The Earl of Hertford landed at the Forth with 10,000 men and marched on Edinburgh. The city was taken after minimal resistance and deliberately burned — Holyrood Abbey and Palace were sacked, the town of Leith plundered. Henry VIII had ordered that Scotland be put to fire and sword. The burning of Edinburgh was the signature act of the Rough Wooing and the most traumatic assault on a Scottish city since the Wars of Independence. The violence strengthened Scottish resistance rather than breaking it.
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.
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