ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



This statement, I think, warrants us islanders in flattering 

 ourselves that we take precedence in coaching of all 

 the world. Wheel carriages, bearing some resemblance to 

 chariots, first came into use in England in the reign of 

 King Richard II., about the year 1388. They were 

 called whirlicotes, and were little better than litters or 

 cotes (cots) placed on wheels. We are told by Master 

 John Stowe * that 'Richard II. being threatened by the 

 rebels of Kent, 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 is described as an 

 ugly vehicle of four boards put together in a clumsy 

 manner ; so clumsily that, on occasion of the grand entry 

 of Richard II. into London, described by Richard de 

 Maidstone, we learn that when the ladies of the Court 

 were riding in two of these carts, one of them fell over 

 and ' exposed its fair occupants in a not very decorous 

 manner to the jeers of the multitude.' At the celebration 

 of the feast of St. George at Windsor in 1487 (3 Henry 

 VII.), we are told that the Queen and the King's mother 

 rode in a chaise covered with a rich cloth of gold. 



We may judge of the state of the road in the sixteenth 

 century from the means of conveyance then used by the 

 wealthiest and noblest family in England, that of the fifth 

 Earl of Northumberland. In the establishment of this 

 nobleman in 15 12, there were, as Berenger tells us, 'seven 

 great trottynge hors to draw in the chariott, and a nagg 

 for the chariott-man to ride.' The chariott or car was a 

 vehicle in various forms, but far inferior to the chariot 



1 ' Surveye of London and Westminster.' 



