CHAPTER II.
Whirlicote of the Middle Ages--Charettes--Cars of the Middle Ages--Revival of Carriages--The first Coaches--The German Waggon--Ancient Saxon Waggon--The Horse Litter--The Old Coaches at Coburg--Early Italian Coaches--Coach of Queen Elizabeth--Coach of Charles I.--Coach of Henri Quatre--Time of Louis XIV.--The Brouette and Steel Springs--The Berlin--Old Coaches at Vienna--Horse Litter at the Imperial Mews--Utility of Steel Springs--Mr Samuel Pepys’ Diary--Sedan Chairs--Coachbuilding in 1770--Chariot à l’Anglaise--Encyclopædia on Coachbuilding--Cabriolets--Light Chariots--The Darnley Chariot.
With the decadence of the Romans we may well suppose many of the arts of civilisation fell into disuse. The skilled artisans died out and left no successors, for their work was not required, and for some centuries we find little or no mention of carriages.
Ordinary carts were used, it is true, but the great and wealthy moved about the cities or travelled on horseback, and if ill they had litters carried by men or horses. But another cause tended to the disuse of wheeled carriages--the state of the roads.
The Romans had been celebrated for the perfection of their roads; some of these have lasted nearly two thousand years. There is one, called the Appian way, which leads from Rome to near Naples, made B.C. 500 by the Consul, Appius Claudius, which is paved with blocks of stone, and can still be travelled upon after such a lapse of time. Roads like these could easily be traversed by carriages, but in the course of time they fell into disorder, whilst barbarian tribes had overrun Italy and driven the Romans from Germany, France, and Britain.
The increase of population caused a gradual increase of traffic, and the formation of new roads, which, from the absence of method in making them, soon became mere horse-tracks, and very unsuitable for travelling on wheels for pleasure. We ascertain, however, from old manuscripts and books, that, by degrees, the use of two and four-wheeled carts was revived by the wealthy, in addition to riding on horseback as a means of travelling. The only distinction, however, from common carriers’ carts was in the use of carving on the woodwork, and gaily coloured curtains and cushions.
In the reign of Richard II., we find mention of a vehicle termed a whirlicote, viz., a cot or bed upon wheels. The king and his mother rode a whirlicote in 1380, when she was sick, and history tells us that they were much used for the conveyance of ladies, but still more for their luggage. We are told by Stowe that “in the following year King Richard took to wife Anne, the daughter of the King of Bohemia, and she first brought hither the riding upon sidesaddles, and so was the riding in those chariots and whirlicotes forsaken except at coronations and such like spectacles.” We have here evidence that the chariot and whirlicote of that time were identical. In 1294, Philip, King of France, issued an ordinance prohibiting the citizens’ wives the use of cars or chars. In 1267, Charles of Anjou entered Naples, and his queen, Beatrice, rode in a _Caretta_, the outside and inside covered with sky-blue velvet powdered with golden lilies, and in 1273 Pope Gregory X. entered Milan in a caretta. In an early English poem, the father of a princess of Hungary promises--
“To-morrow ye shall on hunting fare, And ride my daughter in a char; It shall be covered with velvet red, And cloths of velvet about your head.”
Froissart speaks of the return of the English from Scotland in the time of Edward III. in their charettes about 1360. We can therefore trace the word chariot from the original Roman currus, car, char, charette, charet, chariot, as a vehicle used in the middle ages, and gradually becoming that chiefly used in state processions.
When King Henry VIII.’s queen, Anne Boleyn, went to her coronation, she passed through the streets of London; gravel had been strewed all over the pavement that the horses should not slide, and wooden railings were placed along the route; this was on May 31st, 1533. Anne herself was in a litter of white cloth of gold, not covered or bailled, which was carried by two palfreys clad in white damask to the ground, led by two footmen; following her were two chariots covered with red cloth of gold, a third chariot in white, with six ladies in it in crimson velvet; and a fourth chariot was red, with eight ladies in it.
Twenty years later, on September 30th, 1553, Queen Mary Tudor rode through the city from the Tower to Westminster to her coronation in a chariot of cloth of tissue, drawn by six horses trapped with the like cloth, and a canopy was borne over her chariot. A second chariot had a covering of cloth of silver all white, and six horses trapped with the like, wherein sat Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Anne of Cleves. Then two other chariots covered with red satin, and the horses betrapped with the same. Also forty-six gentlewomen rode on horseback in the procession.
