page_title: Leith
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Leith / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mound on Leith Links. It appears on the OS map as 'Somerset's Battery' and is known locally as 'Giant's Brae'.
context_page_description: Leith is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the Water of Leith.
  The earliest surviving historical references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of Holyrood Abbey in 1128. The medieval settlements of Leith had grown into a burgh by 1833, and the burgh was merged into Edinburgh in 1920.
  Leith is located on the coast of the Firth of Forth and lies within the City of Edinburgh.
context_section_description: The earliest evidence of settlement in Leith comes from several archaeological digs undertaken in the Shore area in the late 20th century. Amongst the finds were medieval wharf edges from the 12th century. This date fits with the earliest documentary evidence of settlement in Leith – the foundation charter of Holyrood Abbey.
  Leith has played a long and prominent role in Scottish history. As the major port serving Edinburgh, it has been the stage on which many significant events in Scottish history have taken place. The town was burnt by the Earl of Hertford (on the orders of Henry VIII) in retaliation for nationalist dissidents opposing the Treaty of Greenwich in 1543. Mary of Guise ruled Scotland from Leith in 1560 as Regent while her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots remained in France. Mary of Guise moved the Scottish Court to Leith, to a site that is now Parliament Street, off Coalhill. According to the 18th-century historian William Maitland, her palace was situated on Rotten Row, now Water Street. Artifacts from the demolished residence are held by the National Museum of Scotland, and her sculptured coat of arms, dated 1560, can be seen in South Leith Parish Church. When the large French garrison stationed in Leith was attacked by Scottish Protestant lords, reinforced by troops and artillery sent from England, Mary of Guise was forced to shut herself in Edinburgh Castle. In June 1560, Mary of Guise died, and the Siege of Leith ended with the departure of the French troops in accordance with the Treaty of Leith, also known as the Treaty of Edinburgh.
  Two mounds on Leith Links, known as "Giant's Brae" and "Lady Fyfe's Brae", identified as Somerset's Battery and Pelham's Battery respectively, are believed to be artillery mounds created for the siege in April 1560 and are listed as scheduled monuments. Stuart Harris was of the opinion, based largely on the contemporary Petworth map, that Pelham's Battery was built on the slope to the south of Leith Links and Somerset's Battery was located adjacent to the present Pilrig House. He also notes that the "tradition" that these batteries were situated on Leith Links is spurious, going no further back than Campbell's "History of Leith" 1827. Lent authority by the Ordnance Survey map of 1852, this attribution saved the mounds when several other hillocks on the links were removed in the 1880s. The best documented day of the siege was 7 May 1560, when the English and Scots charged the walls of Leith with ladders that turned out to be too short. John Knox records the delight of Mary of Guise at the failure of the attack, and English sources report 1000 casualties.
  Late in 1561, Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in Leith and, finding no welcoming party to receive her, made a brief stop at the "house of Andro Lamb ... beit the space of ane hour", before being collected and escorted by coach to Holyrood Palace, to begin her ill-fated six-year-long reign.
  After the abdication of Mary Queen of Scots in 1567, during the ensuing civil war, troops fighting for James VI of Scotland against his mother's supporters in Edinburgh Castle based themselves in Leith from 1571–1573, a period called the "Wars between Leith and Edinburgh". In January 1581 the Shore was the scene of a mock combat, involving an assault on the Pope's Castel Sant'Angelo built on boats, for the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart, 2nd Countess of Moray and James Stewart for the entertainment of guests including James VI. In 1590, James's Anne of Denmark was lodged in the King's Wark when she arrived.
  In 1650, Leith was a prospective battleground when the Army of the Covenant, led by General David Leslie, threw up an earthen rampart between Calton Hill and Leith to defend the northern approach to Edinburgh against Oliver Cromwell's forces. This rampart became the line of one of Edinburgh's longest streets, Leith Walk. After Cromwell's victory at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and subsequent occupation of Scotland, a fort known as Leith Citadel was erected in 1656 to regulate the port traffic. All that remains of the fort today is a vaulte
caption: 'Giant's Brae' on Leith Links
exif: {}