io6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



credited in the present day. Many of the former 

 owned and employed from six hundred to one 

 thousand horses, to enable them to horse the coaches 

 on the various lines of road ; whilst the post-masters 

 often kept from twenty-five to thirty pairs of post- 

 horses. The innkeepers had by far the largest 

 amount of capital invested in the principal towns, 

 far greater, relatively speaking, than was employed 

 in other business. And in the county towns they 

 were generally men of superior education and 

 manners, from their constant association with the 

 leading nobility, clergy, and magistracy, both socially 

 and politically. The chief towns had mostly two 

 leading hostelries, engaged at election times by the 

 rival parties ; whilst the leaders, and their followers 

 of Whig and Tory, made the inns their special 

 rendezvous. If I give some account of the well- 

 known ancient inn of the Midlands, the ' White Hart,' 

 at Aylesbury, it may interest many readers to obtain 

 some idea as to what it was like in the first quarter 

 of the nineteenth century. It is generally believed 

 that this was an inn during the Wars of the Roses, 

 at least five hundred years ago, and belonged to the 

 White Rose party, whilst the Roebuck was attached 

 to the Red Rose. Where ancient inns existed in 

 towns of some pretensions, they were generally the 

 White and the Red Lion, respectively attached to the 

 two factions. The ' White Hart ' stood in the market 

 square of Aylesbury, and adjoined the County Hall, 

 with the Assize Courts. In 1S12, the front consisted 

 of three tall gables, the first floor overlapping the 



