Migliorino Ubaldini

During the war with England known as the Rough Wooing, on 5 February 1548 Regent Arran appointed Migliorino Ubaldini as supreme commander of all Scottish forces by land and sea.

Merriman linked Ubaldini's appointment in Scotland with Lord Methven's plea to Mary of Guise in December 1547 for a French captain who had intelligence to assiege and order artillery.

[10] Master John Hamilton of Milnburn began building a rampart and blockhouse in February 1547, recorded as casting the "foussys" or ditches on Castle Hill, and reported by James Stewart of Cardonald.

His friend and ally Ninian Cockburn vowed the new work would never be finished, writing, "yon neu blak hous quhilk will nocht cum abof the erde.

"[19] She held a parley at the "fore blockhouse at the first gate of the castle" before the commencement of the siege of Leith with the English commander James Croft.

Fisher passed on observations made by an English prisoner, the soldier Thomas Carlile, who had garrisoned Byllye Tower in January 1548,[21] but was captured at the siege of Haddington.

It is unclear if Fisher attributes the work at Leith to Ubaldini: the fortifications there were completed by his successor Piero Strozzi;"Lastely he (Thomas Carlile) saith, that having had libertie to walke abrode in the towne of Edenbrughe with his taker, and somtymes betwene that and Leghe, he telleth that Leghe is entrenched round aboute, and that, besides a bulwarke made by the haven side towardes the sea on the ground where the Chapell stode, which I suppose your Grace remembreth, there is an other greater bulwerk made on the mayne ground at the gret churche standinge at the upper end of the towne, towardes Edenbrughe.

And that their engener having at the firste comyng of the Frenche, devised a traves walle, betwene the towne of Edenbrugh and the castell, the same, saith he, is already a good piece builded and rysen brest highe of a man, at the charges [of] the Governor, which wall, with a poynted bulwerk in the myddes, ronneth by the jugement of his eyes to'whart the grene where Sir Christopher Morres planted th'ordenance at your Graces first approche there, in sorte here under grocely pricked out, and at the south end thereof is th'entreet her unto, which distaunce seameth to be like a base court to the castell.

[26]The Spur was finally demolished in 1650, and the stones were taken for the use of John Milne for the town's building work at the Parliament House and the Citadel and fortifications at Leith.

Woodcut of Edinburgh in 1573, showing Ubaldini's Spur
Sketch showing Edinburgh Castle in 1544, with Christopher Morris's siege gun placed at the site of the Spur
Thomas Fisher's Sketch of the Spur, from British Library Cotton Caligula B/VII f.336.