The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland / With Which Are Included Knox's Confession and The Book of Discipline

by John Knox

The French enclosed within the town, the English army began to plant their pavilions betwixt Leith and Restalrig. The ordnance of the town, and especially that which lay upon St. Anthony's steeple, caused them great annoyance; and eight cannon were bent against this place. These shot so continually, and so accurately, that, within few days, that steeple was condemned, and all the ordnance on it was dismounted. This made the Englishmen somewhat more negligent than it became good men of war to have been; for, perceiving that the French made no pursuit outside their walls, they got the idea that they would never ish more. Some of the captains for pastime, went to the town:[164] the soldiers, for their ease, laid their armour aside, and, as men beyond danger, fell to the dice and cards. So, upon Easter Monday, at the very hour of noon, when the French ished, both on horse and foot, and entered into the English trenches with great violence, they slew or put to flight all that were found there.

The watch was negligently kept, and succour was slow, and long in coming; the French, before any resistance was made, approached almost to the great ordnance. But then the horsemen trooped together, and the footmen got themselves in array, and so repulsed the French back again to the town. But the slaughter was great: some say it exceeded double of that which the French received the first day. And this was the fruit of their security and ours.

Matters were afterwards remedied; for the Englishmen, most wisely considering themselves not able to besiege the town at all points, made mounds at divers quarters of it. In these, they and their ordnance lay in as good strength as did the enemy within the town. The common soldiers kept the trenches, and had the said mounds for their safeguard and refuge, in case of any greater pursuit than they were able to sustain. The patience and stout courage of the Englishmen, but principally of the horsemen, is worthy of all praise: for where was it ever heard that eight thousand (they that lay in camp never exceeded that number) should besiege four thousand of the most desperate cut-throats that were to be found in Europe, and lie so near to them in daily skirmishing, for the space of three months and more. The horsemen kept watch night and day, and did so valiantly behave themselves that the French got no advantage from that day until the day of the assault.

In the meantime, another bond to defend the liberty of the Evangel of Christ was made by all the nobility, barons, and gentlemen, professing Christ Jesus in Scotland, and by divers others that joined with us in expelling the French army.... This contract and bond came not only to the ears but to the sight of the Queen Dowager. Thereat she stormed not a little, and said, "The malediction of God I give unto them that counselled me to persecute the preachers, and to refuse the petitions of the best part of the true subjects of this realm. It was said to me that the English army could not lie in Scotland ten days; but they have lain nearly a month now, and are more likely to remain than the first day they came."

They that gave such information to the Queen, spoke as worldly wise men, and as things appeared to have been. For, the country being almost in all parts wasted, the victuals within reach of Leith either brought in to their stores or else destroyed, and the mills and other places cast down, it appeared that the camp could not have been furnished, unless it had been by their own ships. That could not have been for any long continuance of time, and so would have been of little comfort. But God confounded all worldly wisdom, and made His own benediction as evidently to appear as if, in a manner, He had fed the army from above. In the camp all the time that it lay, after eight days had passed, all kinds of victuals were more abundant, and of more easy prices, than they had been in Edinburgh at any time in the two previous years, or yet have been in that town to this day. The people of Scotland so much abhorred the tyranny of the French that they would have given their substance to have been rid of that chargeable burden which our sins had provoked God to lay upon us—in giving us into the hands of a woman, whom our nobility, in their foolishness, sold unto strangers, and with her the liberty of the realm....

The Assault upon Leith is unsuccessful.

The camp abounding in all necessary provision, arrangements were made for the confirmation of the siege; and the trenches were drawn as near to the town as they well might be. The great camp removed from Restalrig to the west side of the Water of Leith; and the cannons were planted for the bombardment, and shot at the south-west wall. But all was earth, and the breach was not made so great during the day but that it was sufficiently repaired at night. The English, beginning to weary, determined to give the brush and assault. This they did, upon the seventh day of May, beginning before daylight, and continuing until it was near seven o'clock. Albeit the English and Scottish, with great slaughter of the soldiers of both, were repulsed, there was never a sharper assault given at the hands of so few. The men that assaulted the whole two quarters of the town exceeded not a thousand, and yet they silenced the whole block-houses; yea, they once put the French clean off their walls, and were upon both the east and west block-houses. But they had not sufficient backing. Their ladders wanted six quarters of the proper height; and so, while the foremost were compelled to fight upon the top of the wall, their fellows could not get up to support them. Thus they were dung back again, by overwhelming numbers, when it was thought that the town was won.

Sir James Crofts is blamed.