Alexander McCulloch, Flodden Field, 1513

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In the contract of marriage between Alexander McCulloch and Sir Alexander McCulloch for the hand of the latter gentleman's daughter, Margaret, Alexander McCulloch is described as "familiar servitor to the King" an archaic way of saying Gentleman-in-Waiting. In his contract, he undertook "in all tyme to cum and take the trew pairt with ze said Schir Alexander in all and sunder his just and honest querrellis against quhatsumever persone, our Soveraine Lord [King] except" and to marry his eldest daughter. However, "becaus ther is impedimentis of consanguinitie and affinitie betwix ye said Alexander and Margret, that is to say, third and third of consanguinitie, third and second of affinitie, and in ze first gre of spirituall cognition quhairthrow ye matrimonie ma nicht be lauchfulie complete betwix yame. Thairfoir ye said Alexander sall vithin yere and day eftir ye date heirof rais and bring hame ane dispensatioun fra ze court of Rome in dew forme."

Alexander and Margaret were second cousins and Sir Alexander was probably the godfather of Alexander. It cannot be said that the above marriage was ever legally celebrated as the Battle of Flodden took place within the year and Alexander lay dead with his king at the end of the day.

It is on record that Alexander won 35 Scots shillings in a wager with the King at the archery butts - "Samin day tint be the King at the buttis with Sande Makculloch." He was an able fighter and served in the King's Royal Bodyguard.

When King James IV heard that Henry VIII and his army were fighting in France he chose to invade the north of England. The aged Earl of Surrey at the head of a small but discplined English army met and attacked the Scots in a strong position on a hill beside Flodden Field, 9 September 1513. The English left wing under Lord Stanley turned the Scottish flank, and the Scots, losing James and all his chief nobles in their attempt to break through Surrey's center, were utterly routed.

Pitscottie describing the battle relates how the English

went through the Field seeking the Noblemen who were slain, and in special the King's Grace. They found many like him clad in his Coat of Armour, but no Man could say surely it was he, because, on the same day of the Field, he caused ten to be clad in his Coat of Armour: among the rest were two of his Guard, the one called Alexander McCulloch, and the other the Squire of Cleisch, which were Men of Makedom both like the King. Therefore, when they were dead gotten in the Field, and the Kingūs Coat of Armour upon them, the English Men, believing one of them was the King, they took one of them, whom they thought most apparently to be like the King, and cast him in a Chariot, and had him away to England with them: But yet we know surely they got not the King because they had never the Token of the Iron Belt to shew to no Scottish Man.

"Sande" McCulloch, "familiar servitor of the King" was dead and nothing is further known of the man. His fiancee or wife, Margaret must have predeceased her father, as she appears in no further records.

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