, and the females of the
blood royal of France, on horseback. Nor did the superior and more
recent invention of coaches, for a long period, tend materially to
supersede, among ladies, the use of the saddle. These vehicles,
according to Stow, became known, in England, in 1580; but, many years
after, Queen Elizabeth herself is described as having appeared, almost
daily, on her palfrey. In the time of Charles the Second, the fashion,
among ladies, of riding on horseback, declined; during subsequent
reigns, it gradually revived; and the exercise may now be regarded as
firmly established, among our fair countrywomen, by the august example
of their illustrious Queen.

[Illustration]

The present graceful, secure, and appropriate style of female
equestrianism is, however, materially different from that of the olden
time. In by-gone days, the dame or damosel rode precisely as the knight
or page. Of this, several illustrations occur in an illuminated
manuscript of the fourteenth century, preserved in the Royal Library. In
one of these, a lady of that period is depicted on horseback, enjoying
the pastime of the chase. In another, are represented two gentlewomen
of the same period, on horseback, with an individual of the other sex,
engaged (as is shewn by some parts of the design, which it would be
needless, for our present purpose, to copy) in the once much-favoured
diversion of Hawking.

[Illustration]

Queen Elizabeth, says a writer in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, "seems
to have been the first who set the ladies the more modest fashion of
riding sideways. Considerable opposition was, at first, made to it, as
inconvenient and dangerous: but, practice, in time, brought it into
general use; particularly when ladies found they could ride a-hunting,
take flying leaps, and gallop over cross roads and ploughed fields,
without meeting with more accidents than the men: besides, it was not
only allowed to be more decorous, but, in many respects, more congenial
to the ease and comfort of a female rider."

Our author is, however, wrong in ascribing the fashion of riding
sideways, by women in this country, to Elizabeth; by whom it could only
have been confirmed, or, at the most, revived;--the honour of its
introduction being clearly attributable to another Queen of England, who
lived at a much more early period of our history.

Ann of Bohemia, consort of Richard the Second, is the illustrious
personage to whom we allude. She, it w