ly, by ladies of the court. Froissart
describes Isabel, the second wife of Richard the Second of England, as
having been borne "en une litiere moult riche, qui etoit ordonnee pour
elle;" and this kind of vehicle, during the reigns of several succeeding
Monarchs, appears to have been used by women of distinction in this
country, but, only, it is to be observed, in cases of illness, or on
occasions of ceremony. For example,--when Margaret, daughter of Henry
the Seventh, went into Scotland, she generally rode "a faire palfrey;"
while, after her, was conveyed "one vary riche litere, borne by two
faire coursers, vary nobly drest; in the which litere the sayd Queene
was borne in the intrying of the good townes, or otherwise, to her good
playsher."

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, vehicles with wheels, for the
use of ladies, were first introduced. They appear to have been of
Italian origin, as the first notice of them is found in an account of
the entry of Charles of Anjou into Naples; on which occasion, we are
told, his queen rode in a _careta_, the outside and inside of which were
covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with golden lilies. Under the
Gallicised denomination of _char_, the Italian _careta_, shortly
afterwards became known in France; where, so early as the year 1294, an
ordinance was issued by Philip the Fair, forbidding its use to citizens'
wives. Nor was England far behind in the adoption of the vehicle; for,
in "The Squyr of Low Degree," a poem supposed to have been written
anterior to the time of Chaucer, we find the father of a royal lady
promising that she shall hunt with him, on the morrow, in "_a chare_,"
drawn by

"Jennettes of Spain that ben so white,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright."

"It shall be covered with velvet red,
And clothes of fine gold all about your head;
With damask white and azure blue,
Well diapered with lilies blue."

However richly ornamented, the _careta_, _char_, or _chare_--and there
is little, if any, doubt, to be entertained as to their identity--may
have been, it was, probably, a clumsy, inelegant, and inconvenient
structure; for its employment appears to have been far from general
among high-born ladies, even on occasions of ceremony and pomp. During
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the French
Princesses usually rode on donkies; and so late as the year 1534, a
sacred festival was attended by Queen Eleonora