Another excerpt from ‘Dark Heart’, my non-fiction account of the life and subsequent death of the Edinburgh Tolbooth (now out of print). This historic building, of which only brass markers in the street bear testament to its history, features prominently in AN HONOURABLE THIEF, the first in my Jonas Flynt/Company of Rogues series of historical thrillers. This excerpt tells you more about the building and its place in history before it became ‘a grave for men alive.’
IT was a powerful building, even as it stood cheek-by-jowl with the magnificence that was St Giles Church. Tall and turreted, dark and imposing, it blocked Edinburgh’s High Street like a massive stone sentinel, leaving a gap of between 14 to 20 feet for the populace to go about their business. The high tenements and lands rose up around it as if, in the words of one commentator, ‘the antique fabric had been dropped whole and complete in the midst of the pent-up city.’ Its walls had been blackened by decades of smoking chimneys, its windows so grimy they were almost opaque, although now and then a white face could be glimpsed peering out. One look was enough to tell even the most casual observer what this place was – the town gaol. One of Edinburgh’s best-known landmarks, it was also one of the most hated. Even today, the spittle of good burghers covers the heart-shaped cobblestones that mark the site of its entranceway. Some will know why they are expectorating on that particular spot, others will do it merely because it’s the thing to do.
It became known as the Tolbooth, or Tolbuith, but it was not an office for the taking of roadway tolls as we understand the term today. It was, rather, originally the building to which the people came to pay their taxes, as well as acting as a headquarters for the growing civic bureaucracy. King David 1 (1124-1152) gave the monks of Holy Cross the rights to the revenues of the town, but even then the town was growing. As the monks’ influence waned, albeit slightly, the burgeoning band of burgesses grew in influence and the Throne recognised that some sort of permanent centre was needed in which the people could pay their dues. Also, according to a 19th century architectural report on the history of the Tolbooth, the town had been ‘burned and pillaged a little more thoroughly than usual’ during an incursion by the English. Some rebuilding work had proved necessary so, in 1386, Robert II, the great-nephew of Robert the Bruce and the first Stewart king, granted the town a charter, the Carta Fundi De Le Belhous, which proclaimed:
‘Know ye, that we have given, granted and by this our present charter have conferred to our beloved and faithful, the burgesses and communities of Edinburgh, and their successors in time to come, 60 feet in length and 30 in breadth of land lying in the market place of the said burgh, on the north side of the street thereof; given and granted to them, and their forsaid successors, a special license to construct and erect houses and buildings, on the forsaid land, for the ornament of the said burgh, and for their necessary use.”
There were Belhouses in other parts of Scotland and they were was exactly as the name suggested, houses with a bell. The bell was a very important part of the civic life of the town, not to mention the need for an alarm during incursions by enemies both foreign (the English) and domestic (rebellious nobles). The Aldermen of the burgh used it to call the “guild brethren together for the transaction of business.” For this, smaller bells would peal through the town, with three strikes of the Belhous bell ending the call. If the guild brethren did not drop what they were doing and come running, they could be fined twelve pennies. In addition, no-one could buy fish, cheese or any other commodity until the bell was wrung. The bells also became a handy source of income as charges were levied to ring them on birthdays, marriages or funerals.
Perhaps this Belhous is the earlier building on the site referred to by author and publisher Robert Chambers in his Traditions of Old Edinburgh. He believed this older structure, later subsumed into the fabric of the Tolbooth, was ‘a kind of peel or house of defence, required for public purposes by the citizens of Edinburgh when liable to predatory invasions.’
The building became the ‘pretorium burgi de Edinburgi’ mentioned in early Acts of the Scottish Parliament. It appears for the first time in an official document of 1403. The great and the good massed here on a regular basis to form the Parliament. They met on the upper floor of the building, with Royalty in full dress regalia sweeping across a platform extended from a house opposite to receive the fealty of the ‘loyal’ burghers or to listen to their gripes. While affairs of state were heard in the upper chambers, commerce raged in the collection of small shops beneath them, providing rents that helped swell the city coffers. So, while the lords sat above swathed in fine cloths and velvets, the tradesmen beavered away below making and selling them. There was commerce all around the building, for the area around St Giles was the town’s market place. The famous Luckenbooths, more substantial than stalls, grew out of the Buithraw, a row of booths used by lawyers and public officers. Merchants saw the benefits of such property and so the idea grew until the Luckenbooths lined the High Street and the land around the church building itself. Their successors can be seen today in the small stores enticing tourists with their tartan trinkets and mementoes of Scotland.
