The night escalade of Edinburgh Castle in February 1314 was one of the most daring feats of the Wars of Independence. Thomas Randolph used William Francis — a soldier who had previously scaled the rock at night to visit a girlfriend in the town — as a guide. Thirty men climbed the near-vertical north face of Castle Rock in the dark. The garrison was completely surprised. Only one defender survived. The castle was demolished to deny it to the English. Combined with Douglas at Roxburgh days later, it removed the last major English strongholds before Bannockburn.
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 Midlothian