8 STAG&'COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



James I. and Charles, was misjudged when, in 

 1619, the people, seeing his carriage drawn hy 

 that number, " wondered at it as a novelty, and 

 imputed it to him as a mastering pride." Had he 

 employed fewer horses he certainly would have 

 been obliged to get out and walk, or to have again 

 resorted to the use of the sedan-chair, in which, 

 before he had set up a carriage, he was used to be 

 carried, greatly to the indignation of the j)opulace, 

 to whom sedan-chairs were at that time novelties. 

 " The clamour and the noise of it was so 

 extravagant," we are told, "that the people would 

 rail upon him in the streets, loathing that men 

 should be brought to as servile a condition as 

 horses." Yet no one ever thought of denouncing 

 Buckingham or any other of the magnificos when 

 they lolled in easy seats under the silken hangings 

 of their state barges and were rowed by the labour 

 of a dozen lusty oarsmen on the Thames. The 

 work was as servile as the actual carrying of a 

 passenger, but the innate conservatism of man- 

 kind could not at first perceive this. On the Avhole, 

 Buckingham therefore has our sympathy. The most 

 innocent doings of a favourite with Uoyalty are 

 capable of being twisted into haughty and 

 malignant acts, and had it not been for Bucking- 

 ham's position at Court his displays would not 

 have brought him the hatred of the people and 

 the rivalry of his own order which they certainly 

 did arouse. The Earl of Northumberland was one 

 of those who were thus goaded into the rivalry 

 of display. Hearing that the favourite had six 



