Fitzailwin, of London Stone." This would more satisfactorily account for one of Stowe's attempts at giving the origin of the monument, according to some opinions. His words are: "Some, again, have imagined the same to be set up by one John or Thomas Londonstone;" but the honest and acute chronicler very justly adds, "but more likely it is that *such men have mistaken the name of the stone, than the stone of them;" so that though very near the truth, he has not exactly ascertained it. He brings the facts of no person actually so named. The reasons he mentions are purely conjectures: he has mistaken evidently a consequence for a cause.
Another London stone cannot here be passed over in silence, because its history and locality afford corroborative and illustrative proofs of the usages vindicated for the preceding one: I allude to the memorable relic at Staines, close to the Shire Ditch, where the counties of Middlesex and Buckingham meet, near Runnimede—the latter glorious in the annals of our constitutional liberties as the table and spot on which, in 1215, King John affixed his seal and signature to the Magna Charta, in the presence of his assembled prelates and nobles: a glorious revival of the Saxon Wittenagemote, no doubt on a locality originally dedicated to their meeting. The identical stone on which the precious parchment rested at the moment of superscription was itself suggestive of ancient freedom and pristine liberties, and may have been an ultimate cause of this early agitation for lost privileges. The very name of Staines reverts to us the ancient stone-circled space of primeval assemblies; and that Runnimede would serve to interpret a stone of assembly, we may learn from the meeting-stone for the imperial electors of Germany at Rhense,[1] or Runnimede,
- ↑ Rhense means Ben- or Run-au, a perfect translation of Bun-mead or meadow: au signifying in German any moist pasture or ground.