A variety of theories have been put forward as to the derivation of the name Luckenbooths. Chambers says that the word lucken signified ‘closed’, meaning that these shops were ‘closed in’ rather than being open stalls. Others say that the name came from a woollen cloth sold there, made in the Dutch town of Lacken. The root of the term may well have grown from the Celtic word for cheek, Leacan, because the booths stood at the side – or cheek – of the church.
The site of the Tolbooth, beside the market place and the principal church, was clearly integral to the business and administration of the town. The building also became very important in the affairs of the nation. Chambers believed it was likely here that the lords gathered to debate the future following the murder of James 1 in Perth in 1437. While his Queen slaked her thirst for revenge with the blood of the principal conspirators – and in so doing gave the Edinburgh people a grisly spectacle to enjoy – the Lords of Parliament pondered the state of the kingdom under a boy king. James II had been crowned at Holyrood – the first time a Scottish king was proclaimed monarch in Edinburgh, breaking the tradition of being so anointed at Scone. However, others hold that the first General Council after James’s death was held in the Great Hall of the Castle, where the Queen had lodged her six-year-old son for safety.
What is certain, however, is that in November 1438 parliament did meet in the ‘pretorio burgi de Edinburgh’ and again in 1449. By 1451, the name by which the building was to become better known appeared for the first time when ‘the parleament of ane richt hie and excellent prince, and our soverane lorde, James the Secunde, by the grace of Gode, King of Scotts, haldyn at Edinburgh the begunyn in the Tolbuth of the samyn.’ By this time, the king known as James of the Fiery Face due to a livid birthmark, was entrenched in the struggles with the Douglas Clan. Scottish history is stained with the blood of men slaughtered in the pursuit of power and, like all Stewart monarchs, young James was no stranger to treachery and death. At 16 he had been present when his boyhood friend William Douglas was lured along with his brother to a dinner in Edinburgh Castle and butchered by the Livingston/Crichton faction. The teenage James may have wept for his friend murdered at the ‘black dinner’ but a few years later he displayed his own ruthless traits by personally stabbing a Douglas Lord in the neck during a supper in Stirling. The 1451 Parliament was designed to curb the power of the Douglas family by enforcing acts ‘against the encroachments on the Royal prerogative.’ James ll ruled until he was 30, dying when a cannon exploded during an assault on Roxburgh, then in English hands.
His son, again James, was of an artistic bent but still displayed the treacherous nature that marked many a Stewart monarch. He surrounded himself with advisors whom the Scottish barons viewed with contempt. When he refused to dismiss them, the barons seized a half dozen and hung them without trial. The King was then taken prisoner and imprisoned, comfortably, in Edinburgh Castle. James had already appealed to England for aid against his rebellious nobles and a force of ten thousand men under the command of the Duke of Gloucester marched on Edinburgh in 1481, arriving just as the barons were in council within the Tolbooth. It was here the King’s brother, the slippery Duke of Albany, convinced them to make him Regent. The English returned home, but kept the prosperous town of Berwick for their trouble, while James was released from captivity and returned to the throne by his brother. An early chronicle stated that the King refused to mount a horse to take him to Holyrood until his brother climbed on behind him. Perhaps he feared an attempt on his life or perhaps he was adhering to the old adage of keeping friends close but enemies closer. Together they rode to the abbey ‘quhair they remained ane long tyme in great mirrines (merryness).’ Following the English incursion, the provost of Edinburgh, William Bertraham, told his burgesses and merchants gathered in the Tolbooth that they would pay the English King 6000 merks sterling and in return James made he and his baillies sheriffs. Importantly, the following year, he recognised the efforts made on his behalf by the city’s craftsmen. They had sided with him during the struggle with the barons and had taken to the streets when Albany came to rescue him. He conferred on them a blue banner to be used by the artisans of Edinburgh as a call to arms during times of war, which were often, and acts of civil disobedience, which were even more often. According to one unlikely history, written by an 18th century mason, the famed Blue Blanket was first created by Pope Urban ll around 1200 and was carried to the Crusades by members of the Scottish brotherhood.
Parliaments continued to be convened in the Tolbooth, though this King favoured Stirling as a home. His barons still conspired against his rule, including his erstwhile saviour, his brother the Duke of Albany, who finally fled to England from where he staged a minor incursion that was beaten back at Lochmaben by a local force. He died one year later in France. James lll hung onto his throne until 1488, when he was killed at Sauchieburn near Stirling by a rebel army that included his own son.
