Covered carriages were again introduced in the beginning of the sixteenth century, for the accommodation of women of the very first rank; the men, however, thought it disgraceful to ride in them. At that period, when the electors, and other Germanic princes, did not choose to be present at the meeting of the States, they excused themselves to the emperor, that their health would not permit them to ride on horseback, which was considered as an established point, that it was unbecoming to them to ride like women. What, according to their prevailing ideas, was not permitted to princes, was much less allowed to their servants. In A. D. 1554, when Count Wolf, of Barby, was summoned by John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to go to Spires, to attend the convention of the States assembled there, he requested leave, on account of ill health, to make use of a close carriage with four horses. When the counts and nobility were invited to attend the solemnity of the elector’s half brother, John Ernest, the invitation was accompanied with a memorandum, that such dresses of ceremony as they might be desirous of taking with them, should be transported in a small waggon;—which notice would have been unnecessary, had coaches been generally used among those nobles. The use of covered carriages was in fact, for a long time, prohibited even to women, the consorts of princes. About the year 1545, the wife of a certain duke obtained from him, with great difficulty, permission to use a covered carriage in a journey to the baths, in which permission there was this express stipulation, that none of her attendants were to be permitted this indulgence: though much pomp was displayed upon the occasion by the duchess. Such is the influence of example in our superiors, who can mould dependents and inferiors to whatever shape they please.
Notwithstanding all these ceremonious regulations, about the end of the fifteenth century, kings and princes began to employ covered carriages in journeys, and afterwards on public solemnities. When Richard II., towards the close of the fourteenth century, was compelled to fly from his rebellious subjects, himself with all his followers, were on horseback; but his mother, who was weak and sick, rode in a carriage. But this became afterwards unfashionable here, for that monarch’s queen, Anna, daughter of the King of Bohemia, showed the English ladies how gracefully she could ride on a side-saddle; and therefore whirlicotes (the ancient name for coaches in England), and chariots, were disused in England, except on coronations and other public solemnities.
In the year 1471, after the battle of Tewkesbury, which decided the fate of Henry VI., and that of the house of Lancaster, when others flew in different directions, the queen was found in her coach, almost dead with sorrow.
In 1474, the Emperor Frederic III. came to Frankfort in a close carriage; and as he remained in it on account of the wetness of the weather, the inhabitants had no occasion to support the canopy which was to have been held over him, while he went to the council house and returned. In the following year, the same emperor visited that city in a very magnificent carriage. In 1487, on occasion of the celebration of the feast of St. George at Windsor, the third year of Henry VII., the queen and king went in a rich chaise; they were attended by twenty-one ladies. In the description of the splendid tournament held by the Elector of Brandenburg, at Ruppin, in 1509, Beckmann says, he reads of a carriage all gilt, which belonged to the Electress; of twelve other coaches, ornamented with crimson; and of another, belonging to the Duchess of Mecklenburgh, which was hung with red satin.
In the Northumberland household book, about this period, is an order of the duke for the chapel stuff to be sent before in my lord’s chariot.
At the coronation of the Emperor Maximilian, 1562, the Elector of Cologne had twelve carriages. In 1594, when John Sigismund did homage at Warsaw, for Prussia, he had in his train thirty-six coaches, with six horses each. Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, “The bride rode with her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold; her maids of honour in carriages hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies in neat leather carriages.”
Mary, Infanta of Spain, spouse of Ferdinand III., rode, in 1631, in a glass carriage, in which no more than two persons could sit. The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold, who was a Spanish princess, cost, with the harness, 38,000 florins. The coaches used by that emperor are thus described:—“In the imperial coaches no great magnificence was to be seen; they were covered over with red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and in the whole work there was no gold. The panels were of glass, and on that account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the ladies in the imperial suite were obliged to be content to be conveyed in carriages, the traces of which were made of ropes.” At the magnificent court of Ernest Augustus, at Hanover, there were in 1681, fifty gilt coaches, with six horses each. So early did Hanover begin to surpass other cities in the number and splendour of its carriages.
The first time that coaches were introduced into Sweden was towards the end of the sixteenth century, when John of Finland, among other articles of luxury, brought one with him on his return from England.
Beckmann also informs us, that the great lords of Germany first imagined that they could suppress the use of coaches by prohibitions. There is still preserved an edict, in which the feudal nobility and vassals are forbidden the use of coaches, under pain of incurring the punishment of felony.
Philip II., Duke of Pomeranian-Stettin, reminded his vassals also, in 1608, that they ought not to make so much use of carriages as of horses. All these orders and admonitions, however, were of no avail, and coaches became common all over Germany.