. . .Page_76" id="Page_76">76 daughter of the emperor Charles IV., showed the English ladies how gracefully and conveniently she could ride on a side-saddle. Whirlicotes therefore were disused, except at coronations and other public solemnities176. Coaches were first known in England about the year 1580, and, as Stow says, were introduced from Germany by Fitz-allen, earl of Arundel177. In the year 1598, when the English ambassador came to Scotland, he had a coach with him178. Anderson places the period when coaches began to be in common use, about the year 1605. The celebrated duke of Buckingham, the unworthy favourite of two kings, was the first person who rode with a coach and six horses, in 1619. To ridicule this new pomp, the earl of Northumberland put eight horses to his carriage.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Charles of Anjou made his entrance into Naples, the queen rode in a carriage, called by historians caretta, the outside and inside . . . Read More