i.e., the Tolbooth; others were held there in 1449
and 1459. In the latter the Scottish word
?Tolbooth,? meaning a tax-house, occurs for the
first time ; ?Hence,? says Wilson, ? a much older,
and probably larger erection must therefore have
existed on the site of the western portion of the
Tolbooth, the ruinous state of which led to the
royal command for its demolition in 1561-not
a century after the date we are disposed to
assign to the oldest portion of the building that
remained till 1817, and which, though decayed and
time-worn, was so far from being ruinous even then,
that it proved a work of great labour to demolish
its solid masonry.? In the ?Diurnal of Occurrents,?
it is recorded that in 1571 ?the tour of the add
TuZbuyth was tane doun.?
The ornamental north gable of the Tolbooth was
never seen without a human head stuck thereon in
?the good old times,? In 1581. ?the prick on the
highest stone? bore the head of the Regent
Morton, in 1650 the head of the gallant Montrose,
till ten years subsequently it was replaced by that
of his enemy Argyle.
In 1561 the Tolbooth figures in one of those
tulzies or rows so common in the Edinburgh of
those days ; but in this particular instance we see a
distinct foreshadowing of the Porteous mob of the
eighteenth century, by the magistrates forbidding a
I? Robin Hood.? This was the darling May game
of Scotland as well as England, and, under the
pretence offrolic, gave an unusual degree of licence;
but the Scottish Calvinistic clergy, with John Knox
? at their head, and backed by the authority of the
magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been
chosen exclusively from that party, found it impossible
to control the rage of the populace when
deprived of the privilege of having a Robin Hood,
with the Abbot of Unreason and the Queen of the
May.( Thus it czme to pass, that in May, 1561,
when a man in Edinburgh was chosen as ? Robin
Hood and Lord of Inobedience,? most probably
because he was a frolicsome, witty, and popular
fellow, and passed through the city with a great
number of followers, noisily, and armed, with a
banner displayed, to the Castle Hill, the magistrates
caught one of his companions, ? a cordiner?s servant,?
named Janies Gillon, whom they condemned
to be hanged on the z ~ s t of July.
On that day, as he was to be conveyed to the
gibbet, it was set up with the ladder against it
in the usual fashion, when the craftsmen rushed
into the streets, clad in their armour, with
spears, axes, and hand-guns. They seized the
Provost by main force of arms, together with
two Bailies, David Symmer and Adam Fullarton,
and thrusting them into Alexander Guthrie?s
writing booth, left them there under a. guard.
The rest marched to the cross, broke the gibbet
to pieces, and beating in the doors of the Tolbooth
with sledge-hammers, under the eyes of
the magistrates, who were warded close by,
they brought forth the prisoner, whom they conveyed
ic~ triumph down the street to the Nether
Bow Port. . Finding the latter closed, they passed
up the street again. By this time the magistrates
had taken shelter in the Tolbooth, from whence
one,of them fired a pistol and wounded one of the
mob. ?That being done,? says the Diurnal of
Occurrents, ? there was naething but tak and day!
that is, the one part shooting forth and casting
stones, the other part shooting hagbuts in again, and
sae the craftsmen?s servants held them (conducted
themselves) continually frae three hours afternoon,
while (till) aucht at even, and never ane man of the
toun steirit to defend their provost and bailies.?
The former, who was Thomas Maccakean, of
Clifton Hall, contrived to open a communication
with the constable of the Castle, who came with
an armed party to act as umpire ; and through that
officer it was arranged ?that the provost and
bailies should discharge all manner of actions
whilk they had against the said crafts-childer in
ony time bygone ;? and this being done and proclaimed,
the armed trades peacefully disbanded,
and the magistrates were permitted to leave the
Tolbooth.
