Strype considers it likely that this stone was, in after days, the place from which proclamations and public notices were made. This is confirmed in _Pasquill and Marforius_ (1589): “Set up this bill at London Stone. Let it be done solemnly with drom and trumpet.” Malcolm considers that it was certainly regarded for some ages as “a rallying point for the citizens in times of insurrection, as Guildhall would now be.” At any rate, when in 1540 Jack Cade, “the Kentish rebel, who feigned himself to be Lord Mortimer,” forced his way into the City from Southwark, he marched to London Stone, where he found a great concourse of citizens, the Lord Mayor being among them. Here, according to Holinshed’s account, he struck his sword upon the stone, exclaiming, “Now is Mortimer Lord of this City,” as if, Pennant remarks, “that had been a customary ceremony of taking possession.” This scene occurs in the second part of _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 6, where Shakespeare makes Cade enter Cannon Street with his followers, and strike the stone with his _staff_ instead of his _sword_. To quote Fabian, “Rome, Carthage, and Jerusalem have been caste downe” with many other “cytyes,” yet Thys, so oldely founded, Is so surely grounded, That no man may confounde yt, It is so sure a stone That yt is upon sette, For though some have it thrette With Manasses grym and great, Yt hurt hath it none: Chryste is the very stone That the Citie is set upon: Which from all his foon Hath ever preserved it. By means of dyvyne servyce That incontinuall wyse Is kept in devout guyse Within the mure of it. However great the stone may have been in the beginning, the ravages and fires of London could have left but little of the original remaining in the sixteenth century.