"The Floo'ers O' The Forest was composed after the Battle of Flodden as a lament for the fallen of both sides"

The earliest version we actually have was written by Jean Elliot a Scottish Borderer some 200 years after Flodden though it was inspired by an earlier lost ballad of which only a couple of lines remained. If you read the words it is definitely mourning the loss of the Scottish dead only. The Flowers of the Forest were the young men of Ettrick Forest just as the Flower of Scotland were the men of the Scottish army at Bannockburn. By tradition, though it is probably much exaggerated, of all the men who left the Selkirk area to go to Flodden only one returned. His name was Fletcher and again myth has it that he waved the captured English flag (which still exists in Selkirk) over his head before he too fell.

"Dule an wae for the order, sent our lads tae the border; The English for aince by guile wan the day; The Flowers of the Forest that focht aye the foremost, the prime of our land are cauld in the clay"