e to the theatre in coaches
until late in the reign of James I. Taylor, the water-poet, in his
invective against coaches, 1623, dedicated to all grieved "with the
world running on wheels," writes: "Within our memories our nobility
and gentry could ride well mounted, and sometimes walk on foot,
gallantly attended with fourscore brave fellows in blue coats, which
was a glory to our nation, far greater than forty of these leathern
tumbrels! Then, the name of coach was heathen Greek. Who ever saw, but
upon extraordinary occasions, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Drake
ride in a coach? They made small use of coaches; there were but few in
those times; and they were deadly foes to sloth and effeminacy. It is
in the memory of many when, in the whole kingdom, there was not one!
It is a doubtful question whether the devil brought tobacco into
England in a coach, for both appeared at the same time." According to
Stow, coaches were introduced here 1564, by Guilliam Boonen, who
afterwards became coachman to the queen. The first he ever made was
for the Earl of Rutland; but the demand rapidly increased, until there
ensued a great trade in coach-making, insomuch that a bill was brought
into Parliament, in 1601, to restrain the excessive use of such
vehicles. Between the coachmen and the watermen there was no very
cordial understanding, as the above quotation from Taylor sufficiently
demonstrates. In 1613 the Thames watermen petitioned the king, that
the players should not be permitted to have a theatre in London, or
Middlesex, within four miles of the Thames, in order that the
inhabitants might be induced, as formerly, to make use of boats in
their visits to the playhouses in Southwark. Not long afterwards
sedans came into fashion, still further to the prejudice of the
watermen. In the Induction to Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels,"
performed in 1600, mention is made of "coaches, hobby-horses, and
foot-cloth nags," as in ordinary use. In 1631 the churchwardens and
constables, on behalf of the inhabitants of Blackfriars, in a petition
to Laud, then Bishop of London, prayed for the removal of the
playhouse from their parish, on the score of the many inconveniences
they endured as shopkeepers, "being hindered by the great recourse to
the playes, especially of coaches, from selling their commodities, and
having their wares many times broken and beaten off their stalls."
Further, they alleged that, owing to the great "recourse of coaches,"