Inchkeithl HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ISLAND. 29T
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land harbour, was repulsed in an attempt upon
St. Minoe (St. Monance) by the Laird of Dun,
?? and so without glory or gain, returned to England.?
The re-capture of Inchkeith during the French
occupation of Leith has already been related; but
the garrison there were in turn blockaded by Elizabeth?s
squadron of sixteen ships under Admiral
Winter, in 1560, which cut off their provisions and
communication with the shore.
The works erected by the English at first were
thrown down by the French, who built a more
regular castle, or work, and ?? upon a portion of the
fort, which remained about the end of the last
century,? says Fullarton?s ? Gazetteer,? ?? were the
initials M. R and the date 1556 ;? but the exactness
of the date given seems doubtful. During the
French occupation the island was, as has been said,
used as a grazing ground for the horses of the
gendarmes, which could not with safety be pastured
on Leith Links.
To prevent the island from ever again being used
by the English the fortifications were dismantled in
1567, and the guns thereon were brought to Ehinburgh.
In the Act of Parliament ordaining this
they are described as being ruinous and utterly
decayed.
In 1580, Inchkeith, with Inchgarvie, was made
a place of exile for the plague-stricken by order of
the Privy Council. After this we hear no more of
the isie till 1652, when in the July of that year, as
Admiral Blake at the head of sixty sail appeared off
Dunbar in search of the Dutch under Van Tromp,
the appearance of the latter off the mouth of the
Firth, ? put the deputy-governor of Leith, called
Wyilkes, in such a fright,? says Balfour, ?that he
with speed sent men and cannon to fortifie Inchkeithe,
that the enimey, if he come npe the Fyrthe,
should have none of the freshe watter of that
iyland.? .
From this we may gather that Major Wilks
(the same Cromwellian who shut up the church of
South Leith and kept the keys thereof) was a prudent
and active officer.
At this time, probably, all intercourse between
Leith and London by sea was cut 04 as Lamont
in the August of this year, records that Lady Crawford
departed from Leith to visit her husband, then
a prisoner in the Tower of London; adding that
she travelled ?in the journey coach that comes
ordinarlie betwixt England and Scotland.?
When Dr. Johnson visited Scotland in 1773,
Lord Hailes mentioned to Boswell the historical
anecdote of the Inch having been called U L?isk
des Chaux ? by the soldiers of Mardchal Strozzi j
)ut when the lexicographer and his satellite
anded there, they found sixteen head of black
cattle at pasture there.
That the defensive works had not been so com-
?letely razed as the Parliament of 1567 ordained,
s e a s apparent from the following passage in
Boswell?s work :-? The fort with an inscription on
it, MARIA RE 1504 (?), is strongly built.?
Dr, Johnson examined it with much attention,
I? He stalked like a giant among the luxuriant thistles
and nettles. There are three wells in the island,
but we could not find one in the fort. There must
prdbably have been one, though now dlled up, as
a garrisoxi could?not subsist without it . . . .
When we got into our boat again, he called to me.
? Come, now, pay a classical compliment to the
island on quitting it.? I happened, luckily, allusion
to the beautiful Queen Mary, whose name is
on the fort, to think of what Virgil makes fineas
say on having left the? country of the charming
Dido :-
Invitus, regina, tu0 littore cessi.?
? Unhappy Queen,
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.? ?
Boswell was in error about the date on the stone,
and showed a strange ignorance of the history of
his own country, as Mary was not born till 1542 j
and there now remains, built into the wall of the
courtyard round the lighthouse, and immediately
above the gateway thereof, a stone bearing the
royal arms of Scotland with the date 1564.
There are now no other remains of the old fortifications,
though no doubt all the stones and
material of them were used in building the
somewhat extensive range of houses, stores, and
retaining walls connected with the light-house. If
the fort was still strong, as Boswell asserts, in I 773,
it is strange that the works were not turned to some
account, when Admiral Fourbin was off the coast
in 1708, and during the advent of Paul Jones in
1779.
We first hear of the new channel adjoining the
island in September, 1801, when the pewspapen
relate that the Wnghts, armed ship of Leith,
Captain Campbell, commander, and the Safguard,
gun-vesseJunder Lieutenant Shields?the former with
a convoy for Hamburg, and the latter with a convoy
for the Baltic, in all one hundred sail, put to sea
together, passing ?? through the new channel to the
southward of the island, which has lately been
buoyed and rendered navigable by order of Government,
for the greater safety of His Majesty?s ships
entering the Firth of Forth. This passage which
is also found to be of the greatest utility to the
trade of Leith, and ports higher up the Firth, has
