The Chariot I take to have been a much more ancient Vehicle, and an open Vehicle; for we read of them in the Reign of our Henry VII. and even of our Richard II.
Queen Elizabeth, when she went to St. Paul's, 1588, after the Spanish Armada, was in a Chariot supported by four pillars, and drawn by two white horses[345].
It is generally agreed, by those Writers who have touched upon the subject, that Coaches were introduced into this Kingdom in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; but they must have had an earlier appearance amongst us than Anderson, in his History of Commerce, vol. I. p. 421, allows, who affirms, that the first of them was brought hither by [Henry] Fitz-Alan, the last Earl of Arundel of that name, in the year 1580; which cannot be the truth; for his Lordship died 1579. This Earl, after having served Kings Henry VIII. and Edward VI. and Queen Mary, became likewise high in the favour of Queen Elizabeth, and was Lord Steward of her Household; but, finding himself supplanted by the Earl of Leicester, he went abroad A. D. 1566[346]. It is to be supposed that he travelled to the sea-coast in the accustomed manner on Horseback; but he is said to have returned in his Coach, which, Mr. Granger says, was the first Equipage of the kind ever seen in England[347]; but that Author has left us without the date; so that we are yet to seek for that point.
Another Writer robs his Lordship entirely of the honour of such introduction; for Stowe's Continuator expressly says, that "In the year 1564 (two years before the Earl of Arundel went abroad), Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the Queen's Coachman, and was the first that brought the use of Coaches into England[348]." This very Coachman is said also to have driven the Queen's Coach, when she visited Oxford, 1592. Which of these two stories be true, the Relaters, Granger and Stowe, must answer for: but Anderson is palpably wrong in his date.
I can form no better an idea of our first Coaches than that they were heavy and unwieldy, as they continued to be for nearly two centuries afterwards; and I can at best but take the standard from the present State Coaches of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons[349].
It cannot be any matter of surprize, after so luxurious a conveyance had found its way into the Royal Establishment, that it should be adopted by others who could support the expence, when not curbed by sumptuary laws; and we have accordingly seen, that Coaches prevailed much, early in the Reign of King James; but Hackney Coaches, which are professedly the Subject of this Memoir, waited till luxury had made larger strides among us, and till private Coaches came to market at second hand.
Hackney Coach.
There having always been an imitative luxury in mankind, whereby the inferior orders might approximate the superior; so those that could not maintain a Coach de die in diem contrived a means of having the use of one de horâ in horam. Hence arose our occasional Vehicles called Hackney Coaches.