weather was almost impassable. The roads further west were so
bad that when the sovereign went to Parliament faggots were
thrown into the ruts in King-street, Westminster, to enable the
royal cavalcade to pass along.

In Henry VIII.'s reign, several remarkable statutes were passed
relating to certain worn-out and impracticable roads in Sussex and
the Weald of Kent. From the earliest of these, it would appear
that when the old roads were found too deep and miry to be passed,
they were merely abandoned and new tracks struck out. After
describing "many of the wayes in the wealds as so depe and noyous
by wearyng and course of water and other occasions that people
cannot have their carriages or passages by horses uppon or by the
same but to their great paynes, perill and jeopardie," the Act
provided that owners of land might, with the consent of two
justices and twelve discreet men of the hundred, lay out new roads
and close up the old ones. Another Act passed in the same reign,
related to the repairs of bridges and of the highways at the ends
of bridges.

But as these measures were for the most part merely permissive,
they could have had but little practical effect in improving the
communications of the kingdom. In the reign of Philip and Mary
(in 1555), an Act was passed providing that each parish should elect
two surveyors of highways to see to the maintenance of their
repairs by compulsory labour, the preamble reciting that
"highwaies are now both verie noisome and tedious to travell in,
and dangerous to all passengers and cariages;" and to this day
parish and cross roads are maintained on the principle of Mary's
Act, though the compulsory labour has since been commuted into a