Leith.] THE FORTIFICATIONS. 17r
then at peace. A small force under Monsieur de
la Chapelle Biron had already preceded this main
body, which consisted of between six and seven
thousand well-trained soldiers, all led by officers of
high rank and approved valour.
Andre de Montelambert, Sieur &Esse, commanded
the whole ; 2,000 of these men were of the
regular infantry of France, and were commanded
by Coligny, the Seigneur d?Andelot, who for his
bravery at the siege of Calais, afterwards was presented
with the house of the last English governor,
Lord Dunford. His father, Gaspard de Coligny,
was a marshal of France in 1516. Gaspare di
Strozzi, Prior of Capua, a Florentine cavalier (exiled
by Alessandro I., Grand Duke of Tuscany), was
colonel of the Italians ; the Rhinegrave led 3,000
Germans ; Octavian, an old cavalier of Milan, led
1,000 arquebussiers on horseback ; Dunois was
captain of the Compagrries d?Oru?omance ; Brissac
D?Etanges was colonel of the horse. Another
noble armament, which was to follow under the
Marquis d?Elbeuff, was cast away on the coast of
Holland, and only 900 of its soldiers reached
Scotland, under the Count de Martigues.
In the following year D?Esse was superseded in
the command by Paul de la Barthe, Seigneur de
Termes, a knight of St, Michael, who brought with
him IOO cuirassiers, zoo horse, and 1,000 infantry.
He was appointed marshal of France in 1555.
Prior to the arrival of these auxiliaries, Leith
seems to have been completely an open town ; but
Andre de Montelambert, as a basis for future operations,
at once saw the importance of fortifying it,
dependent as he was almost entirely upon support
from the Continent, and having a necessity for a
place to retreat into in case of reverse; so he at
once proceeded to enclose the seaport with strong
and regular works, carried out on the scientific principles
of the time.
As not a vestige of these works now remain, it is
useless to speculate on the probable height or composition
of the ramparts, which were most probably
massive earthworks, in many places faced
with stone, and must have been furnished with a
ferre-plene all round, to enable the gamson to pass
. and re-pass ; and no doubt the work would be efficiently
done, as the French have ever evinced the
highest talent for military engineering.
The works erected then were of a very irregular
kind, partaking generally of a somewhat triangular
form, the smallest base of which presented to
Leith Links on the eastward a frontage of about
2,000 feet from point to point of the flankers or
bastions.
In the centre of this was one great projecting
bastion, 600 feet in length, in the h e of the present
Constitution Street
Ramsay?s Fort, usually called the first bastion,
adjoined the river in the line of BernarC?s Street
with a curtain nearly 500 feet long, the second
bastion terminating the frontage described as to the
Links. The present line of Leith Walk would seem
to have entered the town by St. Anthony?s Port,
between the third and fourth bastion.
A gate in the walls is indicated by Maitland as
being at the foot of the Bonnington Road, near the
fifth bastion, from whence the works extended to
the riveq which was crossed by a wooden bridge
near the sixth bastion. Port St. Nicholas-so called
from the then adjacent church-entered at the
seventh bastion, which was flanked far out at a very
acute angle, evidently to enclose the church and
burying-ground ; and from thence the fortifications,
with a sea front of 1,200 feet, extended to the eighth
bastion, which adjoined the Sand Port, near where
the Custom House standsnow. The two bastions
at the harbour mouth would no doubt be built
wholly of stone, and heavily armed with guns to
defend the entrance.
Kincaid states that in his time some vestiges of
a ditch and bastion existed westward of the citadel.
Where the Exchange Buildings now stand there
long remained a narrow mound of earth a hundred
yards long and of considerable height, which in the
last century was much frequented by the belles of
Leith as a lofty and airy promenade, to which there
was an ascent by steps. It was called the ? Ladies?
Walk,? and was, no doubt, the remains of the
work adjoining the second bastion of AndI;e de
Montelambert.
The wall near the third bastion, when it became
reduced to a mere mound of earth, formed for a
time a portion of South Leith burying-ground.
? An unfortunate and unthinking wight of a seacaptain,?
sayscampbell, in his ?History,)) ?tempted,
we presume, by the devil, once took it in his head
to ballast his ship with this sacred earth. The consequence,
tradition has it, of this sacrilegious act
was, that neither the wicked captain nor his ship,
after putting to sea, was ever heard of again.?
Montelambert D?Esse could barely have had his
fortifications completed when, as already noted, he
was superseded in the command by a senior officer,
Paul de la Barthe, the Seigneur de Termes, one of
whose first measures was to drive the English out
of Inchkeith, where a detachment of them had been
occupying the old castle. The general operations
of the French army at Haddington and elsewhere,
after being joined by 5,000 Scottish troops under
the Governor, lie apart from the history of Leith;
I72 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.but the3ittle .warlike episode connected with Inchkeith
forms a part of it.
In the rare view of Holyrood given at page 45
.of Vol. II., Inchkeith is shown in the distance, with
its castle, a great square edifice, having a round
tower at each corner. The English garrison here
were in a position which afforded them many
.advantages, and they committed many outrages on
the shores of Fife and Lothian; and when it be-
.came necessary to dislodge them, M. de Biron, a
French officer, left Leith in a galley to reconnoitre
to the island, and evident selection of the only
landing-place, roused the suspicions of the garrison.
Finding theirintentions discovered, they made direct
for the rock, and found the English prepared to
dispute every inch of it with them.
Leaping ashore, with pike, sword, and arquebus,
they attacked the English hand to hand, drove
them into the higher parts of the island, where
Cotton, their commander, and George Appleby,
one of his officers, were killed, with several English
gentlemen of note. The castle was captured, and
@he island-the same galley in which, it is said,
little Queen Mary afterwards went to France. The
English garrison were no doubt ignorant of Biron?s
object in sailing round the isle, as they did not fire
upon him.
Mary of Lorraine had often resorted to Leith
since the arrival of her cour.trymen ; and now she
took such an interest in the expedition to Inchkeith
that she personally superintended the embarkation,
on Corpus Christi day, the 2nd of June,
1549. Accompanied by a few Scottish troops, the
French detachment, led by Chapelle de Biron, De
Ferrieres, De Gourdes, and other distinguished
.officers, quitted the harbour in small boats, and to
.deceive the English as to their intentions sailed up
and down the Firth ; but their frequent approaches
the English driven pell-mell into a corner of the
isle, where they had no alternative but to throw
themselves into the sea or surrender. In this combat
De Biron was wounded on the head by an
arquebus, and had his helmet so beaten about his
ears that he had to be carried off to the boats.
Desbois, his standard-bearer, fell under the pike
of Cotton, the English commander, and Gaspare
di Strozzi, leader of the Italians, was slain. An
account of the capture of this island was published
in France, and it is alike amusing and remarkable
for the bombast in which the French writer indulged.
He records at length the harangues of
the Queen Regent and the French leaders as the
expedition quitted Leith, the length and tedium of
the voyage, and the sufferings which the troops
