The siege of Leith ended a twelve-year encampment of French troops at Leith, the port near Edinburgh, Scotland. French troops arrived in Scotland by invitation in 1548. In 1560 the French soldiers opposed Scottish supporters of religious reformation, and an English army arrived to besiege the French garrison at Leith. The town was not taken by force and the French troops finally left peacefully under the terms of a treaty signed by Scotland, England and France.
Background
The Auld Alliance and Reformation of religion
Scotland and France had long been allies under the "Auld Alliance", first established in the 13th century. However, during the 16th century, divisions appeared between a pro-French faction at Court and Protestant reformers. The Protestants saw the French as a Catholic influence and, when conflict broke out between the two factions, called on English Protestants for assistance in expelling the French from Scotland.
In 1542, King James V of Scotland died, leaving only a week-old daughter who was proclaimed Mary, Queen of Scots. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, was appointed Regent and agreed to the demand of King Henry VIII of England that the infant Queen should marry his son Edward. This policy was soon reversed, however, through the influence of Mary's mother Mary of Guise and Cardinal Beaton, and Regent Arran rejected the English marriage offer. He then successfully negotiated a marriage between the young Mary and François, Dauphin of France.
War of the Rough Wooing
The English King Henry VIII, angered by the Scots reneging on the initial agreement for the royal marriage, made war on Scotland in 1544–1549, a period which the writer Sir Walter Scott later christened the "Rough Wooing". In May 1544, an English army landed at Granton and captured Leith to land heavy artillery for an assault on Edinburgh Castle, but withdrew after burning the town and the Palace of Holyrood over three days. Three years later, following another English invasion and victory at Pinkie in 1547, the English attempted to establish a kind of "pale" within southern Scotland. Leith was of prime strategic importance because of its vital role as Edinburgh's port, handling its foreign trade and essential supplies. The English arrived in Leith on 11 September 1547 and camped on Leith Links. The military engineer Richard Lee scouted around the town on 12 September looking to see if it could be made defensible. On 14 September the English began digging a trench on the south-east side of Leith near the Firth of Forth. William Patten wrote that the work was done as much for exercise as for defence, since the army only stayed for five days.
In response to the invasion Scotland looked to France for assistance, and on 16 June 1548 the first French troops arrived in Leith, soon to total 8,000 men commanded by André de Montalembert sieur d'Esse. The infant Queen Mary was removed to France the following month. In the following years the French interest became dominant in Scotland with increasing numbers of French trops, while English garrisons were established at Haddington, Dunglass, and Broughty Castle.
From 1548 onwards work began fortifying the port of Leith initially with a bulwark at the Kirkgate and at the chapel by the harbour, perhaps designed by the Italian Migliorino Ubaldini. The rest of the new fortifications were almost certainly designed by another Italian military engineer, Piero di Strozzi, and these represent the earliest use of the trace italienne style of artillery fortification in Britain. In August 1548 Strozzi directed the 300 or 500 Scottish workmen from a chair carried by four men because he had been shot in the leg at Haddington. In 1554, Mary of Guise, the Catholic French widow of James V, was appointed Regent in place of the Earl of Arran. Guise continued the pro-French policy, appointing Frenchmen to key positions in her government. In September 1559 she continued to improve the fortification at Leith and the island of Inchkeith with works which were probably designed by Lorenzo Pomarelli, an Italian architect and military engineer.