THE BATH ROAD 51 



trilogy, which made passengers nervous, affected the 

 receipts, and led to the removal from the box-seat, 

 whence he had directed these acrobatic manoeuvres, of 

 a so-called Captain Jones, whoever he may have been. 

 From which I infer that there were coach-driving 

 captains even in those days, though I have never read 

 of one before. However, the captain retired into private 

 life, and a young man who was a very good coachman, 

 but whose name is unknown to me, though it was very 

 well known on the road, reigned in his stead. This 

 change of cast brought up the receipts of the Beaufort 

 Hunt with a run ; places were booked three or four 

 weeks in advance by passengers who wished to travel 

 eleven miles an hour without breaking their necks. The 

 coach became quite the fashion, crowds of people stand- 

 ing about the White Lion in the Market-place at Bath 

 to see it start. 



This coach used to change horses at Froxfield, three 

 miles out of Hungerford, and the next stage was 

 Marlborough, seven miles on ; the last two miles of the 

 road skirting Savernake Forest, which is a horrible place 

 to hunt in, is sixteen miles in circumference, and the 

 only forest in the country in the possession of a subject, 

 which seems very strange and wild. 



One begins to be ashamed of saying of English 

 country towns that they stood a siege in the great 

 Civil Wars, yet this must be said of Marlborough, 

 which was, as a matter of fact, a most important place, 

 considered from a strategical point of view, and a thorn 

 for a long time in the side of the royal cause ; for it was 

 not only the most notoriously disaffected town in all 

 Wiltshire, remarkable for the obstinacy and malice of 

 its inhabitants (why, I wonder, this strange malignancy 

 on the part of the good burghers of Marlborough ?), 

 but, standing as it does on the W^estern Road, it seriously 

 menaced Charles's communications with the loyal West. 

 It accordingly underwent the proverbial harmless, neces- 

 sary siege, and was stormed by Wilmot in December, 



E 2 



