square coaches of Charles II’s time, but there was also a new type of
coach or chariot which had a curious backward tilt to the body. From a
superficial examination of such a carriage, it would appear impossible
for the seats to have been horizontal, and, indeed, one wonders why
this form was adopted. The result of this backward tilt was to leave
a space between the coachman’s box and the carriage-body itself. Here
one of the grooms sat or sprawled as best he could. Four, five, or
even six other grooms stood uncomfortably huddled together on a seat
or slab at the back. These men must have added considerably to the
weight of the coach, and certainly did not make travelling any swifter;
but how necessary they were is shown by a letter of the period in
which one nobleman’s servant in London informs another in Essex that
my lord is resolved to set out. The Essex man is bidden to have “the
keepers and persons who know the holes and the sloughs” ready to meet
his lordship “with lanterns and long poles” to keep the coach on its
way. So many accidents happened even on the shortest journeys that five
or six men were necessary to put the coach aright. A road, such as we
think of one now, simply did not exist. You had often to drive across
fields in tracks which exceedingly heavy waggons had made. In 1703, to
take another instance, the King of Spain, then in this country, was
journeying from Portsmouth to Windsor. The difficulties he experienced
on that occasion were recorded by one of the attendants.
“We set out at six in the morning to go to Petworth, and did
not get out of the coaches (save only when we were overturned
or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey’s
end. ’Twas hard service for the prince to sit fourteen hours
in the coach that day without eating anything and passing
through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life; we were
thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach, which
was the leading, and his highnesse’s body-coach would have
suffered very often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not
frequently poised it or supported it with their shoulders from
Goldalmin almost to Petworth; and the nearer we approached to
the Duke’s house the more unaccessible it seemed to be. The
last nine miles of the way cost us six hours’ time to conquer
them, and indeed we had never done it if our good master had
not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own
coach, whereby we were enabled to trace out the way for him.”
After reading such an account, it is difficult to understand why any
one preferred coach to horseback on a cross-country journey. No wonder
Gay was goaded to ask:—
“Who can recount the coach’s various harms,
The legs disjointed, and the broken arms?”
“In the wide gulph,” he says in another place,
“the shatter’d coach o’erthrown
Sinks with the snorting steeds; the reins are broke,
And from the crackling axle flies the spoke.”
Yet, according to Swift, Gay was not so averse to the coach in his
later years. Writing to him in 1731, the Dean says:—
“If your ramble was on horseback, I am glad of it on account
of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey
between stage-coaches and friends’ coaches: for you are as
arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside.... You love
twelve-penny coaches too well, without considering that the
interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a
crown a day.”
“A coach and six horses,” he goes on to say in another letter, “is the
utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with
such company as is best suited to avoid your taste, and how glad would
you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting.”
There is preserved a chariot of this period which is probably typical
of a nobleman’s carriage of the time. It was built for one of the Bligh
family, possibly the first Lord Darnley, about 1720. It is a small
carriage, curved curiously in a fashion which recalls some of the
French furniture of the period. The body is slung upon leather braces,
there is a single wide perch, and there are small elbow springs under
the body at the back. It is very elaborately ornamented, and still
keeps some of its pristine magnificence. A curious point about the
Darnley chariot, to which some people have wrongfully ascribed a much
earlier date, is the length of the door, which reaches nearly a foot
below the bottom of the body. A similar peculiarity is to be seen in
another coach of the period which was built in 1713 for the Spanish
representative at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Here “the quarters
rake towards the roof considerably, the roof over the doorway is arched
upwards, the upper quarters are filled with large glasses of mirror
plate glass.... The wheels have carved spokes and felloes.... There is
a hammercloth cushion in front and a footboard supported by Tritons
blowing horns.” Another Spanish coach, with spiral spokes and similar
peculiarities, is preserved at Madrid. This elongated door seems
peculiar to the period and may have followed upon a desire to hide the
steps, though the lowness of the carriage made more than one or two of
these unnecessary. Many of the Spanish coaches of this time, by the
way, were without the coach-box, postilions only being employed—the
story being that a certain Duke of Olivarez found that his coachman had
heard and betrayed a State secret. There was, I believe, actually a law
passed in Spain forbidding coachmen altogether.