Now what was the shape of these chariots? We are able to judge from a painting of the triumph of the Emperor Maximillian I., on the walls of the Town-hall at Nuremburg, a copy of which is in the Museum at South Kensington, also from a sculpture at Orleans Cathedral [Plate 3], and from an old print of Queen Elizabeth in a chariot. It was an open vehicle on four wheels, rather higher at the back than at the sides, open in front, and containing two or three seats, what the French once called a _char-a-banc_.
M. Roubo has preserved a design of a charette in his work written for the French Academy of Arts, but we cannot have a safer and more reliable model than in a Flemish car or _char-a-banc_ now in the Museum at South Kensington; this is a very small vehicle with but two seats, only four people could just sit in it, and it is suspended on leather braces, which we do not know had been introduced into England in Queen Mary’s time, but that even is not impossible or improbable. We may, therefore, fairly conclude that in this Flemish car we see an improved representation of what our ancestors used during many hundred years under the name of whirlicote car, and of different sizes, to carry from four to twelve persons.
About the commencement of the sixteenth century we find that there was a remarkable revival of Coachbuilding in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany; and it has been warmly debated in which of these countries it commenced, which originated the word coach, and which first suspended a coach upon braces.
I may premise that we find also a vast increase in the size of the wheels used. Up to this period wheels of 4 feet to 4 feet 6 inches seem to have been the limit; but the first coaches, and all their successors for nearly two hundred and fifty years, had wheels 5 feet and upwards in height. I can only suppose that, as soon as any large body had to be conveyed, the model of the vehicle was taken from a timber-carriage, such as must have been in use in all parts of Europe. Secondly, although at first all the wheels of a coach were similar in height, it was soon found necessary, for use in cities, that the coach must turn in a shorter space than a lofty front wheel would allow. Consequently, the front wheel was made lower, and an imperfection was caused, the effects of which have been felt by horse and vehicle to the present day.
In all the claims to the origin of the coach, we must understand that by that word we mean a conveyance in which the roof forms part of the framing of the body--as distinguished from cars and biroches, above which a canopy was often placed by means of iron rods or wooden pillars.
We have further to notice that the vehicles called coaches are distinguished from chariots, by the name of Hungarian coaches, by the Italian writers, and that we must consider a coach to have been not merely a covered, but a suspended vehicle, after the fashion introduced first in Hungary.
Mr Bridges Adams, in his work on carriages, mentions that Ladislaus, King of Hungary, sent an ambassador to King Charles VII., to Paris, and as a present a beautiful carriage, the body of which “trembled;” it is considered that this coach was suspended upon leather braces, and was a specimen of the coaches already in use in Hungary.
The word coach in all European languages has the same sound, and is derived from the town of Kotze in Hungary, where coaches were first built, just as Landaus and Berlins were so named from the cities that first produced them. The coach from Hungary was given to Charles VII., at Paris, in the year 1457. In 1474, the Emperor Frederick III. rode to Frankfort in a coach covered and suspended. In 1509, the Pope Paul III. visited Ferrara, and was met by the duke with a train of sixty coaches, whilst to make it clear that these were not the cars, the historian mentions that the Duchess of Ferrara rode in a litter, and her ladies followed her in twenty-two cars. At this period, 1550, there were only three coaches in Paris, one belonging to the Queen of Francis I., another to Diana of Poitiers, and a third to a corpulent nobleman who could not mount a horse. There must have been many other vehicles in France, but, it seems, only three covered and suspended coaches. In 1594, the Margrave of Brandenburg, father of the first Duke of Prussia, had thirty-six coaches, each with six horses.
