“Lost a Red Shag Hammock Cloth, with white Silk Lace round it, embroider’d with white and blue, and 3 Bulls Heads and a Squirrel for the Coat of Arms.”
The etymology of this hammercloth, which was simply a covering over the coach-box, seems to have puzzled people considerably. Most coachbuilders consider that the box beneath the seat used to contain a hammer and other tools necessary in case of a breakdown, whence the name. The anonymous author of the coach-building articles in the Carriage Builders’ and Harness-Makers’ Art Journal scouts this idea, and suggests that it is merely a corruption of hamper-cloth—the box or chest having originally contained a hamper of provisions. The last advertisement quoted above gives hammock-cloth, which vaguely suggests suspension of a kind. It is perhaps not a very important question.
Queen Anne’s Procession to the Cathedral of S. Paul
(From Pennant’s “London”)
Advertisements also mention a “Curtin Coach for 6 People,” and “a Chasse marée Coach,”[38] which was some form of covered waggon; but, unfortunately, I have not been able to discover any information about them.
The State Coaches of this time were as handsome as ever. George I, Mrs. Delaney has recorded, rode in a coach that was “covered with purple cloth; the eight horses the beautifullest creatures of their kind were cream colour”—the custom of using cream-coloured horses still obtains in the State Coach of Great Britain—“the trapping purple silk, and their manes and tails tied with purple riband.” Luttrell in his Diary for May 20th, 1707, says of a foreign coach:—
“Yesterday the Venetian Ambassadors made their public entry thro’ this citty to Somerset House in great state and splendour, their Coach of State embroidered with gold, and the richest that ever was seen in England: they had two with 8 horses, and eight with 6 horses, trimm’d very fine with ribbons, 48 footmen in blew velvet cover’d with gold lace, 24 gentlemen and pages on horseback, with feathers in their hats.”
The Venetians apparently prided themselves on a magnificent display, and four years later Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, was commenting upon their ambassador’s coach again—“the most monstrous, huge, fine, gilt thing that ever I saw,” he says of it. Every possible luxury was commandeered for these State vehicles. One of the Emperors built a coach “studded with gold” for his bride. Another’s consort rode in a carriage “covered with perfumed leather.” The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold had cost 38,000 florins. But the Austrian State Imperial Coach, built in 1696, was perhaps the most gorgeous of all. Immense sums too were being spent on coaches by private individuals. Swift writes on February 6th, 1712: “Nothing has made so great a noise as one Kelson’s chariot, that cost nine hundred and thirty Pounds, the finest was ever seen. The rabble huzzaed him as much as they did Prince Eugene.” Fashion decreed six horses. “I must have Six Horses in my Coach,” says Mrs. Plotwell in the Beau’s Duel, “four are fit for those that have a Charge of Children, you and I shall never have any”; and in another of Mrs. Centlivre’s comedies, Lucinda says to Sir Toby Doubtful: “You’ll at least keep Six Horses, Sir Toby, for I wou’d not make a Tour in High Park with less for the World: for me thinks a pair looks like a Hackney.” Abroad even more display was made. “Two coaches,” wrote Lady Mary from Naples in 1740, “two running footmen, four other footmen, a gentleman usher, and two pages, are as necessary here as the attendance of a single servant is at London.”
Nor was carriage-driving confined to the gentry. Every retired tradesman appeared abroad in his coach and aped the noble, a matter which disturbed Sir Richard Steele, who in one of the Tatlers drew attention to the truly lamentable fact that you could not possibly estimate the social position of the occupant of a coach by the appearance of his equipage.
“For the better understanding of things and persons,” he writes, “in this general confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and coachpainters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers; and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing of his arms on the door of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the curiosities of any medallist in Europe. It is high time,” he continues, “that I call in such coaches as are in their embellishment improper for the character of their owners. But if I find I am not obeyed herein, and think I cannot pull down those equipages already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil for the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons, who shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and decorations of their own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would be justly punished for offending against the Most Noble Order; and, I think, the general prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all distinction, as the impertinences of one man, if permitted, would certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.”