The siege of Leith ended a twelve-year encampment of French troops at Leith, the port near Edinburgh, Scotland. French troops arrived in Scotland by invitation in 1548. In 1560 the French soldiers opposed Scottish supporters of religious reformation, and an English army arrived to besiege the French garrison at Leith. The town was not taken by force and the French troops finally left peacefully under the terms of a treaty signed by Scotland, England and France.
Background
Scotland and France had long been allies under the "Auld Alliance", first established in the 13th century. However, during the 16th century, divisions appeared between a pro-French faction at Court and Protestant reformers. The Protestants saw the French as a Catholic influence and, when conflict broke out between the two factions, called on English Protestants for assistance in expelling the French from Scotland.
In 1542, King James V of Scotland died, leaving only a week-old daughter who was proclaimed Mary, Queen of Scots. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, was appointed Regent and agreed to the demand of King Henry VIII of England that the infant Queen should marry his son Prince Edward. This policy was soon reversed, however, through the influence of Mary's mother Mary of Guise and Cardinal Beaton, and Regent Arran rejected the English marriage offer. He then successfully negotiated a marriage between the young Mary and François, Dauphin of France.
War of the Rough Wooing
The English King Henry VIII, angered by the Scots reneging on the initial agreement for the royal marriage, made war on Scotland in 1544–1549, a period which the writer Sir Walter Scott later christened the "Rough Wooing". In May 1544, an English army landed at Granton and captured Leith to land heavy artillery for an assault on Edinburgh Castle, but withdrew after burning the town and the Palace of Holyrood over three days. Three years later, following another English invasion and victory at Pinkie in 1547, the English attempted to establish a kind of "pale" within southern Scotland. Leith was of prime strategic importance because of its vital role as Edinburgh's port, handling its foreign trade and essential supplies. The English arrived in Leith on 11 September 1547 and camped on Leith Links. The military engineer Richard Lee scouted around the town on 12 September looking to see if it could be made defensible. On 14 September the English began digging a trench on the south-east side of Leith near the Firth of Forth. William Patten wrote that the work was done as much for exercise as for defence, since the army only stayed for five days.
In response to the invasion Scotland looked to France for assistance, and on 16 June 1548 the first French troops arrived in Leith, soon to total 8,000 men commanded by André de Montalembert sieur d'Esse. The infant Queen Mary was removed to France the following month. In the following years the French interest became dominant in Scotland with increasing numbers of French troops, while English garrisons were established at Haddington, Dunglass, and Broughty Castle.
From 1548 onwards work began fortifying the port of Leith initially with a bulwark at the Kirkgate and at the chapel by the harbour (later the site of the Citadel), perhaps designed by the Italian Migliorino Ubaldini. The rest of the new fortifications were almost certainly designed by another Italian military engineer, Piero di Strozzi, and these represent the earliest use of the trace italienne style of artillery fortification in Britain. In August 1548 Strozzi directed the 300 or 500 Scottish workmen from a chair carried by four men because he had been shot in the leg at Haddington. In 1554, Mary of Guise, the Catholic French widow of James V, was appointed Regent in place of the Earl of Arran. Guise continued the pro-French policy, appointing Frenchmen to key positions in her government. In September 1559 she continued to improve the fortification at Leith and the island of Inchkeith with works which were probably designed by Lorenzo Pomarelli, an Italian architect and military engineer.
Scotland was a Catholic country. During the regency of Mary of Guise, the Protestant Scots became increasingly powerful, and politically active, particularly after the marriage of Mary and François in 1558. A group of noblemen, styling themselves the Lords of the Congregation, appointed themselves leaders of the anti-French, Protestant party, aligning themselves with John Knox and other religious reformers. They raised 12,000 troops in an attempt to oust the French from Scotland. Arran changed sides, joining the Lords of the Congregation. Meanwhile, Henry II of France was accidentally killed in a jousting tournament and Mary's husband became King of France on 10 July 1559.
In 1559 the Lords of the Congregation gained control of most of central Scotland and entered Edinburgh, forcing Mary of Guise to retreat to Dunbar Castle. However, with the aid of 2,000 French troops, she returned to Edinburgh in July. A short-lived truce was made with the Articles of Leith on 25 July 1559. Guise received further military aid from France, thanks to the influence of Jacques de la Brosse and the Bishop of Amiens. The Lords considered this assistance a breach of the Leith articles. The Duke of Châtellerault (the former Regent Arran), became a leader of the Lords of the Congregation in September 1559, and in response Mary of Guise refortified Leith. Châtellerault summoned other Scottish lords in October 1559, citing the French refortification of Leith:
...it is not unknawin how the Franchmen hes begun mair nor 20 dayis to fortifie the toun of Leyth, tending thairthrow to expell the inhabitantis thairoff and plant thame selffis, thair wyffis and bairnis thairintill suppressing the libertie of this realme. [sic]
Mary of Guise responded by making a proclamation on 2 October and writing to Lord Seton, Provost of Edinburgh, that it was well known that Leith was fortified as a response to the Congregation's intent to come in arms to Edinburgh on 8 October 1559, rather than to accommodate French troops and their families. She wrote, "we could do no less than provide ourselves with some sure retreat for ourselves and our company if we were pursued." The French, she said, had not brought their families. At least one English soldier, Hector Wentworth, joined the defenders of Leith.
