EARLY COACHES ii 



that, if anyone could hire a coach, the pageantry of a 

 royal procession would be shorn of much impressiveness. 

 With the hope of putting a check on wheeled carriages, 

 Charles I endeavoured to persuade his subjects to use 

 sedan chairs, an innovation they regarded but coldly. 

 Annoyed that he could not make the populace see eye to 

 eye with him in this matter, the King issued a proclama- 

 tion forbidding anyone to engage a hackney-carriage 

 unless for the purpose of going at least three miles out 

 of town. 



Business enterprise of any description necessarily 

 languished during the strenuous years of the Civil War, 

 but with the Restoration hackney-coaches increased 

 and multiplied, though Charles II, who loved them little 

 more than his father had done, did his unsuccessful best 

 to put them down. 



Pepys in his diary for November 1669 notes : 

 *' Notwithstanding that this was the first day of the 

 King's proclamation against hackney-coaches coming 

 into the streets to stand for hire, yet I got one to carry 

 me home." 



That the narrow streets of old London were over- 

 crowded it is easy to believe, for at one time there were 

 more than 2000^ of these hackney-coaches. Neither 

 were the drivers any too considerate for the public 

 safety, according to a curious old tradf entitled "Coach 



^ In April 1633 the poor widows of hackney-coachmen peti- 

 tioned for some relief, as the Parliament had reduced the number 

 of coaches to 400 : there were before in and about London more 

 than 2000. T. Rugges, Diurnal. 



