Haynes's State Papers, vol.i.p.

153.
Rymer, tom.xv.p.

569.
{1560.} The appearance of Elizabeth's fleet in the frith disconcerted the French army, who were at that time ravaging the county of Fife; and obliged them to make a circuit by Stirling, in order to reach Leith, where they prepared themselves for defence.

The English army, reenforced by five thousand Scots,[*] sat down before the place; and after two skirmishes, in the former of which the English had the advantage, in the latter the French, they began to batter the town; and, though repulsed with considerable loss in a rash and ill-conducted assault, they reduced the garrison to great difficulties.

Their distress was augmented by two events; the dispersion by a storm of D'Elbeuf's fleet, which carried a considerable army on board,[**] and the death of the queen, regent, who expired about this time in the Castle of Edinburgh; a woman endowed with all the capacity which shone forth in her family, but possessed of much more virtue and moderation than appeared in the conduct of the other branches of it.