French coaches were very resplendent. “When I was in France,” writes
Addison in one of the earlier _Spectators_, “I used to gaze with great
Astonishment at the Splendid Equipages and Party-Coloured Habits, of
that Fantastick Nation. I was one Day in particular contemplating
a Lady, that sate in a Coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely
painted with the Loves of _Venus_ and _Adonis_. The Coach was drawn
by six milk-white Horses, and loaden behind with the same Number of
powder’d Footmen. Just before the Lady were a Couple of beautiful
Pages that were stuck among the Harness, and, by their gay Dresses and
smiling Features, looked like the elder Brothers of the little Boys
that were carved and painted in every corner of the Coach.” The boys
“stuck among the harness” obviously were resting in that space which
was made by the back-tilting of the body.
The Viennese coaches of this time seem to have had a very great deal of
glass about them, but the Turkish coaches had none. Writing home from
Adrianople in 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says:—
“Designing to go [to Sophia] _incognita_, I hired a Turkish
coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more
convenient for the country, the heat being so great that
glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal
in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices
painted and gilded; the inside being painted with baskets and
nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical
mottoes. They are covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined
with silk, and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This
covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown
back at pleasure, and the ladies peep through the lattices.
They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions,
but not raised.”
[Illustration: _The Darnley Chariot. Early Eighteenth Century_
(_From Smith’s “Concise History of English Carriages”_)]
They were, it would seem, mere covered waggons, and, indeed, in another
place Lady Mary speaks of them as such. Turkey possessed also “open
gilded chariots,” but in these the women were not allowed to drive.
Russia, too, at this time possessed coaches, and we read that Peter
the Great in his trans-European journey travelled with “thirty-two
four-horse carriages and four six-horse waggons.” One or two
particulars are forthcoming of the royal coach-house. It contained
but two coaches, with four places in each, for the use of the Empress
and a smaller, low-hung carriage, painted red, for the Emperor. This
was replaced in winter by a small sledge. Peter, however, was not
fond of his carriage. “He never,” says Waliszewski,[36] “got into a
coach, unless he was called upon to do honour to some distinguished
guest, and then he always made use of Menshikof’s carriages. These
were magnificent. Even when the favourite went out alone, he drove
in a gilded fan-shaped coach, drawn by six horses, in crimson velvet
trappings, with gold and silver ornaments; his arms crowned with a
prince’s coronet, adorned the panels; lacqueys and running footmen in
rich liveries ran before it; pages and musicians, dressed in velvet,
and covered with gold embroideries, followed it. Six gentlemen attended
it at each door, and an escort of dragoons completed the procession.”
It is difficult to conceive the appearance of this fan-shaped coach,
but it must have been almost startlingly magnificent, just the kind of
carriage for the Russian Buckingham.
In the imperial collection at Petersburg are preserved one or two
Russian carriages of this period. “One,” says Bridges Adams, “is
close, made of deal, stained black, mounted on four wheels, the
windows of mica instead of glass, and the frames of common tin: the
other is open, with a small machine behind of the shipwright-emperor’s
invention—its purpose to determine the number of miles traversed on a
journey. In the same collection,” he adds, “is the litter of Charles
XII used at the battle of Pultowa.”
In England glass seems to have been reserved for the private coaches.
For the commoner hackneys a substitute had been found. “For want of
Glasses to our Coach,” wrote the inimitable Ned Ward in _The London
Spy_, a book whose outspokenness unfortunately must, I suppose, have
prevented its reprinting in modern days, “we drew up our Tin Sashes,
pink’d like the bottom of a Cullender, that the Air might pass thro’
the holes, and defend us from Stifling.”
