THECOACH-noBSE.] MODEEN VETEEINART PEACTICE. [the coach-housb. 



valent to the postman's field, and an unques- 

 fu.nable proof, as all the villagers at Hume 

 dovoutly believe, of the truth of the anecdote. 

 The custom of keeping a running' footman did 

 not cease amongst noble iamilies in Scotland 

 till the middle of the last century. 



The Earl of IVlarch, father to the Duke of 

 Queensberry, and who lived at Ncidpath Castle, 

 near Peebles, had one named John Mann, who 

 used to run in front of the carriage, with a 

 long staff. In the head of the staff there was 

 a recess for a hard-boiled egg, such being the 

 only food taken by Mann during a long 

 journey. 



JS'ext to the pedestrian feats of our fore- 

 fathers, were their equestrian performances. 

 The pedestrian was almost independent of 

 roads; and hence the amazing rapidity of his 

 feats. The rider was not just so independent ; 

 but still a rough way was of less consequence 

 to him than to a wheeled vehicle. Hence 

 it arises that some journeys performed on 

 horseback, in former times, are not much less 

 wonderful than the above examples of rapid 

 pedestrianism. 



Some horsemen of the present day would 

 think it no mean feat, we suspect, to perform, 

 on horseback, one hundred miles a day ; yet 

 this appears insignificant, compared with the 

 account of the rapid travelling of the mes- 

 senger who conveyed to Edinburgh the tidings 

 of the death of " Good Queen Bess." 



Queen Elizabeth died at one o'clock on the 

 morning of Thursday, the 24th of March, 

 1603. Between nine and ten. Sir Eobert 

 Carey left London, after having been up all 

 nisht, commissioned to communicate the intel- 

 ligence to her successor James, at Edinburgh. 

 That nicht he rode to Doncaster, a hundred 

 and fifty-tive miles. Next night he reached 

 Witherington, near Morpeth. Early on Satur- 

 day morning he proceeded by Norham, across 

 the Border; and, that evening, at no late 

 hour, kneeled beside the king's bed at Holy- 

 rood, and saluted him as King of England, 

 France, and Ireland. He had thus travelled 

 four hundred miles in three days, restuig 

 during the tft-o intermediate nights. But it 

 must not be supposed that speed like this was 

 attained on all occasions. 



"When we consider the state of the roads at 

 the period at which this performance took place, 



it cannot be otherwise viewed than as some- 

 what extraordinary. 



At the coininenccment of tho religious 

 troubles, which happ(med in the reign of 

 Charles I., when matters of the utino.st im- 

 portance were debated between the king and 

 bis northern subjects, it uniformlv a|)|)ear8 

 that a communication from Edinburgh to 

 London, however pressing might be the occa- 

 sion, was not answered in less than a fortnight. 

 The crowds of nobles, clergymen, gentlemen, 

 and burghers, who, at that time, assembled in 

 Edinburgh, to concert measures for opposing 

 the designs of the court, always returned to 

 their homes after dispatching a message to 

 King Charles, and assembled again a fortnight 

 after, in order to receive the reply, and to 

 take such measures as might be called for. 

 Even till the last century was pretty far ad- 

 vanced, the ordinary riding-post between 

 London and Edinburgh, regularly took a week 

 to the journey. 



lu consequence of the inattention of our 

 ancestors to roads, and the wretched state in 

 which these were usually kept, it was long 

 before coaching, of any kind, came much into 

 fashion. Though wheeled vehicles of various 

 sorts were in use among the ancients, the close 

 carriage or coach is of modern invention. The 

 word coach is Hungarian ; and the vehicle itself 

 is supposed to have originated in Hungary. 

 Germany certainly appears to have taken the 

 precedence of the nations of Western Europe 

 in using coaches. They were introduced 

 thence into England some time in the 16th 

 century; but were, after all, so little in vogue 

 throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth, that 

 there is no trace of her having ever used oue. 

 Wheel-carriages, however, having some resem- 

 blance to chariots, such as were used by the 

 ancients, were brought into fashion in the time 

 of Eichard II. ; for we find that " he rode from 

 the Tower of London to the Miles End, and 

 with him his mother, because she was sick and 

 weak, in a whirlicote." This veiiicle was little 

 better than a litter put upon wheels. In the 

 reign of Elizabeth we find it mentioned in 

 Stone's Surve)/, " That divers great ladies made 

 them coaches, and rode in them up and down 

 the countries, to the great admiration of all the 

 beholders." 



Lord Grey de Wilton, who died in 1593, 



