ii8 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



to hear the priests say mass ; and no doubt they were un- 

 able to hear the sermon too. This fact much exercised the 

 good Bishop Poore ; and so, a less windy site having oppor- 

 tunely been revealed to him in a dream by the Virgin- 

 he got a licence from Pope Honorius for removal. 

 Which done — with a mediaeval disregard for the safety 

 of the local cowherd or government inspector — he 

 aimlessly shot an arrow into the air from the ramparts 

 of Old Sarum, and (unlike Mr. Longfellow's hero), 

 having marked where it fell, there laid the foundations 

 of the existing beautiful church. 



To pass from ecclesiastical matters, with which we 

 have really little to do, Salisbury, from the fact of its 

 position on the great thoroughfare to the west of England, 

 has always played a prominent part in the history of the 

 road — in times of civil commotion indeed, a part perhaps 

 second to no other provincial town of its size and com- 

 mercial insignificance. And so, long before coaches 

 were built or flying machines dreamed of, this part of 

 the Exeter road was trod by kings and queens, and 

 courtiers and statesmen, who made at different times in 

 their august and calculating lives the town of Salisbury 

 their headquarters, cracked their mediaeval old pleasan- 

 tries in the quaint old streets, caracoled along them, not 

 in coaches and four, but on such gallant steeds and so 

 caparisoned, as our eyes are feasted with on Lord Mayor's 

 Day, gorgeous without and within, resplendent with vel- 

 vet, and cloth of gold, and ermine, and stiff embroidery. 



First perhaps among the royal visitors to Salisbury was 

 Richard the Second, who was here immediately before 

 his expedition to Ireland, where he should clearly never 

 have gone. But this visit does not seem to have been a 

 success. There was, I fear, not enough largesse about 

 during the last of the Plantagencts' stay, not enough 

 tournaments and junketings, and conduits running 

 rhenish, and cakes and ale ; for the good inhabitants 

 seem to have been impressed so little with what was to 

 be got out of Richard, that they a short time after 



