Speaker 1: Chapter nine of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Speaker 1: Janet Chapter nine London Stone, London Stone in Cannon Street,
Speaker 1: crops up suddenly in London history, so late as the
Speaker 1: year fourteen fifty, when Jack Kade, at the head of
Speaker 1: a shouting rabble rebellious, hines the filth and scum of
Speaker 1: Kent marked for the gallows forced away into the city ligate.
Speaker 1: Just twenty years before, Cad in a poem, speaks of
Speaker 1: a stone standing in Canyon Street, then called London Stone.
Speaker 1: The dates should act like an ice pack to reduce
Speaker 1: the warmth with which some theories of its antiquity have
Speaker 1: been advocated. Its Roman origin has passed into currency practically unquestioned.
Speaker 1: The late Sir Lawrence gome So accepted London Stone, working
Speaker 1: hard till the last to establish this cherished belief that
Speaker 1: twentieth century London comes down to its present possessors with
Speaker 1: unbroken continuity in customs and government, from the city colonized
Speaker 1: by the Romans. He held it to be a boundary stone.
Speaker 1: Now London Stone, he remarks, has always been a remarkable
Speaker 1: center of rights ceremonies and traditions which show it to
Speaker 1: have been held in reverence through the centuries. It stood
Speaker 1: on the western extremity of the first Roman London, which
Speaker 1: may perhaps point to it as one of the stone
Speaker 1: sides of the gateway which led to the Pomerium, And
Speaker 1: in the name of the adjoining parish, Pomroy, he fancies
Speaker 1: there may be preserved the word for this sacred Roman institution.
Speaker 1: Others have seen in London Stone the milliarium, the one
Speaker 1: central milestone marking London, from which all the milestones raised
Speaker 1: upon the Roman roads through England registered their distances. These
Speaker 1: people point to its position in the center of the
Speaker 1: longest diameter of the second and better known Roman London,
Speaker 1: the London bounded by the wall running by the line
Speaker 1: of Newgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Aldgate, and the rest of which
Speaker 1: the original citadel formed only a part. The learned Camden,
Speaker 1: taking this view, believed London Stone to be a miliary,
Speaker 1: again quoting Sir Lawrence Gome. If London Stone indicated to
Speaker 1: Roman Londoners of the second city a sacred point reminiscent
Speaker 1: of the earlier city, its later history would be largely
Speaker 1: accounted for its topographical position is the first help to
Speaker 1: such an indication. And when we have added added the
Speaker 1: undoubted sacred character attributed to it throughout all latter history,
Speaker 1: the conclusion will I think be justified that London Stone
Speaker 1: represents the sentiment of Roman Londoners from the early city
Speaker 1: and camp which was enclosed in Londonum. Lacking Sir Lawrence's
Speaker 1: great enthusiasm, I have failed to find in all latter
Speaker 1: history that sacred character so postulated, or indeed in any
Speaker 1: of it, not for want of industry on my part,
Speaker 1: nor out of the natural combativeness of antiquaries for broken heads,
Speaker 1: but simply because it is not there. It may be
Speaker 1: heresy to suggest that London Stone is not Roman at
Speaker 1: all and has had nothing whatever to do with the
Speaker 1: Roman city. Let us go back to Shakespeare and that
Speaker 1: short boisterous scene in the second part of King Henry
Speaker 1: the sixth Act four London Cannon Street, enter Jack Kad
Speaker 1: and the rest, and strikes his staff on london Stone.
Speaker 1: Kade now is Mortimer, lord of the city, and here,
Speaker 1: sitting upon london Stone, I charge and command that of
Speaker 1: the city's cost the pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine.
Speaker 1: This first year of our reign, and now henceforward it
Speaker 1: shall be treason for any one that calls me other
Speaker 1: than Lord Mortimer. Shakespeare is not history, and no one
Speaker 1: out of a playhouse would cite Shakespeare as an historian.
Speaker 1: But the point is that the dramatist in his passage
Speaker 1: closely follows Hollinshed, except that the chronicler represents Jack Kad
Speaker 1: as striking london Stone with his sword, not with his staff.