We will now consider what was the origin and the shape of these coaches. It is in the German waggon that we find the origin of the coach. Throughout Germany, Russia, France, and other parts of Europe, the chief agricultural vehicle is the waggon. [Plate 4.] It is of the same form now that it was a hundred years ago. The under part is similar in its construction to our timber-waggons, and, like them, it is capable of being lengthened or shortened at pleasure. The wheels vary in height, according to the requirements of the owner and the country, and the chief purpose for which it is used. As in our timber-waggons, the wheels are sometimes 4 feet and 5 feet high, and sometimes they are as low as 2 feet 8 inches in front and 3 feet 6 inches behind, but the usual size is 3 feet 6 inches in front and 4 feet behind, the track on the road between the tyres is but 4 feet, and the centres of the axle-trees are about 7 feet apart. The carriage is composed of a transom in front, with a perch (as we name the long piece of timber that unites the front and hind wheels) fastened to it. There is a hind axle-tree bed formed of two pieces of timber, clipped together, between which the wings are notched in; these wings meet together above the perch to which they are united by a strong iron pin. The under works consist of a front axletree bed, also made of two pieces clipped together with two futchels notched in between, and meeting in a point in front, and spreading outwards behind the axletree bed; a long sway bar, generally quite straight, rests on the futchels and bears against the under part of the perch. Our word futchels is derived through the French word _fourchils_, from the Latin _furca_ or fork. The pole of these waggons has at the hind end two wings fixed by iron hoops; the wings are fitted outside the front end of the futchels and are secured by two moveable iron pins. This method of attaching the pole is very ancient; it was in use in the time of the Romans, and may be traced in old pictures. The horses are harnessed to splinter or drawing bars; the longest of these is attached to the pole by a bolt or pin. When the load is light, it is common to harness one horse only to the left or near side of the pole. The under works being thus complete, a body is formed by two long fir poles laid from the top of the transom to the top of the hind axletree bed, about 18 inches apart, with two planks between. Outside the poles are four standard posts, about 30 inches long, which rise upright from the transom and axle-beds, but which, viewed from behind, spread outwards from four to six inches each towards the wheels. The sides are formed by planks resting against these standard posts, and the ends of the waggon are also moveable. The body is thus much narrower at the bottom than at the top. We shall find that this shape pervades all the early vehicles used by the wealthy classes, showing very plainly the original type of the coach. When the waggon is thus fitted up with plank sides, it can carry earth, manure, or roots. When the farmer wishes to transport a load of hay, the planks are removed, the carriage is lengthened two or more feet, and the sides are formed by long and high hurdles. If a large cask of wine has to be transported, the sides are removed and the cask placed upon the centre of the poles, and, as the waggon moves along, the poles may be seen to sway slightly up and down under the weight of the cask, as the poles of a sedan-chair, or palankeen sway, suggesting, as I hope to show hereafter, a means of forming a species of spring for the ease of anyone riding in the waggon.
We find, then, at a very early date, that waggons were chiefly employed for the conveyance of agricultural produce or the transport of merchandise and the goods of the upper classes. It was also easy, by placing planks across the sides, or suspending seats by straps from the sides, to use the waggons for the conveyance of men and women. But we have evidence that they were made still more free from jolting. In an ancient Saxon manuscript treating on the book of Genesis and the history of Joseph in Egypt, there is an illustration of the meeting of Joseph and Jacob. The father is seated in a two-wheeled cart drawn by a pair of oxen, but Joseph is seated in a hammock, suspended by iron hooks from the standard posts of one of these waggons which I have been describing. This manuscript is supposed to be of the eleventh century, and the artist would be likely to represent only what
was in use in his own time for the easy conveyance of great people.
The next step, however, in the advance of Coachbuilding, would be the use of a better body than that of a mere cart. Such was the case with the Horse Litter [Plate 9]. These were long and narrow--long enough for a person to recline in--and no wider than could be carried between the poles which are placed on either side of the horses. They were about 4 ft. to 5 ft. long, and 2 ft. 6 in. wide, with low sides and higher ends. The entrance was in the middle, on both sides, the doors being formed sometimes by a sliding panel and sometimes simply by a cross-bar. The steps were of leather or iron loops, the latter being hinged to turn up when the litter was placed on the ground. The upper part was formed by a few broad wooden hoops, united along the top by four or five slats, and over the whole a canopy was placed, which opened in the middle, at the sides and ends, for air and light. The first pleasure-waggon bodies were made in a similar fashion to the horse-litters, but rather longer and wider, with similar doors. By degrees these bodies were ornamented with carving, and the slats of the tilt-top were exchanged for poles, whose ends were ornamented with metal rosettes, or animals’ heads, and gilt. I have not found any certain date at which these bodies were first suspended upon straps or braces. The suspension of a hammock from the standard posts of a waggon, and of the litter from the harness of the horses, would, however, suggest the suspension of these improved waggon bodies from the same standard posts. I have seen in a very early picture in oil, at Nuremberg, two waggons such as I have described, with carved and gilt standard posts both in front of and behind the body, the tilt-tops have the middle of the sides cut out square, and made to turn over the top, and the driver sits outside the waggon body between the standards.