Landowners affected by the new fortification works were compensated, one merchant William Dawson was granted exemption from any future customs duties for the loss of his building in North Leith. The Lords of the Congregation defied Mary of Guise and declared her regency suspended. They appealed to the Protestant Queen Elizabeth for English military support. In response to the situation, Elizabeth appointed the Duke of Norfolk to lead a diplomatic mission, and he met the Scots leaders to conclude the Treaty of Berwick. By this treaty, England now recognised the Lords of the Congregation as a power in Scotland, and safeguards were agreed for an English military intervention against the French in Scotland, with provisions for their withdrawal when the intervention was completed.
The siege
Preparations for the siege
The French army continued to strengthen the fortifications of Leith during late 1559. The defences included eight projecting bastions, including Ramsay's Fort protecting the harbour, "Little london" at the north-east, and the Citadel at the north-west. Within the walls was a raised platform for guns, called a "cavalier" by the anonymous French journalist of the siege.
At the end of October, the Lords of the Congregation brought two guns to "Craigingalt" (Calton Hill) and began to bombard Leith. The French made a sortie on All Saints' Day, capturing an iron culverin which was taken Leith and the other cannon was broken and left on the roadway.
At the end of January 1560, an English fleet, under the command of William Wynter, arrived in the Firth of Forth, having sailed north from the naval base at Queenborough Castle in the Thames Estuary. English diplomats claimed Wynter's arrival in the Firth was accidental, and Norfolk told Wynter to act as if he was a maverick with no commission. The ships were sent by William Cecil under the authority of Queen Elizabeth. On 2 February, a proclamation was issued in the name of the Queen of Scots to summon the men of Selkirk and Jedburgh to be ready to mobilise against the "wicked doings of the English ships" in Scottish waters, and the intended invasion of the Merse and East Lothian.
After the Treaty of Berwick provided a framework for an English military incursion, the English made plans to bring the army and guns to Leith. Considering the weather and difficulties of the road into Scotland, on 8 February 1559 Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk and William Grey, 13th Baron Grey de Wilton wrote to the Lords of Congregation from Newcastle; "we find greate difficultie of the cariadge of the same by land at this tyme of the yere, as well by reason of the deepe and foule wayes between Barwick and Lythe, as also that for such a number of cariadges and draught horses as the same doth require can not be had in time, and therefore we suppose the same must of necessity be transported by sea, and the number of footmen also appointed for this journey to be set on land as near unto Lythe as may be convenientlie. And in that case, our horsemen to enter by land as soon as we have intelligence of the landing of our footmen."
In the event, an army of around 6,000 English soldiers, under Lord Grey de Wilton marched from Berwick, arriving in early April to join up with the Scottish Lords. Camping for a night at Halidon Hill, then at Dunglass and Lintonbriggs, the English army were at Prestongrange on 4 April where the lighter artillery pieces for the siege were landed from ships at Aitchison's Haven. Just before this English army arrived, the French raided Glasgow and Linlithgow. The French garrison at Haddington had withdrawn to the prepared position at Leith, swelling the number of French troops there to an estimated 3,000.
Meanwhile, Mary of Guise and her advisors stayed secure in Edinburgh Castle from 28 March 1560. The Keeper of the castle, John Erskine declared it neutral, and this was respected by both sides, and the castle played no part in the conflict. Before the English army arrived at Leith, the commander William Grey of Wilton considered that capturing the castle with the Queen Regent might be a better option. However, the Duke of Norfolk advised him against it, as their proper target was the French soldiery in Leith, not Erskine's Scottish garrison.
Battle of Restalrig
When the Duke of Norfolk arrived at Berwick in January 1560, Mary of Guise's military advisor Jacques de la Brosse wrote to him saying he did not believe the rumour in Edinburgh that Norfolk was Elizabeth's lieutenant-general in Scotland, there to attack the French and favour the rebels, against the peace treaty between Scotland and England. However, that was exactly Norfolk's mission. Norfolk remained at Berwick, instructed that Grey of Wilton was to have charge of "martial affairs" in Scotland, as Grey himself wished, while Ralph Sadler, a long-serving diplomat, was to forward a peaceable settlement with Mary of Guise by diplomacy, liaising with the Duke of Châtellerault and his party. Elizabeth appointed James Croft to be Grey of Wilton's deputy. Ralph Sadler was given Grey's border administrative roles at Berwick upon Tweed.
Grey of Wilton set his camp at Restalrig village on 6 April 1560 and twice offered to parley with Mary of Guise and the French military commander Henri Cleutin, Sieur d'Oysel et Villeparisis via the English Berwick Pursuivant. This offer was refused, and the English herald Rouge Croix was sent to demand that the French withdraw from the field into Leith. Cleutin replied that his troops were on his master and mistress's ground.