L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 187
western portion of the Tolbooth, the ruinous state of which at length 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 a charter granted to the town by James 111. in 1477, the market for corn and grain
is ordered to be held (‘ fra, the Tolbuth up to Libertones Wynde,”l and we learn from the
Diurnal of Occurrents, that the tour of the Auld Tolbuyth wes tane doun in 1571.”9
The first allusion indicates the same site for the Tolbooth at that early period, as it
occupied to the last, and seems to codkm the idea suggested as to the earlier fabric. The
name TolJooth literally signifies tax-house,8 and the existence of a building in Edinburgh,
erected for this purpose, might be referred, with every probability, to even an earlier
period than the reign of David I., who bestowed considerable grants on his monastery
of the Holy Cross, derivable from the revenues of the town.‘ From the anxiety of the
magistrates to retain the rents of 1 heir ‘‘ laigh buthis ” in this ancient building, another
site was chosen in 1561 for the New Tolbooth, a little to the south of the old one ; and
some ten years later, as appears from the old diarist, the tower was at length demolished,
and also probably the whole of the most ancient edifice. One of the carved stones from
the modern portion of the building,-apparently the centre crow-step that crowned the
gable,-was preserved, among other relics of similar character, in the nursery of Messrs
Eagle and Henderson, Leith Walk. It bore on it the city arms, sculptured in high relief,
and surmounted by an ornamental device with the date 1641. The style of the new
building, though plain and of rude workmanship, entirely corresponded with this date,
being that which prevailed towards the close of Charles L’s reign. The unsettled state
of the country at that period, and the heavy exactions to which Edinburgh had been
exposed, both by the King and the covenanting leaders, abundantly account for the
plain character of the latter building. The only ornaments on the north side consisted
of two dormer windows, rising above the roof, with plain string-courses marking the
several stories.
The ornamental north gable of the most ancient portion of the building, appears to
have been the place of exposure for the heads and dismembered limbs of the numerous
victims of the sanguinary laws of Scotland in early times. In the year 1581, the head of
the Earl of Morton “was sett upon a prick, on the highest stone of the gavel1 of the
Tolbuith, toward the publict street,” and the same point,-after doing the like ignominious
service to many of inferior note,-received, in 1650, the head of the gallant Marquis of
Montrose, which remained exposed there throughout the whole period of the Commonwealth,
and was taken down at length, shortly after the Restoration, with every demonstra-
Yaitlaud, p. 8. * Diurnal of Occurrenta, p. 252. ’ ‘* Mr Cfeorge Ramsay, minister at Laswaid, teaching in Edinburgh [1593], charged the Lords of the Colledge of
Justice with selling of jutice. He said they sold in the Tolbuith, and tooke payment at home, in their chambers : that
the place of their judgement was justlie called Tool-buith, becaue there they tooke toll of the subjecta.”-Calderwood’s
Hist. vol. v. p. 290.
It is perhaps worthy of notice in regard to thia subject, that the site of the Weigh-house, which, like the Tolbooth,
eucroached on the main street, “ was granted to the Edinburghers by King David II., in the 23d year of his reign, anno
For this he was summoned before the judges, but was dismissed, after Borne contention.
1352.”-Yaitland, p. 181.