Although wracked with guilt over his involvement in the murder of his father, James lV became the nation’s best-loved Stewart King. His death at Flodden, along with the flower of Scottish nobility, left Edinburgh in mourning and its Council, based in the Tolbooth, decimated. As news reached them of the disaster in the south, the remaining officials issued a proclamation that the townspeople ‘have reddy their fencible gear and wapponis (weapons)….for the keeping and defens of the toun against thame that wald invade…’. Meanwhile, the authorities exhorted the city’s women not to be seen in the street mourning the dead but instead to take to the church and offer up prayers for the salvation of the nation from the English threat. It was during these uneasy days that a standing watch was created out of a force of 24 men. This was the forerunner of the Town Guard, which from the 17th century was the closest Edinburgh had to a police force.
The proclamation was heeded, the town and buildings, including the Tolbooth, duly fortified with the considerable aid of Lothian farmers and their workhorses. An enclosing wall was built around the city, which became known as the Flodden Wall, and the citizenry held their breath in anticipation of an attack that never came. Henry Vlll, busy fighting the French, ignored the troublesome gnat that was Scotland – at least on this occasion. The people’s grief for the lost King was allowed to flow uninterrupted by military matters. In Edinburgh, a rumour began to gain currency that James was not dead, but instead had been carried to safety from the carnage of the battlefield by four of his loyal noblemen. But dead he was, his body remaining unburied by the English for some years. It was moved from place to place before the head, which had been cut off by workmen for fun, was finally buried in an anonymous grave in London during the reign of Elizabeth l.
The High Street around the Tolbooth now became the restless battleground for control of the Scottish throne as powerful men vied for the Regency. Armed men paraded from Castle to Palace and dirks were drawn at the slightest provocation. On one side was the Earl of Angus, who had positioned himself in line by marrying the Queen. On the other was the Earl of Arran, who claimed right by blood. The prize was possession of the boy King James V and dominion over all. Parliament favoured neither of their Lordships and secretly approached the Duke of Albany, the son of James lll’s treacherous brother, to take the Regency. The French-speaking Duke appeased the warring factions and urged the Queen – the sister of Henry Vlll – to behave like ‘ane guid Scottish woman’. Albany also turned on the man who had aided him to power, the powerful Border noble Lord Home, who had fought at Flodden but had refused to ride to the beleaguered king’s aid. ‘He does well that does for himself,’ he was reported as having said. ‘We have fought our vanguard already, let others do as well as we.’ This decision to look to himself eventually led to the belief that he had murdered James on the battlefield. Now Lord Chamberlain, Home and his brother William were arrested on the orders of Albany, who had heeded the poisonous words of his new advisor John Hepburn, an enemy of their blood. The Border noblemen were swiftly tried, found guilty and executed. Their heads were duly fixed on the Tolbooth tower for all in the city to see. These were not the first noble heads to adorn the building – and they would not be the last.
Albany visited France in 1517 to negotiate a new treaty with the French King but found himself the victim of Royal duplicity and political expediency. France and England had long snarled at each other across the Channel and English kings had often sallied forth to war but at this time the two super powers were uneasy friends. When Henry demanded that Albany be prevented from returning to Scotland, the French King Francis agreed. The much-vaunted Auld Alliance was always more of a guideline than a code and this was one of the occasions that the French proved it. Albany’s four-month visit became four years and during his time away the grasping Scottish nobles spilled blood on the moors, fields and streets of home. The most famous skirmish was the so-called ‘Cleanse the Causeway’ street battle in Edinburgh’s High Street in April, 1520. The reiving pack of Home family moss troopers thundered into the city and reclaimed the heads of their kinsmen from the spikes on which they had languished for nigh on five years. They were buried with all due reverence in the kirk at Blackfriars.
When the flimsy peace between Henry and Francis predictably fell apart, Albany was allowed to return with a French force to pacify the still-seething Scotland and also strike a blow at England from the north. However, memories of Flodden remained alive in the collective mind of Parliament and it refused to back any form of invasion, so Albany renounced the Regency and returned to France in disgust. James V, although only 12, was displayed to the people of Edinburgh at his investiture. Angus had now seized control and opposed a motion that the Parliament be held in the Castle, insisting that it be kept in the accustomed place – the Tolbooth – ‘and that the King be conveyed along the High Street, and in triumph shown to his own people.’ In the end, Angus won his point – although being Scotland, not without some show of force – and Parliament duly assembled in their old Tolbooth home.
