Coach in the time of Charles I
(From “Coach and Sedan Pleasantly Disputing”)
Coach in the time of Charles II
(From Thrupp’s “History of Coaches”)
“From this,” comments Sir Walter Gilbey, who quotes the letter, “it is evident that when six horses were used a postillion rode one of the leaders and controlled them; while the driver managed the wheelers and middle pair. When four horses were driven,” he continues, “it was the custom to have two outriders, one to ride at the leaders’ heads, and one at the two wheelers’. In town this would be merely display, but on a journey the outriders’ horses might replace those of the team in case of accident, or, more frequently, be added to them to help drag the coach over a stretch of bad road.”
It is just possible that this coach which was overturned by Cromwell’s faulty driving is at present in existence, repaired, of course, and redecorated, and, incidentally, painted by Cipriani, as Mr. Speaker’s coach. This undoubtedly belongs to the period, and one writer actually commits himself to the statement that the two are identical. A commoner report assigns the Speaker’s coach in the first place to Lenthall, Cromwell’s Speaker. Whatever be its history, the coach is a fine example of Jacobean work. It is of carved oak, the body being hung upon leather braces. The workmanship, Mr. Oakley Williams thinks,[28] is Flemish. Cipriani’s work, added late in the eighteenth century, is still in good preservation. Five people can comfortably sit inside. “The Speaker,” says Mr. Williams, “presumably occupied the seat of honour alone. Opposite him sat his Chaplain and the Sergeant-at-Arms. For the accommodation of his other attendants ... a low bench is arranged across the floor of the coach, with a semicircular space for the legs of its occupants scooped out against either door”—relic, of course, of the boot. “The coach,” he continues, after mentioning that the Speaker always has his own arms painted on the side of the body, and is allowed an escort of a single Lifeguardsman, “weighs two tons one hundredweight and several pounds, yet for all its size it so beautifully hung and balanced that an able-bodied man was able without undue effort to draw it out for my inspection. Its coach-house is one of the vaults in the inner courtyard of the House of Lords.” Both origin and subsequent history of this coach, however, are wrapped in an impenetrable mystery.
Cromwell’s mishap naturally gave the Royalist writers an opportunity for satire. Cleveland wrote the following lines:—
“The whip again; away! ’tis too absurd
That thou should lash with whipcord now, but sword.