We have, however, at Coburg, the capital of Saxe-Coburg, several ancient vehicles preserved, which are among the oldest in Europe. One of these was built for the occasion of the marriage of the Elector of Saxony, Duke John Cassimir, in 1584, to Anne of Saxony [Plate 10]. It has leather braces and high wheels, which measure 4 ft. 8 in. and 5 ft. in height; the distance from centre to centre of the axle-trees is 10 ft. 6 in. The carved standard posts, from which the body hangs by the leather braces, are evidently developed from the standards of the common waggon. The body is 6 ft. 4 in. long, but only 3 ft. wide. The steps have now disappeared. The wheels have wooden rims, but over the joints of the felloes are small plates of iron about 10 in. long.
This coach is not the only one. There is another, rather longer and larger, built for the Duke’s second marriage, in 1599, with the Lady Margaret. There is also a smaller coach-body built for the Duke John Frederick, as early as 1527, for his marriage with Sybilla of Cleves. This small coach was shown this year at the Exhibition of arts at Munich; the iron loops by which it had been suspended are still on the body.
There are also two small Coach bodies, which are to be seen at Verona, and are shown at the Palace Sarego Allighieri, with the story that they were used by Dante the poet. This is a fable. Count Gozzadini, in his recent work on ancient coaches, says that, by the heraldic shield still on one coach, he finds it was built in 1549, at the marriage of Ginevra, the last of the race of Dante Allighieri, with Count Marc Antonio di Sarego. This Coach, as may be seen in Plate 11, is beautifully shaped and ornamented. Both are but skeleton bodies, and had to be covered to keep off the sun or rain, with leather, cloth, and silk curtains.
There are curious sumptuary laws cited by Count Gozzadini as enacted during the sixteenth century in various Italian cities, against the excessive use of silk, velvet, embroidery, and gilding in the coverings of coaches and the trappings of horses.
In 1564, Pope Pius IV. exhorted the cardinals and bishops not to ride in coaches, according to the fashion of the time, but to leave such things to women, and themselves ride on horseback. Duke Julius of Brunswick issued an edict in 1588, that his subjects should desist from indolent riding in coaches, and should return to the useful discipline of riding on horses.
The use of coaches in Germany, in the sixteenth century, was not less than in Italy; the current of trade, especially from the East, had for a long time poured into those two countries towards Holland, enriching all the cities in its progress, and the rich traders built fine houses, and churches, and town halls, and would have their coaches handsomely decorated as well as their houses. Macpherson, in his history of commerce, says that Antwerp possessed five hundred coaches in 1560, in the time of Queen Elizabeth. France and England appear to have been behind the rest of Europe at this period.
The first coach was made in England in 1555 for the Earl of Rutland, by Walter Rippon, who also made a coach in 1556 for Queen Mary, and in 1564, a state coach for Queen Elizabeth; in 1580, the Earl of Arundel brought over a coach from Germany. Queen Elizabeth, however, preferred the use of a coach [Plate 12] which William Boonen brought her from Holland in 1560, and made him her coachman. This William Boonen’s wife brought out of Holland the art of clear-starching, and was appointed to prepare the Queen’s famous cambric ruffs, which in pictures of her are displayed round her neck. Taylor, called the water-poet, says that old Parr gave him this information in 1605, and adds that since, “coaches have increased with a mischief, and have ruined the trade of the waterman by hackney coaches, and now multiply more than ever.” Another writer complains that “now the use of these coaches brought of Germany is taken up and made common, that great ladies caused coaches to be made for them, and rid in them up and down the counties to the great admiration of all the beholders, and little by little they grew usual among the nobility and others of quality, so within twenty years there grew up a great trade of Coachbuilding in England.”
A curious tract or pamphlet was published in
London in 1636, entitled “A Dialogue between a Coach and a Sedan-chair.” In the figure of the coach, as given in this tract [Plate 13], there are no leather braces marked, but the artist may have omitted what he considered unnecessary details, just as the artists of the present day, making a cheap view of a procession, will figure coaches and chariots of a shape that was obsolete fifty years ago, and even in pictorial journals that should draw better, the shape and details of carriages are unfaithfully rendered. Still, on the whole, we may consider this gives the coach of the period--a long body, a domed roof, the sides open, with curtains to draw down when requisite, no door, but a leather screen hung across the doorway, a very small coachman’s seat, and swingletrees for the horses’ traces.
