364 



THE MODERN SYSTEM 



hack lo tlieiihomes after dispatcliing a message 

 w King Charles, and assembled again a fort- 

 night thereafter, in order to receive the reply, 

 and take such measures as it might call for. 

 And even till the last century was pretty far 

 advanced, the ordinary riding post between 

 London and Edinburgh regularly took a week 

 lo the journey. 



in consequence of the inattention of our 

 ancestors to roads, and the wretched state in 

 wnich these were usually kept, it was long 

 before coaching of any kind came much into 

 fashion. Though wheeled vehicles of various 

 kinds were in use among the ancients, the 

 close carriage or coach is of modern invention. 

 The word coachis Hungarian, and the vehicle 

 itself is supposed to have originated in Him- 

 gary. Germany certainly appeals to have 

 taken the precedence of the nations of Western 

 Europe in using coaches. They were intro- 

 duced thence into England some time in the 

 scxteenth century, but were, after all, so little 

 jn vogue throughout the whole reign of Eliza- 

 beth, that there is no trace of her having ever 

 used one. 



Lord Grey de Wilton, who died in 1593, 

 introduced a coach into Ireland, the first ever 

 used in that country. One was introduced 

 into Scotland, we rather think from France, 

 about the year 157L It belonged to the 

 famous Secretary Maitland of Lethington, who, 

 during: the horrid civil war between the ad- 

 lierents of Mary and those of her son James, 

 made a journey in that vehicle from Edinburgh 

 Castle, which he was holding out for the 

 Queen, to Niddry in West Lothian, for the 

 purpo.se of holding a consultation with some 

 others of her friends ; the first time, it is 

 believed, that a close carriage was ever used 

 in Jscolland. 



Fynes Morison, who wrote in the year 1617, 

 speaks of coaches as recently introduced, and 

 still rare in Scotland. For a long time, these 

 conveniences were only used by old people, 

 who could not well bear riding. The young 

 and active despised them, as tending to effe- 

 minacy, and as not being so quick of movement 

 as the horse. 



The Duke of Buckingham, in 1619, first 

 used a coach with six horses ; a piece of pomp 

 which the Duke of Northumberland thouo-ht 

 proper to ridicule by setting up one with eight. 

 Charles I. was the first British sovereign wlio 

 had a state carriage. Although Henry IV. 

 was killed in a coach ; the only one, by the 

 way, he possessed ; his ordinary way of ap- 

 pearing in the streets of Paris was on horse- 

 back, with a large cloak strapped on behind^ 

 to be used iii case of rain. 



In Scotland, previous to the time of the civil 

 war, coaches were only used by persons high 

 in the state. When the Earl of Roxburgh, 

 an aged minister, was endeavouring to appease 

 the Covenanters in 1637, he was pulled from 

 his coach in the High Street of Edinburgh, 

 and maltreated. He who in old age adopted 

 this effeminate kind of conveyance, had, in 

 youth, ridden in armour at the Raid of Ruth- 

 ven, so that one man's life may be said to 

 connect in Scotland the period of rude warfare 

 with that of luxurious comfort. It is very 

 curious to find that the same sort of complaints 

 now made by persons interested in coaching, 

 respecting the introduction of steam locomo- 

 tives, were made when coaches were intio- 

 duced. 



Taylor, the Water-Poet, complains in (lie 

 reign of Charles I., that large retinues of men 

 were now given up by the great, since they 

 had begun to use coaches. Ten, tvvcniy. 



