THE COACH-HOESE.] 



THE HORSE, AND 



[the COACH-HOESE. 



introduced a coach into Ireland, the first ever 

 used in that country. One was introduced 

 into Scotland, we rather think from Prance, 

 about the year 1571. It belonged to the 

 famous Secretary Maitland, of Letliington, who, 

 during the civil war between the adherents 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 purpose of 

 holding a consultation with some others of her 

 friends ; the first time, it is believed, that a 

 close carriage was ever used in Scotland. 



Eynes Morison, who wrote in the year 

 1617, speaks of coaches as recently intro- 

 duced, 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 tend- 

 ing to efierainacy, and as not being so quick 

 of movement as the horse. 



The Duke of Buckingham, in 1G19, first 

 used a coach with six horses ; a piece of pomp 

 which the Duke of Northumberland thouglit 

 proper to ridicule by setting up one with 

 eight. Charles I. was the first British sove- 

 reign who had a state carriage. Although 

 Henry IV. was killed in a coach — the only 

 one, by the way, he possessed — his ordinary 

 manner of appearing in the streets of Paris 

 was on horseback, with a large cloak strapped 

 on behind, to be used in 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 Eox- 

 burgh, 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. 



Taylor, the Water-poet, complains, in the 

 reign of Charles I., that large retinues of 

 men were now given up by the great, since 

 they had begun to use coaches. 



Till 1564, the only mode of travelling, 

 equivalent to that by stage-coaches and loco- 

 motive carriages in the present day, was by 

 the strings of horses led by the carriers. It 

 is these caravans that EalstaflT and his friends 

 are described by Shakespeare as attackin"- at 

 GadshiU. 



About the year just mentioned, the lono- 

 waggon for goods and passengers came into use. 

 100 



Stage-coaches originated less than a century 

 later, and were for a long time confined to the 

 great lines of road throughout England ; and, 

 till 1678, there were none for distances to 

 which the term stages could be applied. The 

 journey from London to Oxford, in the reign 

 of Charles II., required two days, the space 

 being fifty-eight miles. That to Exeter, one 

 hundred and sixty-eight miles and a quarter, 

 required four days. 



In 1703, when Prince George of Denmark 

 went from "Windsor to Petworth, to meet 

 Charles III. of Spain, the distance being 

 about forty miles, he required fourteen hours 

 for the journey, the last nine miles taking six. 

 The person who records this fact, says that 

 the long time was the more surprising, as, 

 except when overturned, or when stuck fast in 

 the mire, his royal highness made no stop 

 during the journey. 



In 1742, stage-coaches must have been 

 more numerous in England than in Charles 

 II. 's time ; but it does not appear that they 

 moved any faster. The journey from London 

 to Birmingham, one hundred and sixteen 

 miles, then occupied nearly three days. 



The rate of coach-travelling, previous to the 

 country being intersected with railroads, ex- 

 cited almost as much wonder among ourselves 

 as it did among foreigners. The horses were 

 then very hard wrought ; for the art of road- 

 making had not attained its present state of 

 excellence, a»d, in wet weather, some of the 

 coaches might be half-axle deep or more. 



"When I was a school-boy," says a writer, 

 giving a description of the road between Lon- 

 don and Parkgate — the principal place where 

 passengers landed from Dublin, before Holy- 

 head became the regular station for the Dublin 

 packets — " Parkgate, in Cheshire, was the port 

 whence the Dublin packets sailed : there were 

 a few at Holyhead ; but there all the principal 

 intercourse between the countries was eflfected. 

 At that time, probably not one craft of any 

 description passed in a month between Dublin 

 and Liverpool. Upon the arrival of a packet 

 at Parkgate, the passengers made their way, 

 as they best could, to Chester, diverging 

 thence to the several places of their destina- 

 tion. I believe there might be a stage of 

 some kind or other, that undertook to deposit 

 people within some limited ti:ne in London 



