FIRST COACHES IN ENGLAND. 



parts, to be found aowhere, nor never will be 



again." 



Mais revenons a nos moutons ; my present 

 object is to compare coaching as it is with 

 coaching as it was. 



It may not here be uninteresting to mention 

 that coaches were introduced into England by 

 Fitz Allan, Earl of Arundel, a.d. J 580, before 

 which time Queen Elizabeth, on public occa- 

 sions, rode behind her chamberlain ; and she, 

 in her old age, used reluctantly such an effe- 

 minate conveyance. They were at first drawn 

 by only two horses ; but, as a writer of those 

 days remarks, " The rest crept in by degrees, 

 as man at first ventured to sea." 



Historians, however, differ upon this subject, 

 for it is stated by Stow (that ill-used anti- 

 quary, who, after a long laborious life, was 

 left by his countrymen to beg his bread) that 

 in 1564, Booner, a Dutchman, became the 

 Queen's coachman, and was the first that 

 brought the use of coaches into England ; 

 while Anderson, in his " History of Com- 

 merce," says, on the other hand, that about 

 1580 the use of coaches was introduced by the 

 Earl of Arundel. 



It was Buckingham, the favourite, who about 