In 1641, on November 25th, Charles I. passed through the City of London on his return from Scotland, and banqueted with the citizens at Guildhall. He was met at Kingsland by the city authorities and five hundred liverymen of the city companies on horseback, each with his footman and torch-bearer, and was accompanied to Whitehall after the banquet by the liverymen with their torch-bearers. It is worthy of notice that the king’s coach is the only coach spoken of, and that the King, Queen, the Elector Palatine, their brother-in-law, the Duchess of Richmond, and three of the royal children, seven persons in all, rode therein. Plate 14 shews a coach of this period.
In France, King Henry IV. was assassinated in his coach by Ravaillac on May 16th, 1710. The account states that the coach was surrounded by blinds or curtains, but the king had drawn them back that the people might see him; with him in the coach were seven noblemen, that is, two persons on each seat, and two in each boot. A drawing of this coach has been preserved [Plate 15], by which we see the roofs and supports (somewhat resembling the outline of a Roman or Asiatic vehicle) and the curtain hanging over the doorway in front of the boot.
A coach belonging to a Duke of Saxe-Coburg is still to be seen at the castle at Coburg; in this the body is 7 ft. 6 in. long in the middle, the wheels are 4 ft. and 4 ft. 10 in. high, the roof and upper quarters are of black leather nailed on with brass nails, the heads as large as a sixpence and rounded. On either side of the doorway are iron bars to form the sides of the boot, and the doorway is guarded by a wooden cross-bar padded which drops upon two pins, and from which bar the curtain would fall over the doorway. With such a length of body we can understand how eight persons could ride in it. In prints of this period all coaches are drawn like this, with the bodies suspended on leather braces--with domed roofs and with the front wheels generally rather low--with a coachman seated upon a cross-bar or cushion suspended between the two front standard posts, and his feet upon a board projecting at the bottom of the posts over the pole.
Some coaches are depicted so wide that they may have held three persons on each seat, but the general appearance is that of Louis XIV.’s first coach [Plate 16].
No trace of glass windows or complete doors seems to have existed up to 1650. But plain and rude as was the first coach of Louis XIV. it was in his reign, which lasted till 1715, that the most rapid progress was made in Coachbuilding. From the simple waggon-like skeleton body was developed by degrees a beautifully shaped, carved, and panelled piece of cabinet work [Plate 17], such as we can justly allow to be worthy the name of a coach, and this delighted our ancestors in the reign of Queen Anne. The credit of this transformation is equally due to Germany, Italy, France, and England; in each country improvements seem to have been made simultaneously.
The following is the description by a French author, M. Roubo, of the change that took place in Louis XIV.’s reign. The corbillards are the earliest French coaches of which we know the exact form. [Plate 18.] These were straight-bottomed, open at the upper sides or quarters, which were furnished with curtains of cloth and leather; at first these were tied on, and would roll up when air was required; they had no doors, but were entered on either side by a moveable rail, over which a leather screen was hung. Behind these screens were seats, a little above the floor, where the pages of the owner of the carriage sat sideways. Sometimes there was a projection on either side called a boot, in which the pages sat.
The next coaches had curved bottoms, and were made with a wooden door half-way up the body, and the whole of the lower part of the body was panelled instead of being covered with cloth; this change is supposed to have taken place about 1660. As the coach began thus to be built in, carving, gilding, and painting were introduced, and beauty in shape increased. Next came the introduction of glass to the sides. A complete door reaching to the roof, with sliding glasses, followed.
There is very little mention made by historians of steel springs, but they were first applied to wheel carriages about 1670. At this period a vehicle drawn by men, and called a _Brouette_ (or wheelbarrow) was introduced at Paris. [Plate 19.] It was a sedan chair, to hold one person, with the door in front like the sedan chairs are now made, but on two wheels, about 3 ft. 6 in. high, and with two poles or shafts projecting forward, between which one man ran, whilst another pushed behind if the weight required it. There is a vehicle now much in use in Japan and China that seems a revival of the brouette; I think it is called a Jin-rik-sha.
The brouette was improved by Dupin, who applied two elbow-springs beneath the front, and attached them to the axletree by long shackles, the axletree working up and down in a groove beneath the inside seat. This is the first record of the application of steel springs to carriages. Many bath-chairs have springs from the body to the axletree in this method, and there is a tradition in the north of England that small broughams, on two wheels drawn by men, were used sixty years ago, as well as sedan chairs, for the conveyance of ladies to evening parties.
