wholly covered with gold and silver, in the midst of a circle of twelve stones, which were only covered with brass, on which were carved figures. The old Irish, we are told, on the election of their Tanaists, used to deliver a wand to him whom they intended to raise to that dignity, he having previously ascended a high stone; and as soon as he had received the wand, he descended, and turned himself round thrice forward and thrice backward. The inferior stones surrounding your own Mora-stone seem to have all vanished before the requirements of an increasing population, and the improvements in the construction of our dwellings. But a reverence deeply seated in the minds of the people must have kept the principal and kingly stone from profanation or destruction; and the sacred purposes to which it was appropriated seem attested by tradition and history,[1] as it is thus amply confirmed by the reasons we can adduce from past ages, and by farther comparison with similar existing monuments near at hand. As these, as well as their immediate neighbourhood, are curious and continually illustrative, their explanation will be here not misplaced.
The first of them which I adduce, is the famed London stone, the last fragment of which is now preserved within a stone pedestal, walled into the south side of St. Swithin's Church, in 'Cannon-street. This stone has undergone many changes of situation, as I learn from a note in Thorn's edition of "Stowe's Chronicles," Lond. 1842, 8vo. p. 84. It formerly stood on the opposite or south side of the street; was in 1742 removed to the edge of the kerbstone on the north side; and in 1798, incased, at the instance of Mr. Thomas Marden, printer, of Sherburn-lane, by the parish officers, as it is now seen. Its fortune seems as various nearly as these migrations; but the weight of Camden's opinion seems to have united all
- ↑ Attested by tradition and history.—The historical documents which fix the locality for the crowning the Anglo-Saxon kings at Kingston, in Surrey, in preference to other places of the same name, are copious and convincing. In the Saxon Charters, edited by Mr. J. M. Kemble, it is mentioned, that in 838 a great council was held in the famous town of Kingston, in Surrey (No. 240). On a charter of King Edred (946) Kingstown is mentioned as the royal town where consecration is accustomed to be performed (No. 44); whilst a third charter, dated from "the royal town of Kingston," conveys numerous lands in Surrey (No. 363).
The number of kings crowned here, as recorded by Speed, is nine; two of which, however, are doubtful; and the committee, therefore, in the railing which surrounds the stone, have laudably restricted its claims to the seven royal personages who indisputably received their inauguration on it. They are—
924. Athelstan, by Archbishop Aldhelm. 940. Edmund by Archbishop Otto. 946. Edred, All three sons of Edward the Elder.
959. Edgar. 975. Edward the Martyr, his brother. 978. Ethelred II., brother of Edward. 1016. Edmund II. The two monarchs less certain are—
900. Edward the Elder, son of Alfred; and 955. Edwy, the son of Edmund. But I see from a paragraph in the Surrey Standard, at the time the stone was placed in its present position, that this modest number was not generally satisfactory:—"We cannot but wish, as some historians mention nine kings as being crowned in this town, that the greater number had been adopted, particularly as no mention is made by any historian of the spot where the two discarded kings were crowned. But although their names do not appear on the block of stone, a monument will be erected to the memory of those two ill-treated monarchs by an old inhabitant of the town, who has espoused the cause of the old kings most warmly." The intention seems never to have been carried into effect.