In 1539 the sixth Parliament of James VI. met
there. The Estates rode through the streets;
? the crown was borne before his Majesty by
Archibald Earl of Angus, the sceptre by Colin
Earl of Argyle, Chancellor, and the sword of
honour, by Robert Earl of Lennox.? Moyse adds,
when the Parliament was dissolved, twelve days
after, the king again rode thither in state. In
1581 Morton was tried and convicted in the hall
for the murder of Darnley ; the King?s Advocate
on that occasion was Robert Crichton of Elliock,
father of the ?? Admirable Crichton.?
Caldenvood records some curious instances of
the king?s imbecility among his fierce and turbulent
couttiers. On January 7th, 1590, when he was
coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth,
where he had been administering justice, two of
his attendants, Lodovick Duke of Lennox (hereditary
High Admiral and Great Chamberlain), and
Alexander Lord Home, meeting the Laird of
Logie, with whom they had a quarrel, though he
was valet of the royal chamber, attacked him
sword in hand, to the alarm of James, who retired
into an adjacent close ; and six days after, when he
rrs PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly
dragged out one of the most important witnesses,
and carrying him to his castle of Cricliton, eleven
miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered
a word.
On the charge of being a ? Papist,? among many
other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the
Countess of Abercorn, where her health became
broken by confinement, and the misery of a
prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of
George III., must have been something terrible in
the days orCharles I. In 1621 she obtained a
licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing
to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the
Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint
in various places for three years, she was permitted
to remain ir. the earl?s house at Paisley, in March
1631, on condition that she ? reset no Jesuits,?
and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000
merks.
Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth
contain volumes of entries made in the following
brief fashion :-
?1662, June 10.-John Kincaid put in ward
by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for
? pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft anwarranfably.?
Liberated on finding caution not to
do so again.
?-June 10.-Robert Binning for falsehood ;
hanged with the false papers about his neck.
?--4ug. q.-Robert Reid for murder. His
head struck from his body at the mercat cross.
?- Dec. 4.-James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhupitt
from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the
cheek with the Toun?s common mark, and banished
the kicgdom, for the crime of double adultery.
?? 1663, March ~g.-ATexander Kennedy; hanged
for raising false bonds and aritts.
?-March z I.-Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certifying
if again troubling the place, the next prison
shall be the Correction House.
?- July 8.-Katherine Reid ; hanged for
theft.
?-July &--Sir Archibald Johnston of Wamston;
treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed
on the Netherbow.
? - July I 8.-Bessie Brebner ; hansed for
murder.
?I -Aug. zS.-The Provost of Kirkcudbright ;
banished for keeping his house during a tumult.
? - Oct. 5.-William Dodds ; beheaded for
murder.?
And so on in grim monotony, till we come to
the last five entries in the old record, which is
quite incomplete.
1728, Oct. zs.-John Gibson; forging a
declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed
to the Tron, and dismissed.
?( 1751, March 18.-Helen Torrance :md Jean
Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child,
eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to
the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when
carried OK, and dead on Friday, with an incision in
the belly, but sewn up again.
? I 7 5 6, May 4.-Sir William Dalrymple of Cousland;
for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of
Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh.
Liberated?on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks,
to answer any complaint.
? 1752, Jan. 10.-Norman Ross ; hanged and
hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for
issassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of
Wedderburn.
? I 1757, Feb. 4.-Janies Rose, Excise Officer at
Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts
for arrears.?
It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through
clanship, or some other influence, nearly every
criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape.
Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer,
who was one of the commissioners for executing
the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who
married a daughter of the Earl of hfelville about
the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster
who had married a girl to whom he had paid improper
addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth,
and sentenced to death; and of his first attempt
to escape the following story is told He was
carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be
conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful
porter, who was to put hini on board a vessel
about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that
when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter
did so with Lord Burleigh?s head doiwnnmost, thus
it had to sustain the weight of his whole body.
The posture was agony, the way long and rough,
but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual
burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port,
where an acquaintance asked him ?whither he
was going?? ?:TO Leith,? was the reply. ? Is the
work good enough to afford a glass before going
farther?? was the next question. The porter said
it was; and tossed down the trunk with such
violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Burleigh,
who instantly fainted.
Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open
the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found
cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd
