INTRODUCTION. 13 



gallop over cross roads and ploughed fields, without 

 meeting with more accidents than the men : besides, 

 it was not only allowed to be more decorous, but, in 

 many respects, more congenial to the ease and comfort 

 of a female rider." 



Our author is, however, wrong in ascribing the 

 fashion of riding sideways, by women in this countr}', 

 to Elizabeth ; by whom it could only have been con- 

 firmed, or, at the most, rexaved ; — the honour of its 

 introduction being clearly attributable to another Queen 

 of England, who lived at a much more early period 

 of our history. 



Ann of Bohemia, consort of Richard the Second, is 

 the illustrious personage to whom we allude. She, it 

 was, according to Stow (whom Beckman follows on this 

 point), that originally shewed the women of this country 

 how gracefully and conveniently they might ride on 

 horseback sideways. Another old historian, enumerat- 

 ing the new fashions of Richard the Second's reign, 

 observes, " Likewise, noble ladies then used high heads 

 and cornets, and robes with long trains, and seats, or 

 side-saddles, on their horses, by the example of the 

 respectable Queen, Ann, daughter of the King of Bo- 

 hemia; M'ho first introduced the custom into this king- 

 dom : for, before, women of every rank rode as men 

 do" (T. Rossii, Hist. Re. Aug. p. 205), In his beau- 

 tiful illustrative picture of Chaucer's Canterbury 

 Pilgrims, Stothard appears to have committed an 