It has been said that a Mr Thomas brought springs
first before the notice of the scientific body of the Academy at Paris in 1703, but this is erroneous. The spring Mr Thomas mentioned is a small spiral spring to be placed between the double leather brace of a carriage. [See this spring in Plate 28.]
The first application of steel springs to a coach was beneath the bottom of the body; the loop of the brace was hinged, and between the body and the loop were placed two elbow-springs. [Plate 19.]
The Company of Coach and Coach-harness Makers was founded in May 1677 by Charles II., and was confirmed by King James II. in the third year of his reign.
In Germany, there was invented about 1660 the vehicle called the Berlin. It will be remembered that in the German waggon the bottom of the body is formed by two long poles, which afford a certain amount of spring when weighted only in the middle. Acting on this principle, Philip de Chiesa, a Piedmontese in the service of Frederick William, the Duke of Prussia, invented and built a carriage, which received the name of Berlin. [Plate 20.] It had two perches instead of one, and between these two perches, from the front transom to the hind axletree bed, two strong leather braces were placed, with jacks or small windlasses, to wind them tighter if they stretched. The bottom of the coach was altered from being straight to an easy curve, and it was fixed upon these braces of leather, which allowed it to play up and down with the motion of the carriage, instead of swinging to and fro from four high posts. Philip, the inventor, died in 1673.
In the Imperial mews at Vienna are four coach berlins, which, I think, may belong to this period. They are said to have been built for the Emperor Leopold, who reigned at Vienna from 1658 to 1700, and Kink describes this emperor’s wedding carriages as covered with red cloth and as having glass panels; he also says they were called the Imperial glass coaches. It is possible that the coaches have been a little altered from the time of their construction, but I consider that in these four we have the oldest coaches with solid doors and glasses all round that exist in Europe. Whether they are identical with the Emperor Leopold’s wedding carriages matters much less than the influence the Berlin undoubtedly had upon the Coachbuilding of that period. It was the means of introducing the double perch, which, although it is not now in fashion, was adopted for very many carriages both in England and abroad, up to 1810. Crane-necks to perches were suggested by the form of the Berlin perch; and as bodies swinging from standard posts suggested the position of the =C= spring, so bodies resting upon long leather braces suggested the horizontal and elbow springs to which we owe so much. The first Berlin was made as a small _vis-à-vis_ coach--small because it was to be used as a light travelling carriage, and narrow because it was to hang between the two perches, and was only needed to carry two persons inside. It was such an improvement in lightness and appearance upon the cumbersome coaches that carried eight persons, that it at once found favour, and was imitated in Paris, and still more in London.
At Vienna there is also to be seen a horse litter of this period [Plate 21], which is interesting as another specimen of a small _vis-à-vis_ coach with glass windows. In shape it exactly resembles the coaches on the arms of the Coach and Coach-harness Makers’ Company of the City of London. [Plate 22.] It is a singular instance of the length of time that some old patterns exist, that this horse-litter exactly resembles the shape of the sedan chairs still in use at the public baths at Ischl, in Austria--that is, if this litter were cut in half, you would have two sedan chairs. It is said that the Spanish wife of the Emperor Ferdinand III. rode in a glass carriage, so small as to contain two persons only, as early as 1631. It is possible that this horse-litter may be the carriage spoken of. Glass was in common use then for windows; but plate-glass, such as was used for State coaches in 1700, was not made at all in England until 1670.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, among the wealthier classes, decoration was applied to coaches to an extent that would surprise us now-a-days. Wheels were again ornamented, as in the times of the old Roman empire; the spokes were shaped and carved, the rims moulded, and the naves highly embossed. The panels had beautiful paintings upon them; sometimes the whole was the subject of a picture in which a landscape and figures appeared, sometimes surrounded with a continuous ribbon border of flower work, or the panels were divided into squares or diamonds of diaper work, each little partition bearing a flower or device. The inside linings were of brocaded silk or velvet.
But all this century the use and number of coaches in England was increasing, and at length the value of springs in lessening the weight of coaches was fully understood; and this demands a short explanation. First it was found that when the body was suspended upon springs, the vibration, and consequently the wear and tear of not only the body, but in a degree of the underworks or carriage, was reduced, and the entire amount of timber used could be safely diminished, and with it the load behind the horses. And secondly, when the wheels had to be pulled over an obstacle or out of a ditch, the weight of the entire coach had not to be lifted as formerly, since the elasticity of the spring allowed the wheel to rise without lifting all the body and its passengers with it. It is of importance to understand this clearly, and anyone may convince himself by watching the motion of two loaded carts over a bad road, one having springs and the other being without them.
