Lady Fyfe’s Brae (Pelham’s Battery)

I have wandered around Leith Links many times. I’ve gone to many fairs and events there, and up until recently had paid very little attention to the two mounds that jut out of the flat land of the park. I’ve sort of noticed them in winter when kids would sledge down them, and also in summer when they are a hot spot for sunbathers, but other than that they have not really entered my consciousness much. Probably because I’d always assumed, given Leith Links connection to the awful game that is golf, that they had something to do with that. Then a few days ago I noticed that by each of them was a Brutalist lump of concrete with a chipped metal plaque on it. These gave both the mounds a name, one as Lady Fyfe’s Brae and the other as Giant’s Brae, and stated that the former was the remains of Pelham’s Battery and the latter of Somerset’s Battery. A quick bit of research later and it turned out that these two mounds were actually part of an important bit of local history back in 1560, the Siege of Leith.

The events leading up to the Siege of Leith began almost a decade before. In 1547, English troops arrived in Scotland, as part of the ‘Rough Wooing’ in an attempt to force the Treaty of Greenwich on the Scots, which would see Edward VI marry Mary, Queen of Scots in a union of the crowns. Many of the English soldiers ended up camped near Edinburgh, at Leith Links. Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise, worried by this development, asked the French Crown for assistance, and in 1548 French troops began to arrive in Leith.

In 1554, Mary of Guise became the Queen Regent of Scotland, her young daughter now being in France. She then began to have fortifications built and improved around Leith. While all this was going on the relationship between Mary, who was Catholic, and the Protestant Scots began to deteriorate. By 1559, things had got so bad between them, that Mary felt she was in imminent danger and for a while she lived in Leith, where she felt she could be protected by the French troops, who were also Catholic and loyal to her. Mary was later persuaded to move back to Edinburgh. However, a group of Protestant noblemen who were unhappy with the French troops being in Leith, amassed an army, which led to Mary asking for more French troops to be sent over, and having the fortifications at Leith extended further with a large earthen rampart. This in turn led to the Scots Protestants petitioning the English for their help in removing the French troops.

In April of 1560, English troops arrived at Leith and pounded the town with artillery fire. This, however had little effect due to the rather formidable earthen wall that had been put up as a defence. So, to give the guns a bit more elevation three mounds were built, two of these being the ones that still stand on Leith Links. The guns then pounded Leith, and there were various attacks on the town by the English troops that were repelled by the French. The siege then carried on with food becoming scarce for those in Leith with reports that the troops themselves were eating horse flesh and ‘the grass and weeds that grew on the ramparts.’ While the townsfolk trapped there were living off cockles picked from the shore and roasted cats and rats.

The attacks against Leith continued with heavy losses on both sides. After one attack, when the English army had again failed to break through and take the town, the French troops gathered up the bodies of those English soldiers who had been killed, stripped them naked and lined them up on the ramparts. On seeing this, it was said that Mary ‘hopped with mirth’, and exclaimed, ‘Yonder is the fairest tapestrie that ever I saw. I wald that the haill feyldis that is betwix this place and yon war strewit with the same stuiffe.’ (Over there is the fairest tapestry I’ve ever seen. I wish that all the fields between this place and over there were strewn with the same stuff.)

Mary’s joy was short lived though, as on the 11th of June 1560 she died, probably from heart failure. After her death an armistice was agreed, and peace was then brokered, with the French and English troops leaving Scotland. So yet again, like much of history, it appears that lots of people died for nothing much.

I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my wander around Leith Links, in the bark of a rather nice tree that stands between the two mounds.

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

Latitude 55.970178
Longitude -3.164135

what3words: dome.poem.lanes

kevinnosferatu.blogspot.com/2023/10/skulferatu-107-lady-f...

Taken in: UK / Scotland / Leith (show map)

Taken on: November 8, 2023

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Leith

Leith Links

Kevin Nosferatu

The Skulferatu Project

Midlothian

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Lady Fyfe’s Brae

Pelham's Battery

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park

recreation area

Green Space

Lungs of the City

Siege of Leith

Rough Wooing « less

Sets appears in: • Lady Fyfe’s Brae and Giant’s Brae, Leith Links, Leith, Edinburgh

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