Speaker 1: Hollingshed was a London citizen, a diligent recorder of events
Speaker 1: in his own city, and be London Stone, Roman or
Speaker 1: not Kate. Sitting astride at and Lydgates mentioned just before
Speaker 1: are the earliest knowledge we have of this treasured city relic.
Speaker 1: Let me meet expert criticism by conceding at once that
Speaker 1: the name certainly is two and a half centuries older.
Speaker 1: It was a bigger stone originally than is the fragment
Speaker 1: of it today, preserved in the outer wall of Saint
Speaker 1: Swithin's Church in Cannon Street, where every passer by may
Speaker 1: see it. Old John Stowe, who wrote in Queen Elizabeth's
Speaker 1: Last Years, says of it on the south side of
Speaker 1: this high street, near unto the channel is pitched upright.
Speaker 1: A great stone called London Stone, fixed in the ground,
Speaker 1: very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so
Speaker 1: strongly set that if carts do run against it through negligence,
Speaker 1: the wheels be broken, and the stone itself unshaken. The
Speaker 1: cause why the stone was set there, the time, when
Speaker 1: or other memory is none. He thought there was some
Speaker 1: legend of the early Christians connected with it. Everything it
Speaker 1: will be noticed, points to London Stone being very old,
Speaker 1: and there is significance in the act of Jack Kayde
Speaker 1: striking it with his sword and crying. Now is Mortimer
Speaker 1: lord of this city, as if performing a customary ceremony
Speaker 1: on taking possession of the city. The Guildhall archives go
Speaker 1: back to the Conqueror's charter to London, and in them
Speaker 1: are earlier references than these to London Stone, the name
Speaker 1: the place. A moot question is how far can we
Speaker 1: distinguish these from the actual stone relic. There was Henry
Speaker 1: Fitzawan de london Stain, the city's first mayor, and he
Speaker 1: was important. He became mayor in a d eleven eighty
Speaker 1: nine footnote number one. An influential section of modern historians
Speaker 1: believe the Mayoralty to have been founded in eleven ninety
Speaker 1: one end footnote, and for twenty three years thereafter till
Speaker 1: his death, the citizens acknowledged him their mayor. The founding
Speaker 1: of the Mayoralty is shrouded in mystery, for not until
Speaker 1: twelve fourteen, twenty five years after Fitzalan's first election, did
Speaker 1: King John give to the Londoners a charter to elect
Speaker 1: their mayor. Till Fitzallen, the city had been ruled by
Speaker 1: poortreve or sheriff or justicar. There is much dispute as
Speaker 1: to the title appointed by the King. It is inconceivable
Speaker 1: that the citizens should, for this long period have usurped
Speaker 1: the royal authority, and John's gift can only have been
Speaker 1: an acceptance or confirmation of a state of things already existing,
Speaker 1: perhaps based upon some charter which has been lost. Of
Speaker 1: Henry Fitzallen of London Stone, although so important to personages
Speaker 1: as London's first mayor, we know very little. Unfortunately, Fitzallen
Speaker 1: was the son of Alwin, and of Alwin we know
Speaker 1: nothing what made his position so strong that year after
Speaker 1: year for twenty three years, he and no one else
Speaker 1: should have been the accepted representative of the citizens. Such
Speaker 1: devotion must have been the reward for good services. Given
Speaker 1: it is most unlikely at that time that he was
Speaker 1: merely a merchant or tradesman. We probably see in him
Speaker 1: a great burger, owning wide lands, powerful wealthy, able to
Speaker 1: maintain the citizen's interests against covetous and unscrupulous kings, and
Speaker 1: it may be presumed that he a leading part in
Speaker 1: wrestling from the crown the first acknowledgment of the right
Speaker 1: of the citizens to govern their own affairs. His name
Speaker 1: has come down to us as Henry Fitzowen of London. Stone.
Speaker 1: Often it is the little things that should be obvious,
Speaker 1: and are so obvious that they are quite overlooked, that,
Speaker 1: when examined, give a valuable clue in some historical puzzle.