If, however, contemporary plates are singularly scarce, and the
historians have little to say of the period, there is a new source
of information to be tapped, at any rate in this country, in the
advertisements which just now began to fill whole pages in the
periodicals. Of these I may quote one or two. One deals specifically
with the question of glass windows:—
“These are to give notice to all Persons that have occasions
for Coach Glasses, or Glasses for Sash Windows, that they may
be furnished with all sorts, at half the prices they were
formerly sold for.”
Twelve inches square cost half a crown, thirty-six inches two pounds
ten shillings.
Other advertisements concern the coaches themselves. In Anne’s day
calashes, chaizes, both two-and four-wheeled, as well as the larger
chariots—these often flamboyantly decorated—were constantly for sale.
“A very fine CHAIZE,” we read, “very well Carved, gilded and
painted, and lined with Blue Velvet, and a very good HORSE for
it, are to be sold together, or apart.”
“A curious 4-Wheel SHAZE, Crane Neck’d, little the worse for
wearing, it is to be used with 1 or 2 Horses, and there is a
fine Harness for one Horse, and a Reputable Sumpture Laopard
Covering.”
Here then is mention of a four-wheeled chaise with a perch curved in
front after the German fashion. Other chaises for sale had only two
wheels:—
“At the Greyhound in West Smithfield is to be sold a
Two-Wheeled Chaize, with a pair of Horses well match’d: It has
run over a Bank and a Ditch 5 Foot High; and likewise through
a deep Pit within the Ring at Hide Park, in the presence of
several persons of Quality; which are very satisfied it cannot
be overturn’d with fair Driving. It is to be Lett for 7s. 6d.
a Day, with some Abatement for a longer Time.”
One is reminded of Sir Richard Bulkeley’s wonderful calash. Here was
surely a rival. Calashes were now common, though precisely what the
difference was between them and the two-wheel chaises I am unable to
say. Indeed, there is some confusion also between the small chariots
and the four-wheel chaises, and the words seem to have become
interchangeable. Both came to resemble the coupé of a later day,
being like a modern coach with the front part removed. Sometimes the
coachman’s box was on a level with the roof, but often much lower, and
sometimes altogether absent, the horses being ridden by a postilion.
Probably the carriage was called a chariot when it possessed a
coachman’s box, such as was used in town, and a chaise when it was
absent.
It was a calash that Squire Morley of Halstead wished for, but did not
obtain, in Prior’s ballad of _Down-Hall_, 1715.
“Then answer’d Squire Morley; Pray get a calash,
That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash;
I love dust and dirt; and ’tis always my pleasure,
To take with me much of the soil that I measure.
“But Matthew thought better: for Matthew thought right,
And hired a chariot so trim and so tight,
That extremes both of winter and summer might pass:
For one window was canvas, the other was glass.”
Prior evidently liked the chaises of Holland.
“While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,
And in one day atone for the business of six,
In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night,
On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right:
No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move,
That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love;
For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea,
Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee:
This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine,
To good or ill-fortune the third we resign:
Thus scorning the world and superior to fate,
I drive on my car in processional state.”
Another advertisement tells of a gentleman who brought a one-horse
calash to an Inn near Hyde Park Corner, took away the horse ten days
later, but left his carriage “as a pawn for what was due for the same.”
In a while the inn-keeper was advertising the fact that unless the
owner claimed it within ten days he should sell the carriage for what
it would fetch. A more curious advertisement belonging to this period
may be quoted in full:—
“Lost the 26th of February, about 9 a Clock at Night, between
the Angel and Crown Tavern in Threadneedle Street, and the
end of Bucklers Berry, the side door of a Chariot, Painted
Coffee Colour, with a Round Cypher in the Pannel, Lin’d with
White Cloath embos’d with Red, having a Glass in one Frame,
and White Canvas in another, with Red Strings to both Frames.
Whoever hath taken it up are desir’d to bring it to Mr.
Jacob’s a Coachmaker at the corner of St. Mary Ax near London
Wall, where they shall receive 30s. Reward if all be brought
with it; or if offer’d to be Pawn’d or Sold, desire it may be
stop’d and notice given, or if already Pawn’d or Sold, their
money again.”
