The Story of Leith
IV. Leith's Part with Robert The Bruce

WITH the tragic and untimely death of Alexander III. Scotland was to enter upon a long, cruel, and desolating war to maintain her independence against the aggressive policy of Edward I. During this troubled period the prosperity which Alexander III. and his immediate predecessors, the "Kings of Peace," had done so much to build up by their wise and friendly policy towards England was completely destroyed. Alexander’s little granddaughter, the Maid of Norway, was the nearest heir to the throne. The Scots agreed with her grand-uncle, Edward I., that she should become the bride of his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, and in this way bring about the union of England and Scotland under one sovereign. But this child of many hopes, the little Maid, died on the voyage from Norway, leaving to Scotland a disputed succession which gave an opening for the mischievous interference of Edward I. The English king’s attempt to make Scotland a province of England changed the two otherwise friendly countries into bitter foes. The three centuries of devastating wars that followed made Scotland very unlike the happy and prosperous country she was in the days of Alexander III.

In 1296 Edward captured Berwick, and, by a savage massacre of its inhabitants, reduced that city of merchant princes to the market town it has ever since remained. Mounted on his great war horse Bayard, Edward led his army northwards and took up his quarters at Holyrood, while his fleet, laden with supplies for his troops, anchored off Leith.

During his progress through Scotland the landowners of the country great and small, churchmen, nobles, and the chief burgesses, were summoned to do homage and swear fealty to the conqueror. The names of all who performed these acts of homage have been carefully preserved on four rolls of parchment known as the Ragman Roll. These rolls form a valuable record of the lands, though not always of their owners, in our own immediate district at this date, and to them we are indebted for any little light that gives us a peep at the condition of things in and around Leith during those dark and troubled days. It is there that we find for the first time the name of an Edinburgh magistrate, namely, William de Dederyk, Alderman, as the provost was called in those early days.

There, too, we find the name of Adam, parson of Restalrig, the parish church of Leith at this time. King Edward had seized the lands of Holyrood, so that the greater half of Leith passed into the hands of the English; but Abbot Adam and all the canons swore a solemn oath of fealty to the English king in the Abbey chapter-house, a few remains of whose foundations may still be seen on the lawn at Holyrood. In those days men did not observe very faithfully feudal pledges not over willingly given, so, to add to the solemnity of their oath, the abbot and canons were compelled to swear over the sacrament bread—the Corpus Christi or body of Christ—brought from the high altar dedicated to the Holy Rood.

In this way was the convent again put in possession of its lands, no doubt to the joy of its sorely troubled vassals in Leith, who rejoiced to have the good abbot and canons come among them, as they were wont to do. Thus did the policy of Abbot Adam of swearing fealty to Edward I. secure the safety of his monastery and the fortunes of his part of Leith during his remaining years. But they were difficult and dangerous times, and it was no easy matter knowing what course to steer. The Abbey with its adjacent possessions was doomed to suffer grievously at the hands of the English before they would yield to acknowledge Scotland’s independence.

The lands of Holyrood were not the only parts of Leith to come under King Edward’s peace at this time. Farther down the roll we find the name of John de Lestalric and that of his near neighbour, and no doubt good friend, Geoffrey de Fressinglye, Lord of Puddingston. A few years later, however, De Lestalric and his companion-in-arms, De Fressinglye, were to forfeit their lands of Restalrig and Duddingston for being among the first to enlist under the banner of Robert the Bruce and doing their "bit" in the long and strenuous fight for Scotland’s independence. In this struggle they were either killed or worn out with hardships and toil, for, like Randolph and the Good Lord James, they both died comparatively early in life.

The early struggle against England is rather an obscure period of Scotland’s history, and but for the immediate neighbourhood of the mighty fortress of Edinburgh Castle, which was strongly held for England until the year of Bannockburn, and which dominated and held in subjection the whole neighbourhood, Leith might have dropped out of the history of this time altogether; but, as it is, it bulks more largely, if less romantically, than Edinburgh itself in the story of those stirring and chivalrous days.

No sooner did the English garrison take up its quarters in Edinburgh Castle than English ships began to arrive in Leith harbour with large supplies of all kinds, the various items of which show us that grains and wines were then, as with us to-day, among the chief imports. These stores, many of which came from Berwick under the protection of the traitor Earl of Dunbar, who was ever on the side of England, included wheat, barley, malt, meal and wines, munitions of war, and "Eastland boards" for the manufacture of Edward I’s great war machines.

