anderwent at sea, yet he adds, ?our numbers
amounted to 700, and with the loss of three we
made ourselves masters of the island, defended by
800 English trained to war and accustomed to
slaughter.? The Queen Regent and Monluc, the
Bishop of Valence, visited the island after its recapture,
and, according to the French account, were
rather regaled by the sight of 300 English corpses
strewn about it.
The castle was afterwards demolished by order of
LEITH HARBOUR ABOUT 1700. (Fronr am Oil Paint ng in fhe Tn?ni2y trousu, Lcifh.)
The French troops in Leith, being all trained
veterans, inured to military service in the wars of
Francis I. and Henry II., gave infinite trouble to
the raw levies of the Lords of the Congregation,
who began to blockade the town in October,
1559. Long ere this Mary, Queen of Scots, had
become the bride of Francis of France ; and her
mother, who had upheld the Catholic cause so
vigorously, was on her deathbed in the castle of
Edinburgh.
the Scottish Parliament as useless, and nothing
remains of it now but a stone, bearing the royal
arms, built into the lighthouse ; but the French
troops in Leith conceived such high ideas of the excellent
properties of the grass there, that all their
horses were pastured upon it, and for ten years
*hey always termed it ? L?isZe des Chvaux.?
So pleased was Mary of Lorraine with the presence
of her French soldiers in Leith, that-
:according to Maitland-she erected for herself ? a
?house at the corner of Quality Wynd in the Rotten
Row ;? but Robertson states that ?a general impression
has existed that Queen Street was the site
of the residence of the Queen Dowager.? Above
ithe door of it were the arms of Scotland and Guise.
The Lords of Congregation, before proceeding to
extremities with the French, sent a summons,in
the names of ?their sovereign lord and lady,
Francis and Mary, King and Queen of Scotland
and France, demanding that all Scots and Frenchmen,
of whatever estate or degree, depart out of the
town of Leith within the space of twelve hours.?
To this no answer was returned, so the Scottish
troops prepared for an assault by escalade; but
when they applied their ladders to the wall they
were found to be too short, and the heaiy fire of
the French arquebusiers repelled the assailants
with loss, These unlucky scaling-ladders had been
made in St. Giles?s Church, a circumstance which,
curiously enough, is said to have irritated the
