I00 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
one called the Block House, and it was here that the fiercest assaults and
heaviest carnage then took place. In vain did the besiegers endeavour to
force an entrance. Daring deeds of noblest valour were then performed;
greatest efforts of loftiest courage, both individually and collectively, were
there put forth j but to no purpose. Mary and her French soldiers remained
safe within the strong arms of that impregnable rampart, and the reformers
had only the sad mortification of seeing their best and their brightest fall by
the hands of foreign mercenaries, comparatively secure behind its massive
strength.
' The flankers then, in murdering holes that lay,
Went off and slew, God knows, stout men enow ;
The harquebuse afore had made foul playe,
But it behoved our men for to go throwe,
And so men sought their deaths, they knew not how.
From such a sight, swate God, my friends defend,
For out of paine did dyvers find theyr end,'
Hardly a vestige of these fortifications are now visible, although, in making
excavations, evident traces of the former- military character of. the town are
occasionally found. Perhaps we should add that the site of the citadel is
still preserved by a place of that name adjacent to, and principally occupied
by, the North Leith Station of the North British Railway, with the principal
entrance thereto, an arched way of great strength, with a little bit of the wall
attached.
Time rolls on, bringing with him in his irresistible march his own great
changes. The queen-mother dies, and Mary, who by this time is a widow,
. has come over from that beautiful country she loved so well,' to take the
reins of government into her own hands. The day on which she anived
seems to have been unexceptionally dull and heavy. Knox, in describing it,
1 'Adieu, plaisant pays de France,
0 ma patrie I
La plus chCrie
Qui as nourri ma jeune enfance?
Adieu, France 1 Adieu, mes beaux jours,
La nef qui de joint mes amours
Na ey de moi qui la mortie
Une parte te resti ; elle est la tienne
Je la tie ton amitie,
Pour que de I'autre il la souvienne.'
These beautiful lines were written by Mary on leaving France, and show how dearly she
loved the land she was parting from-for ever 1