At this time, if not before, it became customary for wealthy people to
possess coaches used only when they were in mourning. So we have:—
“At Mr. Harrison’s, Coach Maker, in the Broadway, Westminster,
is a Mourning Coach and Harness, never used, with a whole Fore
Glass, and Two Glasses and all other Materials (the Person
being deceased); also a Mourning Chariot, being little used,
with all Materials likewise, and a Leather Body Coach, being
very fashionable with a Coafoay Lining and 4 Glasses, and
several sorts of Shazesses, at very reasonable rates.”
What these reasonable rates were does not appear, but we learn from
an agreement made in 1718 between one Hodges, a job-master, and a
private gentleman, the cost of hiring a complete equipage. Hodges was
to maintain “a coach, chariot, and harness neat and clean, and in all
manner of repair at his own charge, not including the wheels, for a
consideration of five shillings and sixpence a day—this to include
a pair of well-matched horses and a good, sober, honest, creditable
coachman.” If extra horses were required for country work, they were to
be had for half a crown the pair per day. And if the coachman should
break the glass when the coach was empty, Hodges and not the private
gentleman should be responsible for the damage.
From another advertisement of about the same time comes the information
that the hammercloth of carriages was constantly being stolen.
Ashton[37] gives three such advertisements.
“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box a Crimson Coffoy Hammer
Cloth, with 2 yellow Laces about it.”
“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box, a Blue Hammer Cloth,
trimm’d with a Gold colour’d Lace that is almost turn’d
yellow.”
“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.
[Illustration: _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.”
The temptation for display must have been great. Nothing attracted the
public attention like a fine coach. In the north of Scotland, indeed,
any carriage caused the profoundest astonishment.
“I was entertained,” says a contemporary writer, “with the
Surprise and Amusement of the Common People when in the year
1725 a Chariot with six monstrous great Horses arrived here
by way of the Sea Coast. An Elephant publicly exhibited
in the Streets of London could not have excited greater
admiration. One asked what the Chariot was; another, who had
seen the gentlemen alight, told the first with a Sneer at his
Ignorance, it was a great cart to carry people in, and such
like.”
And even in Johnson’s day, when there were few coaches to be found
in this part of the country, though a lighter vehicle called in old
account books a _cheas_ was sometimes used, public astonishment was
great. Yet it was in the north of Scotland that military roads were
constructed in 1726 and 1737—not particularly good roads, but very
necessary—and the first of their kind.
Swift in _Apollo, or a Problem Solved_, satirised the prevailing
luxury. Compared with Apollo, he says:—
“No heir upon his first appearance,
With twenty thousand pounds a year rents,
E’er drove, before he sold his land,
So fine a coach along the Strand:
The spokes, we are by Ovid told,
Were silver, and the axle gold:
I own, ’twas but a coach-and-four,
For Jupiter allows no more.”
But whether Jupiter allowed it or not, your fashionable dame had six
horses put into her coach, and the more grooms in attendance upon her,
the better for her reputation as a Person of Quality. There is a good
story, by the way, of Swift and a hackney coach. It is told by Leigh
Hunt in his essay on _Coaches_.
“He was going,” says Hunt, “one dark evening, to dine with
some great man, and was accompanied by some other clergymen,
to whom he gave their clue. They were all in their canonicals.
When they arrive at the house, the coachman opens the door,
and lets down the steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in
his black robes; after him comes another personage, equally
black and dignified; then another; then a fourth. The
coachman, who recollects taking up no greater number, is about
to put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. After
giving way to this other, he proceeds with great confidence
to toss them up, when lo! another comes. Well, there cannot,
he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. Down comes
a seventh, then an eighth; then a ninth; all with decent
intervals; the coach in the meantime rocking as if it were
giving birth to so many daemons. The coachman can conclude no
less. He cries out ‘The devil! the devil!’ and is preparing
to run away, when they all burst into laughter. They had gone
round as they descended, and got in at the other door.”
It may be that the private coaches and chariots were rather more
comfortable than the hackneys, but nothing, it seems, could equal the
tortures which were inflicted upon the unfortunate passengers who were
forced to ride in the public carriages.