Throughout the Rough Wooing period and the subsequent decade, English authorities maintained a watch system along the Solway Firth coast to detect Scottish-French naval movements. The Solway was potentially vulnerable to amphibious operations — the French fleet that brought the young Mary Queen of Scots to France in 1548 passed through western Scottish waters — and English coastal watch posts from Carlisle to Whitehaven were kept on alert. The watch system was integrated with the broader border intelligence network that the English West March maintained through the 1540s to 1560s.
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 Cumberland