Showing posts with label Siege of Leith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Siege of Leith. Show all posts

Tuesday 24 October 2023

Skulferatu #107 - Lady Fyfe’s Brae and Giant’s Brae, Leith Links, Leith, Edinburgh

 

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. 

 

A picture of a grove of trees with a small, grassy hillock behind them - this being Lady Fyfe's Brae.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Lady Fyfe’s Brae (Pelham’s Battery)

 

A photo of a park with a small hillock on it and a grove of trees behind it.  A small concrete block with a metal plaque on it can be seen in the foreground.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Lady Fyfe’s Brae (Pelham’s Battery)

 

A photo of a park with a small hillock on it and a grove of trees behind it.   Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Lady Fyfe’s Brae (Pelham’s Battery)

 

A view of a flat grassy park with some paths crossing it and various groves of trees on it - this is Leith Links as viewed from Lady Fyfe's Brae.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
View from Lady Fyfe’s Brae (Pelham’s Battery)

 

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.

 

A photo showing grass in the foreground a grey path and then a grassy hillock behind.  At either side is a line of large, old trees.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Giant’s Brae (Somerset’s Battery)

 

A photo of a daisy in the grass on the hillock, its centre is yellow, and its petals are white.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Daisy in the grass Giant’s Brae (Somerset’s Battery)

 

A photo of a grassy hillock with large old trees on either side and a blue sky with white clouds above.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Giant’s Brae (Somerset’s Battery)

 

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.

 

A photo of a flat grassy park with a line of trees.  The tree at the end of the line is of a lighter colour and looks quite vibrant.  There is a park bench underneath this tree.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
A rather nice tree that stands between the two mounds

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 107) being held up with the park of Leith Links in the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #107

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 107) sitting in the bark of a tree on Leith Links.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #107 in the bark of a tree on Leith Links

 

A photo showing a larger view of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 107) sitting in the bark of a tree on Leith Links. Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #107 in the bark of a tree on Leith Links

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #107
Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #107

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.970178

Longitude -3.164135

 

what3words: dome.poem.lanes

 

I used the following sources for information on Lady Fyfe’s Brae, Giant’s Brae and the Siege of Leith –

 

Historical Notes Concerning Leith and its Antiquities, Vol 1 
by James Campbell Irons
1897

The Story of Leith
By John Russell
1922
 
Canmore