Three years on the rock
The Siege of Edinburgh Castle, which lasted from 1571 to 1573, was the longest siege in Scottish history and one of the most dramatic episodes of the Marian Civil War — the bitter conflict between supporters of the exiled Mary Queen of Scots and the regency government acting for her infant son James VI. The castle, perched on its volcanic rock above the city, was held for Queen Mary by Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, one of the finest soldiers of his generation.
The Marian Civil War had divided Scotland into two armed camps. Mary had been forced to abdicate in 1567 after the murder of her husband Lord Darnley and her disastrous marriage to the Earl of Bothwell. Her infant son was crowned James VI, and a series of regents governed in his name. But Mary's supporters refused to accept the new order, and Kirkcaldy — who had initially opposed Mary — switched sides and seized Edinburgh Castle in her name.
For three years, the castle held out against everything the regent's forces could throw at it. Kirkcaldy commanded a garrison of around 150 men, supplied by occasional smuggling operations through the castle's defences. The siege paralysed Edinburgh — the castle guns could reach most of the city, and the two sides fought a grinding war of attrition through the streets of the Old Town. The Regent Lennox was killed in a skirmish in Stirling. His successor, the Earl of Mar, died of illness. The conflict seemed endless.
The siege was finally broken in 1573 when the English queen Elizabeth I, who supported the James VI party, sent heavy siege artillery north. English cannons battered the castle's ancient walls, destroying David's Tower and breaching the defences. Kirkcaldy surrendered on 28 May 1573. Despite promises of clemency, he was hanged at the Mercat Cross in August. The half-moon battery that visitors see today at Edinburgh Castle was built to replace the walls destroyed during the siege — a permanent reminder of the three years when Scotland's greatest fortress was the last redoubt of a lost cause.