Many of these stores were reshipped in smaller craft for the English garrisons at Stirling, Clackmannan, and other places of strength farther up the Forth. In 1303, for example, an engine capable of throwing missiles weighing one hundredweight was sent with munitions from Edinburgh Castle to Edward I., who had been for three months baffled in the capture of Stirling Castle by the vigilance and skill of that gallant knight and near neighbour to the Leith folks of those days, Sir William Oliphant of Muirhouse, just beyond Pilton.

There was no Leith Walk then, nor for many centuries after, and we must put from our minds all our notions of roads derived from the fine highways of our own day. The Easter Road, Bonnington Road, and the Restalrig Road were then mere tracks across the heathery waste that, but for the cornfields adjacent to the two towns, filled all the area between the port and the city, if we may so dignify the four hundred or more thatched dwellings that made up the Edinburgh of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The most direct road, and, no doubt, the one most used by the English soldiery, was the Bonnington Road, which led cityward by way of Broughton. It was at this early date, one may be sure, the most frequented and the best of the three tracks, for the monks of Holyrood to whom it belonged were great roadmakers.

A few months later, on a bright day towards the end of June, the great army of Edward II., on its way to Bannockburn, and anticipating an easy and triumphant victory, encamped between Edinburgh and Leith to receive supplies from the fleet which lay off the harbour. This great English host, though perhaps only a fourth as large as the chroniclers would have us believe, was yet imposing enough to dismay the Scots leaders as they saw it approaching them at Bannockburn.

Starvation compelled the English to retreat; but before doing so, to the horror of the whole neighbourhood and the grief of the people of North Leith, the English, as Fordoun, the father of Scottish history and the greatest of our old-time Scots chroniclers, tells us, "sacked and plundered the monastery of Holyrood, and brought it to great desolation," for Edward II. lacked not only the wisdom but also the piety of his father, Longshanks, who was ever a devoted worshipper of the saints and a lover of monasteries. Then the Leithers returned, and quickly and easily rethatched their dwellings, and settled down to the old way of life, to work with redoubled energy to repair their losses; for in those days, as, indeed, all through their history, Leithers had to, and did, live up to their town motto of ‘‘Persevere."

Standing as it did in close proximity to Edinburgh, the goal of most invading English armies, and never possessing, except for a very short period, any protecting walls, Leith suffered even more than Edinburgh at the hands of the "auld enemy." Her houses, largely composed of timber or rude stonework and thatch, were easily and speedily restored. They had certainly no architectural beauty. The ordinary houses of those days were little better than huts, with little furniture and less comfort; but as Leithers had never known anything better, these troubles distressed them little. Such frequent dislocation of their trade and commerce, however, must have greatly retarded the progress of their town. At last the English recognized that their only wise course was to acknowledge Scotland’s independence, which they did by the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, when Scotland gained all she had striven for, and Bruce just saw the accomplishment of his great life work, for he died the following year.

And then it seemed as if all King Robert’s great work was about to be undone, for the peace concluded at Northampton lasted only two years. Edward III. now repudiated what the English called the "shameful treaty " of Northampton. Edward Baliol claimed the throne, and Edward III., hoping, like his grandfather, to become Scotland’s overlord, aided him, and once more the land was cruelly devastated by English invasion. In 1335 Edward III. ordered Edinburgh Castle to be rebuilt and fortified, and for this purpose much Eastland timber was brought into Leith and then transported to Edinburgh. The work was carried out under Sir John de Stirling, an exceedingly able and active officer, who, on taking over his command, reported that there was no dwelling in the said Castle save a little chapel (St. Margaret’s), partly unroofed, showing with what reverence Randolph had preserved it, and how completely he had destroyed the Castle as a fortress. Stirling’s accounts, still preserved, form a valuable record of the condition of things in our neighbourhood under English rule.

Sir John de Lestalric and his companion-in-arms, Geoffrey of Duddingston, were now dead, whether slain in battle against the English or not we have now no means of knowing. Each had been succeeded by his son—true "chips of the old blocks," for both were forfeited for loyally and nobly supporting the cause of Scotland and freedom against Edward III., while many renegade Scots saved their estates by taking the English side. With the English garrison in Edinburgh Castle were some twenty Scotsmen, of whom not one belonged to either Leith or Restalrig, showing that the hearts of his vassals were with their forfeited lord.

Leith now once again became the chief port on the east coast for English supplies, and here the English occupied De Lestalric’s house, but whether as a place of residence for their garrison or as a storehouse for supplies—more probably the latter—we are not told. The names of many of the ships bringing supplies from the south to Leith are recorded—such as the Mariola, St. Nicholas, and the Goddys Grace—their saintly names in no way deterring their captains and crews from indulging in a little piracy when occasion offered.