James V, when he finally took control, was to become known as the Poor Man’s King and often wandered his realm in the guise of a common farmer, ‘the Goodman of Ballengeich’. He took the first steps to make Edinburgh the legal capital with the instatement in the Tolbooth of a College of Justice, later better known as the Court of Session. The idea was to make justice more readily available to the common man, with fifteen clerics and laymen acting as a supreme civil court. The King received permission from the Pope to draw the cash from the Church, which promptly raised the rents of its tenants to meet the sum agreed, thus exacerbating the growing hostility the commoners had for the established religion. Within twenty years, the corrupt and dissolute old church would be rent asunder by the reforming zeal of John Knox and his fellow reformers. Whether or not life improved much for the common people under the pursed-lip, bible-thumping Presbyterians depends on your point of view.
And so life went on in and around the hulking building, which continued to play an important role in the town’s affairs. Parliament met less and less in the upstairs rooms and eventually had their own premises in Parliament Close nearby but the Town Council still used the old building as a meeting place, while the Court of Session continued to hear cases. The town’s magistrates dealt with flashes of lawlessness, not just by the ever-warring nobles, but also by common desperadoes. In 1554, the Council Register records that following frequent assaults and robberies in the streets, lanterns were to be hung in streets and closes and to remain lit from five in the evening until nine, when all decent people were deemed to be at home and in their bed. It has been noted that this is the earliest form of public street lighting in the city.
By 1558, the country was again in the hands of a Regent – in this case Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots – and in the throes of religious upheaval. Knox and his reformers had attacked ecclesiastical buildings and fears were expressed for the safety of similar sites in Edinburgh. The capital’s populace was leaning heavily towards the new religion and the city’s magistrates pleaded with its leaders to spare the magnificent churches and houses of worship. To save St Giles’s Church, 60 men were posted and the ornately carved stalls, used during services by the high clergy and nobles and as such prime targets for the axe-wielding reformers, were removed to the security of the neighbouring Tolbooth. The mob attacked the monasteries of Black Friars and Grey Friars, leaving nothing standing but a few walls. Other churches were also targeted, including St Giles despite the armed guard, with altars trashed and religious images destroyed.
One year later, the reforming movement had pushed on even further and all-out war was on the horizon, with the Protestants backed by Queen Elizabeth of England and led by the newly-styled Lords of the Congregation. The French Mary of Guise was supported by troops from her own country. The Protestant Lords massed in the Tolbooth, where Lord Ruthven and the preachers declared their wish that Mary be deposed as an obstinate idolater. They wanted all foreign troops removed from Leith, where they were entrenched, and an order was sent to that effect. Naturally, the French forces ignored the decree and, back in the High Street headquarters, the Lords prepared to send in the grandly named Army of the Congregation of Christ. However, they did not factor in the ferocious religious ardour of the Ministers, who were outraged by the use of St Giles as a workshop for scaling ladders and, thanks to such blasphemy, prophesied the campaign’s failure. Whether by Divine will or superstitious soldiers rattled by their clergy’s fiery words, the predictions proved correct and the French forces pursued the retreating Scots force into the Canongate, slaughtering and pillaging as they advanced, much to the delight of the old Queen.
The new religion eventually overcame the old and in 1560 the Parliament decided to disestablish the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. Protestant leaders, the stench of martyrs executed for their faith still burning in their nostrils, set about stamping out any trace of the Church of Rome. Whatever the new ways promised for the future, tolerance was not to be one of them. The arrival of the young, and devoutly Roman Catholic, Mary Queen of Scots from France did nothing for the peace of the nation. The magistrates of Edinburgh issued an order that attendance at the Sunday kirk was expected of all subjects, even priests of the old faith. Some who did so seized the opportunity to attempt to wean the populace away from the followers of Knox and were promptly ordered to leave the city within 48 hours. Mary protested this high-handed treatment of her subjects but the staunch magistrates merely thumbed their noses at her and repeated their order. Mary then wrote to the council and demanded that they convene in the Tolbooth and choose themselves a new set of magistrates. The council acquiesced to the Royal demand but did not take the trouble to find out exactly who she would have preferred enforcing the laws. Mary, being a Stewart (or rather a Stuart, for she had adopted the French spelling of her dynastic name) was none-too-pleased for she ended up with magistrates who were no more interested in her religious views than the first bunch.
