Only a comparison between the closing years of James I.’s reign, and the opening ones of Charles II., a period of thirty-five years at the utmost, can afford a true estimate of the improvements in the public and social conditions of the country. Among these was the establishment of regular inland postal communication in 1635. The proclamation “for settling of the letter-office of England and Scotland” sets forth that “there hath been no certain or constant intercourse between the kingdoms of England and Scotland,” and commands “Thomas Witherings, Esq., his Majesty’s postmaster of England for foreign parts, to settle a running-post or two to run night and day between England and Scotland and the city of London, to go thither and come back in six days.” Ireland was included in these arrangements. The horses for conveyance of the letters were furnished by the postmasters at the rate of twopence-halfpenny a mile. In 1649 letters were forwarded once a week to all parts of the kingdom.
Another public benefit was the setting-up of hackney coaches. These predecessors of our four-wheelers and hansoms were first started from Hackney—then a fair-sized village—to London, for those who had business or pleasure in the metropolis. Very soon the coaches began to ply in London streets, making their stands at the inns. There were twenty of them in 1625 under the superintendence of one Captain Bailey, an old sea-officer.
For its linen industries Ireland owes a deep debt of gratitude to the memory of the Earl of Strafford. While Governor of Ireland, he observed that the soil of the Green Isle was suited to the production of flax. He sent to Holland for the seed, and to France and the Netherlands for skilful workmen. To promote still further the undertaking, he advanced a considerable sum from his own private fortune, thus establishing Ireland’s most important manufacture.
England was later in the field: for linen was not produced in this country to any degree of perfection until twoscore years later, when the French Protestant refugees sought shelter here at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Under their skilful instructions, the English manufacturers wrought immense improvement in the material. It is small wonder that housewives and betrothed maidens of the olden days set such store by the contents of their linen-presses and dowry-chests. The Queen of Henry VI. could boast only two linen shifts. The scarcity of this commodity when Lady Strange first arrived in England, doubtless accounts for her writing for so many articles of clothing for her young family to be sent from France.
From such a quickening of industrial activity through the length and breadth of the nation, quite independently of the improvements in printing, or rather of the dissemination of books, in engraving and in etching, it is obvious that time no longer necessarily hung heavy on the hands of country gentlemen. The wits of the domestic “ffoole” were no longer so indispensable now that the lord of the manor had material upon which to exercise his own. If, faute de mieux, he had hitherto bestowed all his time on his hawk and his hound, the pleasures of the table, and a vast amount of sleep, he was no longer forced to confine himself to these pastimes. “To divert at any time a troublesome fancy,” says worthy Master Fuller, “run to thy books. They presently fix thee to them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts. They always receive thee with the same kindness.”
With many other noblemen and gentlemen of that time, the Earl of Derby fell in with this sound advice. “His life,” says Walpole,[[9]] “was one of virtue, accomplishments, and humanity.” Neither firebrand, busybody, nor time-server—too high of rank to desire to be higher—James, seventh Earl of Derby, nearing on to middle life at the time of his father’s death, lived chiefly on his own estates, and these preferably at Lathom House. He appeared rarely at Court, finding full occupation in the affairs of his own estate, of which the kingdom of Man formed an important and seemingly difficult part to manage. “But,” says one of his biographers, “peaceful years and charitable acts fill few pages in history; and Lord Derby owes his place there, not to virtues arising from his own choice and goodwill, but to those which were struck from him by the blows of fortune, as fire is struck from flint stones.”
[9]. Noble Authors.
CHAPTER VII
MANX LAND. THE SON OF LEIR. ST. PATRICK. PREHISTORIC MAN. KING ORRY AND HIS HIGH-ROAD. THE HOUSE OF KEYS. PUBLIC PENANCE IN MANX LAND. A FORTUNATE FILE. BREAST LAWS AND DEEMSTERS. THE LITTLE PEOPLE. A HAUNTED CASTLE. A THOROUGH BAD DOG. CATS’ TAILS. “A SHIP IN HER RUFF.” A CONTESTED PRIZE. THE THREE LEGS. THE LORD OF MAN