In the west is the next, and sixth principal gate, and is called Ludgate, as first built (saith Geoffrey Monmouth) by King Lud, a Briton, about the year before Christ’s nativity, 66. Of which building, and also of the name, as Ludsgate, or Fludsgate, hath been of late some question among the learned; wherefore I overpass it, as not to my purpose, only referring the reader to that I have before written out of Cæsar’s Commentaries, and other Roman writers, concerning a town or city amongst the Britons. This gate I suppose to be one of the most ancient; and as Aldgate was built for the east, so was this Ludsgate for the west. I read,[54] as I told you, that in the year 1215, the 17th of King John, the barons of the realm, being in arms against the king, entered this city, and spoiled the Jews’ houses; which being done, Robert Fitzwater and Geffrey de Magnavilla, Earl of Essex, and the Earl of Gloucester, chief leaders of the army, applied all diligence to repair the gates and walls of this city, with the stones of the Jews’ broken houses, especially (as it seemeth) they then repaired, or rather new built Ludgate. For in the year 1586, when the same gate was taken down to be newly built, there was found couched within the wall thereof a stone taken from one of the Jews’ houses, wherein was graven in Hebrew characters these words following: _Hæc est statio Rabbi Mosis, filii insignis Rabbi Isaac_: which is to say, this is the station or ward of Rabbi Moyses, the son of the honourable Rabbi Isaac, and had been fixed upon the front of one of the Jews’ houses, as a note or sign that such a one dwelt there. In the year 1260, this Ludgate was repaired, and beautified with images of Lud, and other kings, as appeareth by letters patent of license given to the citizens of London, to take up stone for that purpose, dated the 25th of Henry III. These images of kings in the reign of Edward VI. had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by[55] such as judged every image to be an idol; and in the reign of Queen Mary were repaired, as by setting new heads on their old bodies, etc. All which so remained until the year 1586, the 28th of Queen Elizabeth, when the same gate being sore decayed, was clean taken down; the prisoners in the meantime remaining in the large south-east quadrant to the same gate adjoining; and the same year the whole gate was newly and beautifully built, with the images of Lud and others, as afore, on the east side, and the picture of her majesty Queen Elizabeth on the west side: all which was done at the common charges of the citizens, amounting to fifteen hundred pounds or more.