is the poem in Scots, The Flowers of the Forest by Lady Jean Elliot. According to legend, Lady Jean was riding in the family coach one night during the 1750s when her brother Gilbert allegedly wagered a pair of gloves or set of ribbons that his sister could not write a ballad about the Battle of Flodden Field. When her brother saw the finished poem, he knew, 'that he had lost his wager and Scotland had gained a ballad which would never die.' In 1755, Lady Jean published the lyrics anonymously and The Flowers of the Forest was at first thought to be an ancient ballad. However, Robert Burns suspected it was an imitation, and together with Ramsay and Sir Walter Scott eventually identified the author. In his song The Green Fields of France, which denounces the waste of an entire generation of young men in the trenches of the First World War, Eric Bogle also savages the custom of playing Lady Jean's ballad on the Great Highland bagpipes during British and Commonwealth military funerals. Ironically, The Flowers of the Forest is every bit as much of an anti-war song as anything by Eric Bogle, Bob Dylan, or Joan Baez. Even though King James IV is widely considered the most popular and effective Scottish monarch of the House of Stuart, The Flowers of the Forest holds him personally responsible for the War of the League of Cambrai and the resulting slaughter of thousands of Scottish Highlanders and Lowlanders at Flodden. The song, which in Scots is known as The Floo'ers o' the Forest (are a' wede away), graphically describes the bottomless loneliness of the peasant women in Scottish villages after the battle, as there were no men left alive to woo or to marry them. The lyrics also describe the grief of all the widows and the "bairns" (children), who have been left fatherless. The song's title and lyrics particularly laments the slaughter at Flodden of the famous archers of Ettrick Forest, Selkirkshire, whose forbears were dubbed the "Flowers of the Forest" after they fell fighting under Sir William Wallace and Sir John Stewart at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. At Flodden, the archers of Ettrick formed the personal bodyguard of King James IV and, just like their forbears at Falkirk, their corpses were all found surrounding their fallen lord. The Siege of Szigetvár The 1566 Battle of Szigetvár,