sought its way out at the roof, or door, or windows: the houses were
nothing but watling plastered over with clay; the people slept on straw
pallets, and had a good round log under their head for a pillow; and
almost all the furniture and utensils were of wood.[***] [22]

In this reign we find the first general law with regard to highways,
which were appointed to be repaired by parish duty all over
England.[****]

* Nicholson's Historical Library.

** Erasm. Epist. 482.

*** See note V, at the end of the volume.

**** 2 and 3 Phil. and Mar. cap. 8.

NOTES.

[Footnote 1: NOTE A, p. 58. Stowe, Baker, Speed, Biondi, Holingshed,
Bacon. Some late writers, particularly Mr. Carte, have doubted whether
Perkin were an impostor, and have even asserted him to be the true
Plantagenet. But to refute this opinion, we need only reflect on the
following particulars: (1.) Though the circumstances of the wars between
the two roses be in general involved in great obscurity, yet is there a
most luminous ray thrown on all the transactions during the usurpation
of Richard, and the murder of the two young princes, by the narrative of
Sir Thomas More, whose singular magnanimity, probity, and judgment, make
him an evidence beyond all exception. No historian, either of ancient
or modern times, can possibly have more weight: he may also be justly
esteemed a contemporary with regard to the murder of the two princes;
for though he was but five years of age when that event happened, he
lived and was educated among the chief actors during the period of
Richard; and it is plain from this narrative itself, which is often
extremely circumstantial, that he had the particulars from the
eyewitnesses themselves. His authority, therefore, is irresistible, and
sufficient to overbalance a hundred little doubts, and scruples,
and objections. For in reality his narrative is liable to no solid
objection, nor is there any mistake detected in it. He says, indeed,
that the protector's partisans, particularly Dr. Shaw, spread abroad
rumors of Edward IV.'s pre-contract with Elizabeth Lucy; whereas it now
appears from record, that the parliament afterwards declared the king's
children illegitimate, on pretence of his pre-contract with lady Eleanor
Talbot. But it must be remarked, that neither of these pre-contracts
was ever so much as attempted to be proved; and why might not the
protector's flatterers and partisans have made use som