During the long Edinburgh civil war, the King's party occupied the Canongate burgh at the foot of the Royal Mile while Kirkcaldy's garrison held the castle above. This created a bizarre urban warfare situation where two governments operated within shouting distance of each other — the King's party Parliament meeting in Canongate churches while Marian government continued nominally in the castle above. Intermittent sniping, night sorties, and the seizure of supply carts made the Canongate a dangerous no-man's land throughout 1571 and 1572.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
Research a location near this battlefield