders an intriguing historical “what if,” asking what might have been if James had won the day at Flodden and snatched England from young King Hal before his return from France. He asserts that James had already shown himself to be a great Renaissance monarch and by 1513 he had come to represent the “realization of Scottish history” (89). According to Goodwin, having kept the English at bay for much of his reign, James may very well have gone on to become an effective king of England.

Goodwin considers James IV, Henry VII, and Henry VIII to be “new monarchs,” whose reigns marked an “extraordinary enhancement of monarchical power” (53). He explains that these developments were evolutionary and, though each monarch effectively drew on the dramatic cultural and material changes shaping the age, these kings retained some of the trappings of their medieval predecessors. He contends that the Stewart and Tudor kings understood the strong relationship between display and war, but because Henry VII operated from a weaker position than his son, his tournaments and building programs served as a healthy though expensive substitute for war. The defeat of Perkin Warbeck, the forging of the perpetual peace, and the marriage of Margaret Tudor to James IV in 1502 protected Henry VII’s crown and eliminated, for the time being, the possibility of further Scottish intrigues. However, when Henry VIII came to the throne, the young king, buoyed by a full treasury and a desire to emulate his namesake Henry V, utilized magnificence and the theater of state not for peaceful purposes but as stepping stones to war. When the Scots king refused to compromise the independence of his kingdom or the Auld Alliance, Henry set out to undermine both.

Goodwin places the Scots and the English on fairly equal footing in the first decade of the sixteenth century. Both states were coming into their own on the European stage and each was being courted by the major Continental powers in Spain, France, and the papacy. James and Henry are described as Renaissance men who were more or less cut from the same cloth. Goodwin extends David Starkey’s claim that Henry was a hands-on participatory monarch to include James, and underscores that both monarchs were intelligent and sophisticated “masters of majestic display” (115), who before long became “competing Arthurian figures” (110). Both believed in the value of a strong military, building navies capable of projecting power beyond Britain’s shores and forging cannon that were as much “objects of conspicuous display” as they were the last argument of kings (162). The reassertion of Scots independence and James’s refusal to pay homage to Henry or support his invasion of France resulted in the breakdown of relations between the brothers-in-law and paved the way for the Scots invasion of England.

Flodden would have proven a fitting end to this familial duel if Henry had considered the Scots, rather than the French, to be the greater foe. Leaving Surrey to command his army in the north may have been a gamble, but it was one that paid off handsomely. Drawing on Edward Hall’s Chronicle and The Trewe Encounter, as well as the work of Steve Gunn and Gervase Phillips, Goodwin points out that on that fateful September day “everything seemed to favour the Scots” (177), but in the end the battle proved a close-run thing that was decided by James’s inability to comprehend the intentions of his enemies, his rash decision to join the battle, and, it appears, his ignorance of hydrogeology.

Though Fatal Rivalry is not a groundbreaking work, it is a very entertaining account of Flodden and late medieval and early modern Anglo-Scots relations. The short, compact chapters will resonate with popular audiences and with nonspecialists and undergraduates interested in an engaging introduction to the subject of Renaissance kingship. On the eve of the Scottish referendum on independence, the book will also serve as a poignant reminder of a relationship that even to this day remains “open to fluctuating interpretation” (97).