264 
embleton: notes on ancient coal mining. 
prefixed to Hollingshead's Chronicle, edited in the year 1577, contain 
some very curious and interesting notices concerning the coal trade 
and his opinion of the use of coal. 
"Of cole mines we have such plenty in the Northern and 
Western parts of our island as may suffice for all the realme of 
Englande. Sea cole will be good merchandise even in the Citie of 
London, wherunto some of them abeadie have gotten readie passage 
and taken up their mines in the greatest marchaint's parlors." 
This quaint writer goes on to contrast the manners of former 
times with his own, "Now we have many chimnyes, and yet our 
tenderlings complaine of rewmes, catarres, and posers ; then we had 
none but reredoses, and our heads did never ake. For as the smoke 
of those days (wood) was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the 
timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medecine to keep 
the good man and his family from the quacke or pose, wherewith, 
as then very few were acquainted." 
" There are old men dwelling in the village where I remain have 
noted the number of chimnyes lately erected, whereas in their young 
days there was not above two or three, but each one except great 
people made his fire against a reredosse in the halle, where he dined 
and dressed his meat." He further complains : — " When our houses 
were builded of willowe, then we had oken men; but nowe that our 
houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not only become 
willowe, but a gTeat many altogether of straw, which is a sore altera- 
tion." 
We see that the complaint is not new in 1886, for it is still said 
that the last generation was better than the present. 
In 1306 the complaint became so general that the lords and 
commons in parliament assembled presented a petition to King 
Edward L, who issued a proclamation forbidding the use of this fuel 
and ordering the destruction of furnaces and kilns of all who should 
persist in using it. This prohibition was repeated at several sub- 
sequent periods. The use of coal in London was resumed a few 
years after its prohibition by the King in 1306, as we find in the 
"petitiones in parliament" in 1321-2 a claim was made for ten 
shillings on account of coal which had been ordered by the clerk of 
