Richard Lee ( engineer ) Sir Richard Lee ( 1513 – 1575 ) was a military engineer in the service of Henry VIII of England , Edward VI and Elizabeth I . He was a commander of Henry VIII and appointed surveyor of the King ' s works . Lee was member of parliament for Hertfordshire in 1545 . Surveyor of Calais . Between 1536 and 1542 Lee was surveyor of works at Calais as the successor of William Lilgrave . He may have been a master mason , and his promotion was due to Thomas Cromwell . In 1538 he returned to England to advise Thomas Wriothesley on the conversion of Titchfield Abbey . Following the dissolution of St Albans Abbey he himself purchased the grounds of the abbey ( the abbey church itself was sold by King Edward VI to the people of St Albans in 1553 ) , with Sopwell Priory and the rectorship of St Stephen ' s church ( both of which were nearby ) . He tore down the priory and built a Tudor house on the site which he named Lee Hall . He also purchased the manor of Abbots Langley . In 1539 he was back at Calais implementing plans for re - fortification devised by Henry VIII in 1532 . Only brick was available at Calais so Lee shipped freestone and timber from Kent , with salvaged material from the demolished monasteries at Faversham and St . Augustines , Canterbury . Lee constructed a new harbour at Dykeland on the Hammes river for the Kentish ships . In 1541 Lee started building a trefoil shaped bulwark called the Dublin Tower . In Scotland . During the war of the Rough Wooing , in January 1544 Richard was sent into Scotland with the Italian engineers Antonio da Bergamo and John Thomas Scala , as expert men in the skill of fortifying . With the Surveyor of Calais , William Burgate , he joined Lord Hertford ' s raid on Edinburgh in May 1544 . Lee pronounced Edinburgh Castle to be impregnable , and made plans of the town and Leith . He was knighted by Lord Hertford at Leith . Lee is generally believed to have plundered the Dunkeld Lectern from Holyrood Abbey during an attack on Edinburgh in 1544 . He certainly took the brass font from Holyrood once used to christen Scottish monarchs . Now destroyed , it was formerly at St Albans with his name and the story of its capture in 1544 was engraved on it . After the battle of Pinkie Cleugh in September 1547 , Lee was made General Surveyor of the King ' s Majesty ' s works and fortifications in the North parts , for the duration of the Scottish war . Coastal defence . Around 1550 - 1552 Lee was at Berwick - upon - Tweed constructing the novel trace - italienne fortifications . In 1557 he was trench - master to the Earl of Pembroke in the Netherlands , and in 1558 went to Berwick as Surveyor of Works . After working at Portsmouth , in 1560 Richard was again supervising the re - fortification of Berwick , by correspondence with Rowland Johnston and in person in April . He was to " set forward the device for Berwick " : to design the new works . Lee also went to the Siege of Leith on 27 April 1560 asked to , " prick them forward to an end . " This was probably to help plan the assault on May 7 which failed . Lee made a map of Leith which was sent to London on 15 May 1560 . Lee and Pelham , a captain at Leith , were called before Elizabeth I of England in June 1564 , perhaps to give their testimony on affairs at Leith . When in London at this period , Lee stayed at the house of Mr . Graisse in Cheapside . In 1565 Lee viewed the site of Lindisfarne Castle on Beblowe Crag .