_London. Candlewick Street. Enter Jack Cade and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone._ _Cade._ Now is Mortimer lord of this city and here sitting upon London Stone I charge, ... and now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me other than Lord Mortimer.--_King Henry VI._ Shakespeare here accurately follows Holinshed's Chronicle as to the events of 1450. About 1430 the Stone is mentioned by Harding, who tells us that it marked the eastern boundary of London as built by King Lud, whose palace was at Ludgate. About 1400-30 Lydgate, in the _London Lickpenny_, wrote: "Then forth I went by London Stone, throughout all the Canwick Street."[199] The _Liber Trinitatis_ says that a great fire in the time of Ralf the prior of Holy Trinity, 1148-67, burnt from the house of Ailwardin nigh London Stone to Aldgate and St. Paul's. Of the Stone itself Stow says: "The same has long continued there, namely since (or rather before) the Conquest, for in the end of a Gospel book given to Christ Church in Canterbury by Athelstane I find noted of lands in London belonging to the said church one parcel described to lie near unto London Stone."[200] Holinshed says that the Kentish captain came from the White Hart in Southwark and "strooke his sword on London Stone, saying, Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Mr. Coote has claimed that this must be an ancient ceremonial, at the same time advancing the impossible (after Wren's acceptance of it as Roman) theory that the stone was a part of the house of the first mayor.[201] But I have come over to this view so far as to think it possible that its civic importance originated in its association with the house of the first mayor. According to Stow, "some have said this stone to be set as a mark in the middle of the city--some others have said the same to be set for the making of payment by debtors to their creditors, till of later times payments were more usually made at the font in Paul's Church and now most commonly at the Royal Exchange." Mr. Gomme, citing Brandon, says that London Stone entered into municipal procedure, as when the defendant in the Lord Mayor's Court had to be summoned from that spot, and when proclamations and other important business of like nature were transacted there; and comparing Cade's action with customs elsewhere, he seems to suggest that it was the centre for the assembly of the Saxon folkmotes. But the proximity of the mayor's house, in which courts might have been held, gives reason enough for its being made use of as a place of proclamation.