Once upon a time – and certainly before the Roman conquest – Britain was ruled by good King Lud. According to the utterly unreliable History of the Kings of Britain by the 12th-century Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth, Lud rebuilt the walls of London, ‘encircling it with countless towers. He also commanded the citizens to construct houses ... so that no city in all the surrounding kingdoms (some far distant) could boast finer residences.’ London was Lud’s favourite place. Indeed, it was named for him. In Geoffrey’s risible philology, ‘the city was called Kaer-lud, and then by corruption of the name, Kaer-london; and again by a shift of languages over the course of time, London.’
