A HISTORY OF SURREY 



reign ; but Edward IV. seems to have been in actual residence at 

 Guildford for a short time at least in 1479, when he made a treaty with 

 Burgundy there. The kings also lay sometimes in the religious houses 

 of Surrey, Waverley, Merton, Bermondsey, or in the archbishops' houses 

 at Croydon and Lambeth. Some of the itineraries of John and Edward I. 

 are recoverable from writs and letters dated at various places, and show 

 us how they traversed Surrey. 



John in 1199 when he came from Normandy to be crowned went 

 in haste through Surrey, for he was at Shoreham on May 25, left it on 

 the 26th, and was in London on May 27. In 1208, leaving South- 

 ampton on March 31, he spent April 2, 3 and 4, Good Friday and the 

 two preceding nights, at Waverley Abbey, moving on to Guildford on 

 the 5th. The wine which his train drank at Waverley had been landed 

 on the Sussex coast at Pagham, and so probably was not brought to 

 Waverley by the route the king followed through Southampton but by 

 a road through Sussex and west Surrey, the use of which can be traced 

 at other times. 



In 1 21 1 John was at Lambeth on April 5, and at Knepp Castle in 

 Sussex on April 6. In 1215 he was at Guildford and Knepp on the 

 same day, January 21. John astonished his contemporaries by the 

 rapidity of his journeys, but these movements imply passable roads. 

 The old Roman road which we have noticed as perhaps used by the 

 Danes in Alfred's reign the road heading from south-east to north-west 

 near Summersbury and Ewhurst in Surrey, with the Adur estuary and 

 Staines as its probable extremities must have been in good repair still. 

 Both Guildford and Knepp were near it, if not on it. 



In 1294 Edward I. was on May 14 at Betchworth in Surrey ; on 

 the 1 6th at Holebrook near Warnham, just over the Sussex border ; on 

 the 1 7th at Dadesham, also just in Sussex; and on the igth at East 

 Dene on his way to Chichester. We can say with certainty that he 

 must have followed the Pilgrims' Way from Betchworth for a very few 

 miles till near Box Hill it cut the Stone Street, which connected London 

 and Chichester ; that he went down the Stone Street, turning off from 

 it a little way to sleep at Holebrook, then crossed it to sleep at Dadesham, 

 then followed it again, probably to the South Downs, where he turned 

 off beyond the forest to East Dene. 



In 1 305 Edward was at Stoke d'Abernon on May 29, from June 2 

 to June 7 at Guildford, from the 8th to the I2th at the nunnery at 

 Witley, and went thence by way of Midhurst and Cocking to Chichester. 

 This seems to imply the use of the road spoken of above through west 

 Surrey. It is likely that the British trackways through the forest, which 

 the Romans had converted into hard roads, were more practicable than 

 they were two hundred years ago or less, for no one in the interval knew 

 how to keep them in repair. 



But the main lines of mediaeval traffic through Surrey were no 

 doubt to be found upon the Roman road which came across the north- 

 west side of the county from Hampshire to London, and upon the 



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