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seeing a lady pass by in a coach whom she would salute, 

 the glass was so clear she thought it was open, and so ran 

 her head through the glass." We are not informed that 

 any such accident occurred to the Emperor Leopold in 

 his glass coach. At the magnificent Court of the Duke 

 Ernest Augustus at Hanover, in 1681, there were 50 gilt 

 coaches with 6 horses each ; and shortly after that grand 

 display, carriages, despite the feudal laws, became 

 common all over Germany. 



Carriages were used in France at a very early age. 

 So far back as the year 1294, an ordinance of Philip the 

 Fair forbade citizens wives from using them. If one 

 might judge from Chaucer's poem entitled " The Squyre 

 of Low Degree," it would appear they were used in 

 England in his day (1328-1400) for he says : 



" To-morrow ye shall ride on hunting fare, 

 And ride my daughter in a chare ; 

 It shall be covered with velvet red, 

 And cloth of gold all about your head, 

 With damask white and azure blue, 

 Well dispers'd with lillies new." 



When Richard II. fled from his rebellious subjects, 

 his mother was conveyed in a carriage. It was not, 

 however, till the time of Queen Elizabeth that coaches 

 became common in England. Probably those famous state 

 journeys called " Royal Progresses " like the one to 

 Kenilworth of which her majesty was rather fond, created 

 a demand for carriages, and gave an impetus to coach 

 building, which, during her reign, became a very important 

 branch of industry ; and continued to flourish so rapidly 

 that at the commencement of the seventeenth century it 

 was calculated that in London alone there were upwards 

 of 6,000 carriages. 



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