4 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



roads consequent upon the troubled state of 

 the kingdom in that intervening space. Re- 

 bellions, pestilences, foreign wars, and domestic 

 strife had marked that epoch. The Wars of the 

 Roses themselves lasted thirty years, and in all 

 that while the social condition of the people had 

 not merely stood still, but degenerated. Towns 

 and districts were half depopulated, and the 

 ancient highways fell into disuse. It is signifi- 

 cant that the first General HighAvay Act, a 

 measure passed in 1555, was practically coincident 

 with the reintroduction of carriages. 



Queen Mary's Coronation carriage — or, as it 

 was called in the language of that time, " coach " 

 — was draAvn by six horses, less for reasons of 

 display than of sheer necessity, for, with a less 

 numerous and powerful team, it would probably 

 have been stuck fast in the infamously bad roads 

 that then set a gulf of mud between the twin 

 cities of London in the east and Westminster in 

 the west. Only three other carriages followed 

 her Majesty on that historic occasion, and the 

 ladies who attended rode horseback. 



Two years after this new departure mention is 

 found of a " coach " — still, of course, a carriage — 

 made for the Earl of Rutland by one Walter 

 Rippon, who in the same year appears to have 

 built a new one for the Queen. 



The next patron of carriages seems to have 

 been Sir Thomas Hoby, sometime Her Britannic 

 Majesty's Ambassador to the Erench Court : that 

 Sir Thomas who lies beside his brother, Sir Philip, 