Nevertheless, when she made a triumphal entry to the capital on 2 September, 1561, she found the streets gaily decorated and the public buildings the scene of pageants and allegories, some designed to subtly warn her against any opposition of her subjects’ chosen faith. It all started off well. At the head of the Lawnmarket was an arch with children singing and a suspended cloud which opened to reveal ‘ane bonnie bairn’. The child was lowered and gave the young Queen the keys to the town, a Bible and a Psalter covered in the finest purple velvet. Other scenes met her at the Tolbooth and the Cross – angels and virgins – but at the Tron there was a non-too-subtle warning of the fire awaiting idolaters.
By this time the old Tolbooth had fallen into some disrepair and was in a state quite unfitting to its noble office. Much of the business of the council had been transferred to St Giles Church – part of which was being used as a prison for adulterers. This eventually became known as Haddo’s Hole because Royalist Sir John Gordon of Haddo was imprisoned there before his execution. Mary either noticed the dilapidated state of the Tolbooth herself or it was brought to her attention – or perhaps she found the idea of municipal business being conducted on holy ground too distasteful. At any rate, on 6 February, 1561 she sent a letter to the Town Council stating, ‘
The Queiny’s Majestie, understanding that the tolbuith of the Burgh of Edinburgh is ruinous and abill haistielie to dekay and fall doun, quhilk (which) will be warray dampnable and skaythfull to the pepill dwelland thairabout…Thairfor her Heines ordinis ane masser to pass and charge of the provest, baillies, and counsale, to caus put workmen to the taking doun of the said tolbuith, with all possible deligence.’
It was also ordered that alternative accommodation be found for the Lords of Session as well as members of the town’s expanding legal industry. As time progressed, the Council was warned that the entire court system would be transplanted to St Andrews unless something was done to accommodate them. The Council continued to meet in the Holy Blood aisle of St Giles Church while work was progressing. Throughout the project, the Provost and his baillies were faced with the problem of scraping up the cash to finance the building of a new Tolbooth and, as is the case even today, corners were found that could be cut in order to save them some ‘siller’. The master of works was ordered to use as much of the timber from the old building as possible, which prompted the tenants in the shops to complain that he was making off with material that they had paid for out of their own pocket. The council promised that any losses would be reimbursed but failed to mention exactly when.
Although the council wanted to preserve the old building as much as possible, the master of works continued to cannibalise it for materials in order to save money. Stones from the cast-down Chapel of the Holy Rood, which stood between what would eventually be Parliament House and the Cowgate, were also recycled for the new Tolbooth. But still money was short, despite additional taxation. The master of works threatened to walk away from the job unless further capital was forthcoming.
At length, the new Tolbooth was completed, standing side-by-side with its still crumbling predecessor and St Giles Church. The new building was to act as the meeting place for both the Parliament and the council, as well as the courts and the magistrates. In May 1563, Mary presided for the first time over Parliament, riding in procession to the new hall and graciously accepted the loyal greetings of her subject along the High Street.
Things, of course, changed. The Belhous had become the Tolbooth which became the Session or Council House and, ultimately, power moved to Town Hall. In 1639 the seat of Government moved to the new Parliament House. The College of Justice and Privy Council went with it. Only the High Court of Justiciary, formed in 1672, remained in the new Tolbooth, or Session House, and did not move until as late as 1809. The ever-spreading mass of local government meant the Council became too big for the Session House. It sprawled first into rooms in other buildings around the church and finally transplanted into new premises on the north side of the Market place, the Royal Exchange. The New Tolbooth was pulled down in 1809. Its predecessor outlived it by eight years.
In the 17th century, though, it was still crumbling and in 1610, a cash-flush council decided to repair it. The rubble of the previous century was finally removed and that section rebuilt. When it was finally demolished two hundred years later it was noted that the later workmanship was not as fine as the old. Three krames, or small shops, were built into the west gable but were eventually replaced by a two-storey extension to the five-storey Tolbooth. This platform eventually fulfilled a dread purpose.
Since 1560, the council had a new use for what was left of the old building. In the past, the Belhous had been used as a lock-up or a ‘thieves hole’: in 1480/81 it was noted that of the booths on the ground floor, the sixth ‘is made a presoun’. The dark towers of the Tolbooth had been no stranger to the miseries of malefactors, with heads and other body parts often adorning its spikes and walls. Now it would act solely as home to the criminals, traitors and debtors of the town. Its noble past was well and truly behind it. From then on, the old Tolbooth was used as the ‘tyne gaol’.
Ahead was only darkness.
