Mr. Billings kept a posting-house.[17] The weight of evidence seems to allow of the view that there really were some remarkable Roman structures at the Tower and Billingsgate which tradition pointed to as the work of the Celtic culture-god Belinus, or of a king who bore his name. Some remnants of a building seem to have had the myth attached to them in the Middle Ages. Harrison, giving a version of the story, says of the Tower, “In times past I find this Belliny held his abode there, and thereunto extended the site of his palace in such wise that it extended over the Broken Wharf and came farther into the city, in so much that it approached near to Billingsgate, and as it is thought, some of the ruins of his house are yet extant, howbeit patched up and made warehouses, in that tract of ground in our times” (Holinshed). Belinus seems at times to have been confused with Cæsar, and so we get the Cæsar’s Tower of Shakespeare and other writers. Stow, writing of the same “ruins,” says, “The common people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as also of the Tower itself.”
Nennius uses the name Belinus for Cassibelaunus, which latter, indeed, is evidently derived from the former; for he speaks of Belinus (Cassibelaunus) fighting against Cæsar. A parallel passage in Geoffrey gives Belinus the command of the army of Cassibelaunus, but in the account of the battle which follows we have no word of Belinus, but “Nennius,” a brother of Cassibelaunus and Lud, takes his place and perishes from a blow of Cæsar’s sword, Crocea Mors. “Nennius” was then buried at the North Gate of “Trinovantum” with the sword that had slain him.[18] All this is too confused to work out in detail, but it almost looks like a repeated echo of some legend which made Cassibelaunus fall in a personal encounter with Cæsar. At bottom perhaps it may have been some inscription, or coin, lettered Cuno-belin, which associated the name of Belinus with a gate of London. Such coins have been found in London. We can only be certain that at the beginning of the twelfth century the existing name of the gate was explained by a Celtic word.
Fig. 7.—Coin of Claudius and another of Constantius,
the latter inscribed London (p.lon.). enlarged.
As to Geoffrey’s other story, which put a brazen man on a brazen horse over Ludgate, it would appear to be a variation on the story of the brazen horse of Vergilius, but I think we may find the origin of its localisation at Ludgate in the well-known coin of Claudius, which shows an equestrian image above an arch of triumph lettered DE BRITANN. This coin is one of those occasionally found in England, and we may suppose ancient antiquaries reasoned thus about it: “It must represent a city gate in Britain; the most important is the gate of London—Ludgate.” Why was the brazen horse put there? “For a terror to the Saxons” (so in Geoffrey). Who put it there? “King Lud himself, or Cadwaladr, the last British king.” When did it disappear? “When the Saxons entered the city”—as in the Prophecy of Merlin, “The brazen man upon a brazen horse shall for long guard the gates of London.... After that shall the German Worm (dragon) be crowned and the Brazen Prince be buried.” It was supposed to have been the palladium of Caer Lud, “and the sygte ther of the Saxons aferde.”[19]
For me the old British Solar God lights up the squalor of Billingsgate. The Sea God, Lud, and the brazen horse give me more pleasure than the railway bridge at Ludgate. Cæsar’s sword at Bishopsgate and the head of Bran buried on Tower Hill are real city assets. London is rich in romantic lore. In her cathedral Arthur was crowned and drew the sword from the stone. Here Iseult attended the council called by King Mark. From the quay Ursula and her virgins embarked; Launcelot swam his horse over the river at Westminster, and from it Guinevere went a-maying. Possibly some day we may be as wise as Henry the Third, and put up statues to Lud and his sons at the gate which bears his name for a memorial of these things.
The British legend of the foundation of London has left one tangible legacy to us even to this day in the Guildhall giants, Gog and Magog, who represent the Gogmagog of Geoffrey, a giant of the primitive people overcome by the Britons—the Magog of the Bible, who stands for the Scythian race. Thus the Guildhall Magog really represents the Ivernian race in Britain.
So much for the legend. My final opinion is that the story of Caer Lud arose in an attempt to bring together the names of London, Ludgate, and Lludd, a Welsh god, and this may have been Geoffrey’s work. I cannot find that the form Caer Lud was used in Welsh documents of an earlier date, although in a recent history of Wales London is so called throughout. If a single instance of “Caer Lud” could be adduced it would be different, but till that is done all derivations from Ludd must go by the board. The association of Belinus with London may in a similar way have been brought about by false etymology.[20]
The British Church in London.—It is not proposed to deal with the age of Roman occupation here, but we may devote a few lines to the British Church as a link between Roman and Saxon days. Before the imperial forces were withdrawn from Britain the dwellers in the cities would have been completely Romanised in manners and speech, and must have shared in some degree in the general change of aspect towards Christianity.
Fig. 8.—Christian Monogram from Cakes
of Pewter found at Battersea.
The subject of British Christianity has lately been re-examined by Mr. Haverfield[21] and by Dr. Zimmer, the great Celtic scholar. The legend given by Bede as to the introduction of Christianity by a King Lucius is thought to have arisen in Rome about the beginning of the seventh century. It is, however, held that there must have been a gradual infiltration of the Gospel during the third century at latest, and that in the next century there was in Britain a fully organised Church in contact with, and a lively member of, the Church in Gaul. At the beginning of the fifth century there was an overwhelming majority of Christians, and Dr. Zimmer shows good reasons for thinking that Ireland had already been evangelised by the first great wave of monasticism before St. Patrick went there as its first bishop in 432. Patrick himself was born in 386, some 70 or 80 miles from London along the Watling Street, at Bannaventa. His family had been Christians for generations; his great-grandfather was a presbyter.
The story of St. Alban, the existence of whom there is little reason for doubting, carries us back to the end of the third century. Dr. Zimmer considers that the edict of Leo the Great (454) as to celebrating Easter reached the Church in Britain and Ireland before it was cut off from dependence on the Roman see. Latin must have continued in use in the Church in such places as Exeter and Bodmin, and in Wales, Strathclyde, and Ireland, from the time when it was current as a Romano-British speech.
According to Geoffrey there were three archbishoprics in Britain: London, York, and the city of Legions (Caerleon), representing South and North Britain and Cambria respectively. In the year 314 the names of three British bishops are given as being present at the Council of Arles: Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelfius, “de civitate colonia Londinensium.” Haddan and Stubbs accept the record; so also do Haverfield and Zimmer, who substitute Lincoln for the last. Many British bishops were also at the Council of 359. Guitelin, a bishop of London in the fifth century, is mentioned by Nennius.
Fig. 9.—Bronze Bracelet.
According to Geoffrey, again, the Archbishops Theon of London and Thadiock of York fled from their charges about 586. Now a small scrap of evidence has been recently brought to light as to the existence of these bishops by Mr. Round, who shows that a church dedicated to a St. Thadiock remained at Monmouth in the twelfth century. Again, Jocelyn of Furness (cited by Stow), a writer of the twelfth century, gives a list of the British Bishops of London, which Bishop Stubbs is inclined to accept.[22] From Bede, moreover, we gather that Pope Gregory at first intended to establish the southern archbishopric, not at Canterbury,