Speaker 1: Has it ever occurred to you that there is no
Speaker 1: stone in London? It has to be brought in from
Speaker 1: considerable distances. Kent provides the nearest source. Stain, in its
Speaker 1: original meaning is a stone building, and the word survives
Speaker 1: in the city in Saint Mary's staining and all hollows staining.
Speaker 1: Stone billt churches at a period when most of the
Speaker 1: churches were fashioned of wooden logs. To this day, the
Speaker 1: staining of a well is its stone lining. In fitz
Speaker 1: Owen's time, in the twelfth century, King Richard quarterly On
Speaker 1: was long abroad at the Crusades. There were no roads
Speaker 1: capable of supporting burdens over considerable distances. But there was
Speaker 1: the Thames, capable in all weathers of bearing stone and
Speaker 1: boats into the city for the wealthy builder, choosing that
Speaker 1: enduring material. Lesser men built of timber then, and long afterwards.
Speaker 1: The medieval city, substantially throughout, was composed of timber framed houses,
Speaker 1: so that when in King Stephen's reign, fires started among them,
Speaker 1: burning amidst the wood and thatched roofs, the flames spread
Speaker 1: from Saint Paul's eastward, consuming the bridge and the houses
Speaker 1: and churches, and almost the entire city. When John Allen
Speaker 1: died in twelve seventy two, sixty years after fitz Alwen,
Speaker 1: he left by will his estate in a stone house
Speaker 1: in Fleet Street two Robert and Richard his sons. A
Speaker 1: stone house was so uncommon that mere mention of it
Speaker 1: was sufficient without more detailed description. Henry Fitzaalwin of London
Speaker 1: Stone London's wealthy and powerful first mayor built for himself
Speaker 1: a stone house. That is how it may be read,
Speaker 1: it would be a significant thing among London's poor, wooden hovels.
Speaker 1: In twelve forty there was a John de Londoneston, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, murdered his wife by stabbing her with
Speaker 1: a sword. Otherwise we might never have heard of him.
Speaker 1: It requires no totly stretched imagination to conceive that Henry
Speaker 1: Fitzowen's stone built house, the home of the mayor, the
Speaker 1: most powerful man in London, the center of its government,
Speaker 1: serving the uses of both Guildhall and mansion House, became
Speaker 1: known as London Stone. Just in this way Saint Mary's
Speaker 1: stone built Church became known as Saint Mary's Staining, and
Speaker 1: All Hollow's Church, of which the medieval tower still stands
Speaker 1: behind Mincing Lane, as All Hollows Staining. Of course, it
Speaker 1: does not necessarily follow. John de Fletbrigg did not reside
Speaker 1: amidst the open, wind swept timbers of Fleet Bridge, nor
Speaker 1: did that potent mayor, Reynald de Conduit find a wet
Speaker 1: domicile inside the water Conduit. They lived close by those
Speaker 1: well known landmarks of old London, where those who wanted
Speaker 1: them might find them as fitz Ow, when I frankly admit,
Speaker 1: may have lived close by an aged and already well
Speaker 1: worn stone, a desperate fellow. This I fancy some one
Speaker 1: saying of me he is no respector of our most
Speaker 1: cherished traditions. It will be seen that I await attack,
Speaker 1: for what is here said is rank heresy. And I
Speaker 1: recall words written by the late Charles Morley. I must
Speaker 1: confess a warm affection, said he for those ardent souls
Speaker 1: who devote their wisdom and energy to the exploration of
Speaker 1: the past. A brick or a stone, a piece of flint,
Speaker 1: or a lump of mortar will provide them with material.
