288 History of the English Landed Interest. 



Lincoln ; Watling Street, connecting Kent witli tlie Irish Sea ; 

 Erminge Street, stretcliing from North Wales to Southampton ; 

 and Eykenild Street, bisecting the island by a line running 

 east and west between the Welsh coast and Tynemouth, be- 

 came known as the four royal highways and alone retained the 

 above-mentioned privilege, which in the Norman and Tudor 

 dynasties came to be termed " the King's Peace." These routes, 

 unworthy of the name of " road " until Eoman engineering 

 genius took them in hand, were the great thoroughfares of the 

 nation. During the Saxon era their maintenance and repair 

 was, through the agency of the Trinoda Necessitas, constituted 

 a public duty. But after the Norman Conquest up to the 

 period under discussion, save for an easily evaded understand- 

 ing that by Common Law to repair and maintain them was 

 obligatory on the adjoining landowners, and that neglect to 

 do so rendered the offender liable to proceedings by present- 

 ment in the Court Leet or Sessions, no public provision seems 

 to have been made. ^ When, however, the attempt to devote 

 a part of the confiscated monastic funds to road repairs failed, 

 the spur of legislation was brought to bear upon those liable by 

 tradition. Beginning with 8 Hen. VII. c. 5, and continuing 

 throughout this king's life there are a series of laws referring to 

 local highwaj^s chiefly in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, 

 calling upon landowners to fulfil their long-evaded obligations. 

 These statutes afford us a graphic description of the Tudor 

 common ways. Those in. the Weald of Kent, for example, were 

 so " deep and noyous by wearing and course of water and 

 other occasions, that people could not have their carriages or 

 passages by horses, upon or by the same, but to their great 

 pain, peril, and jeopardy." Those so near London as Charing 

 were also " noyous, foul, and therefore jeopardous." Accord- 

 ingly it may be concluded, as has been pointed out by Pro- 

 fessor Rogers, that the best and most frequented highways 



* Jacobs, hav) Diet., sub voc. " Highway." See also Craig and Macfar- 

 lane's Hist, of Kag., Bk. V., ch. iv. In the absence of laws for the repairs 

 of roads, it was also common for persons of substance to leave hj will 

 certain sums to be applied to this useful purpose. — Sir J. Cullum, Illst. 

 Ilaivated. 



