The Calendar of Wills proves that we are in the most populous and ancient part of London. Between 1259 and 1350 there are more than fifty references to Candlewyke Street. The place is famous for its weavers, and especially for the coarse cloth they made here called “burel.” There was a fraternity of the “Burellers” working here. In 1334 one hundred foot-soldiers were provided with “gowns” of cloth made in Candlewyke Street. There was also a petition drawn up by the “good-folk” of this street and Clement’s Lane against the melting of lead in their midst.
From Eastcheap to Walbrook, the title was for many centuries Candlewick, Candlewright, or Canewyke Street. “Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in the City Records as early as 1308; “Canewykestrete” appears 1376-99, and again as “Cainwicke St.” in the map of Ralph Agas c. 1560. Stow gives three possible derivations: (1) From Candlewright, a maker of candles; (2) from the yarn or cotton candle-wick; (3) from candle-wike, a “wike” being a place where things are made. The proximity of Tallow Chandlers’ Hall in Dowgate Hill points to this as the candlemakers’ quarter of the City, and favours the first and third theories rather than the second. In Ryther’s map of London, 1604, it is styled “Conning Streete,” (probably a misprint for Canning Street), and Newcourt in his 1658 map of London calls it “Cannon Street,” so that the change from Candlewick to Canwyke, Conning, and Cannon appears to have taken place within a comparatively short space of time.
The weavers of woollen cloths, brought from Flanders by Edward III., probably dwelt here: “cloth of Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in City records in 1334; and Stow says that these weavers obtained permission in 1371 to meet in the churchyard of St. Lawrence Pountney close by. They appear not to have remained long in the neighbourhood, but their advent led to a settlement of many drapers in this part of the City and ultimately to the founding of the Drapers’ Hall in St. Swithin’s Lane. In Stow’s time the street was “possessed by rich drapers, sellers of woollen cloth, etc.” After the Great Fire the street, Strype says, was “well built and inhabited by good tradesmen.”
There are two churches in the street, which is now extended to the south-east corner of St. Paul’s, sweeping away Distaff Lane, Basing Lane, Little St. Thomas Apostle, and a bit of Budge Row. London Stone is in this street. Beside London Stone Henry Fitz Ailwyn or Alwyne, first mayor of London, had his residence. Here lived the Earl of Oxford, who, about the year 1540, according to Stow, rode to his house with eighty gentlemen in “livery of Reading tawny,” and chains of gold about their necks and “one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar introduced on their left shoulders.” This retinue was discountenanced by the Tudors and fell into disuse. Perhaps this earl was the last to maintain so great a following.
London Stone was probably the pillar set up in the Roman fort to mark the milliarium, the beginning of mile.
Some have supposed this stone to be the remains of a British druidical circle or religious monument. Strype quotes Owen of Shrewsbury as giving rise to this view by his assertion that “the Druids had pillars of stone in veneration, which custom they borrowed from the Greeks, who, as Pausanius writeth, adored rude and unpolished stones.” Malcolm suggests that, if it is of British origin, “policy may have induced the Romans to preserve it, as a relic highly valued by the Londoners, or as the monument of some great event.” The general opinion, since Camden’s time, seems to be that the stone is of Roman origin, but its first purpose still remains uncertain. Stow notes that some considered it to have been set “as a mark in the middle of the City within the wall; but, in truth, it standeth far nearer to the river of Thames than to the wall of the City.” He says, also, that others thought it was set for the payment of debts, on appointed days, “till, of later times, payments were most usually made at the font in Pont’s Church (St. Paul’s), and now most commonly at the Royal Exchange.”
Sir Christopher Wren was of opinion that “by reason of its large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument in the Forum; for, in the adjoining ground to the south, upon digging for cellars after the Great Fire, were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings.” Originally, no doubt, the erection was of considerable proportions, and a suggestion is made in the Parentalia that this milliarium was not in the form of a pillar as at Rome, but probably resembled that at Constantinople, which must have been a large building “for under its roof, according to Cedrenus, and Seidas, stood statues of Constantine and Helena, Trajan, an equestrian statue of Hadrian, a statue of Fortune, and many other figures and decorations.”
CANNON STREET, LOOKING WEST
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