Speaker 1: Out of it they strike the spark of truth. And
Speaker 1: it is only the foolish who laugh at their zeal
Speaker 1: and deem so much study unprofitable and childish. I, for one,
Speaker 1: have always found them the happiest of mortals and archaeology,
Speaker 1: capable of yielding greater and truer pleasure, possibly than any
Speaker 1: form of recreation or pursuit which appeals to the meditative mind. True,
Speaker 1: but the salt of life, the spice of it, my
Speaker 1: old friend, missus, the little quarrels which archaeologists share with
Speaker 1: other men, and which make the dry bones laid on
Speaker 1: the exhibits table kick again. The late Charles Morley I wrote,
Speaker 1: ah me, how often one writes those words. The late
Speaker 1: London Stone, much worn and battered, is hidden in a
Speaker 1: pierced stone casing that almost encloses it, and is still
Speaker 1: further concealed by close iron work, which has got into
Speaker 1: a deplorable state of rust a coat of paint, even
Speaker 1: after wartime ought to be spared for it. The grime
Speaker 1: of London has accumulated so thickly upon the stone that
Speaker 1: it is nearly impossible to tell which is the historic
Speaker 1: relic and which the mere casing. Some years ago members
Speaker 1: of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society were fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be present when London Stone was uncovered. It then
Speaker 1: proved to be a piece of Oollitic building stone. All
Speaker 1: that has gone before leads up to this. Is there
Speaker 1: any need to assume, as so many have done, that
Speaker 1: London Stone is a relic of the Roman city. There
Speaker 1: is not the smallest rag of evidence associating it with Londonium.
Speaker 1: All is vain imagining, not a solitary mention of the
Speaker 1: stone itself occurs until far down in the era of
Speaker 1: medieval London. May it not be merely an honored fragment
Speaker 1: of fitz Owen's stone house. Associations grew around it, a
Speaker 1: large stone, once perhaps a foundation stone, bedded deep as
Speaker 1: Stowe saw it, it remained on the ground after the
Speaker 1: house above it had disappeared and the citizens had built
Speaker 1: their noble guild hall. It continued through the sentries to
Speaker 1: mark the site and as a relic of the home
Speaker 1: of London's first mayor, the first guild hall and mansion house,
Speaker 1: the beginnings of independent self government for the city. I
Speaker 1: can understand the citizens sparing it and treasuring it. If
Speaker 1: that be the true story of London Stone, then too
Speaker 1: I can understand Jackade's act of braggadoccio and the words
Speaker 1: that accompanied it. Now is Mortimer lord of the city,
Speaker 1: the victorious rebel astride the historical remains of London's first
Speaker 1: seat of self government, considered that the stone he thus
Speaker 1: appropriated to himself secured to him the lordship of the city.
Speaker 1: What significance there can have been in his striking with
Speaker 1: his sword and old Roman stone? I cannot imagine what
Speaker 1: should Kad and his letterless rabble know of Roman London
Speaker 1: or the fifteenth century citizens for that matter. In Bovi Tracy,
Speaker 1: the little town on Dartmoor's wilds stands a stone cross,
Speaker 1: and it used to be the custom for the mayor,
Speaker 1: on Mayor's Day to ride round the cross and strike
Speaker 1: it with his staff on taking possession of his office.
Speaker 1: No suggestion of the Romans here. In Elizabeth's reign, London
Speaker 1: Stone seems to have add some legal associations. A character
Speaker 1: in Pasquille and Marfarius fifteen eighty nine remarks, set up
Speaker 1: this bill at london Stone. Let it be done solemnly
Speaker 1: with drum and trumpet, And look you advance my color
Speaker 1: on the top of the steeple right over against it.
Speaker 1: And again, if it pleased them these dark winter nights
Speaker 1: to strike up their papers upon london Stone. London Stone
Speaker 1: was moved from its original site on the south side
Speaker 1: of Cannon Street, where the railway station now stands, and
Speaker 1: fixed in its present place of security in Saint Swidden's
Speaker 1: Church Wall in the year seventeen ninety eight. If it
Speaker 1: be necessary to take from its reputed age a thousand
Speaker 1: years and to see in it a building stone of
Speaker 1: the first mayoral mansion and guilt Hall. I do not
Speaker 1: think it is thereby the less honor, but rather more,
Speaker 1: I am not asserting this as an ascertained fact. It
Speaker 1: is put up for a cockshy to be knocked over
Speaker 1: by the first person who shall discover some other John
Speaker 1: or Allan or Simon Day London's stance living in the
Speaker 1: lifetime of our first mayor, or will identify elsewhere the
Speaker 1: site of fitz Alwans House, which by the way, some
Speaker 1: have found at Salters Hall. Meanwhile, as a suggested origin
Speaker 1: of London Stone, it seems worth considering end of Chapter
Speaker 1: nine