In Mr Samuel Pepys’ diary during the year 1665, we find on May 1st, “After dinner I went to the tryall of some experiments about making of coaches go easy. And several we tried, but one did prove mighty easy [not for me to describe here, further than that the whole of the body lies upon one long spring], and we all one after another rid in it, and it is very fine, and likely to take.” (This may have been a Berlin car.)
On September 5th he writes, “After dinner comes Colonel Blunt in his new chariot made with springs, as that which was made of wicker, and wherein a while ago we rode at his house. And he hath rode he says now, this journey, many miles in it with one horse, and outdrives any coach, and so easy he says. So for curiosity I went in it to try it, and up the hill to the heath, and over the cart ruts, and found it pretty well, but not so easy as he pretends.”
In 1666, January 22nd, “I went with Dr Wilkins, Mr Hook, Lord Brouncker, and others, to Colonel Blunt’s, to consider again of the business of chariots, and to try their new invention, which I here saw Lord Brouncker ride in, where the coachman sits astride upon a pole over the horse, but do not touch the horse, which is a pretty odd thing.”
In 1668, November 5th, Mr Pepys went with Mr Perry all the afternoon among the Coachmakers in Cow-lane, and “did pitch upon a little chariot, whose body was framed but not covered, it being very light, and will be very genteel and sober.”
December 2nd, “Abroad with my wife, the first time that I ever rode in my own coach.”
In 1669, April 19th, “Calling about my coach which hath been to the Coachmakers to be painted and the window frames gilt again.” We see from this entry that in 1669 coaches were made in England already with glass windows.
April 30th, “To the Coachmaker’s, and find many ladies sitting in the body of a coach, which must be finished by to-morrow, the Lady Marquess of Winchester and Lady Bellasis eating of bread and butter and drinking of ale; my coach is silvered over, but no varnish yet laid. I stood by it till at eight at night, and saw the painters varnish it, and it dries almost as fast as it can be laid on. I sent the same night my coachman and horses to fetch the coach home;” and on May 1st, “At noon to dinner, and after through the town with our new liveries of serge, and the horses’ manes and tails tied up with red ribbons, and new green reins.”
Sedan chairs came into fashion in England in 1634, and were in general use by the middle of the century. The alteration in the form of the coach, from the long barge shape of Charles I.’s time to that of Charles II. was, no doubt, suggested by the shape of the sedan chair, in London as well as in Germany.[2] The improvements mentioned by Mr Pepys show that coaches were being altered, but the progress of springs was slow. We appear, in England, to have taken the lead, in at the same time introducing springs and lessening the weight of coaches. In 1770, an elaborate treatise on Coachmaking was published at Paris by the Academy of Arts, written by Mons. Roubo. In this work we find that even at Paris then, springs were not at all universal. They were applied to the four corners of a perch carriage, and placed upright, and at first only clipped in the middle to the posts of the earlier carriages, and the leather braces went from the tops of the springs to the bottoms of the bodies, without any long iron loops such as we now
use; and, as the braces were very long, we find that complaints were made of the excessive swinging, tilting, and jerking of the body. Another method of the application of springs was beneath the body. The Queen’s coach is thus suspended. Four elbow-springs, as we should call them, were fastened to the bottom of the body [Plate 19, Figure 2], but again the ends did not project beyond the bottom, and the braces were still kept too long; Mons. Roubo doubts whether springs were of much use.
It seems clear from this work, that one hundred years ago the art of Coachbuilding was in some respects equal to that of the present day. Their timber was carefully selected and dried, the bodies were framed and panelled, the shape, and curves, and side sweep, and turn-under was regulated by very careful drawings, the grooves for the blinds and glasses were well made. Blinds were made both panelled, perforated, and to open, just the same as those which we call venetian blinds, and a fourth sort with fixed open slats, as are now used in Turkey and India. Panels were then, as now in France, chiefly of walnut-wood, and M. Roubo describes the method of curving them by wetting one side and exposing the other to a hot fire. He also gives designs for the various tools used by the woodmen and the smiths. He enumerates the various classes of workmen, including painters and trimmers, and adds “all these are independent workmen, yet who should have a knowledge of one another’s work, that the work of one hinders not the work of another, their mutual knowledge should concur in the acceleration and perfection of the whole.”
Coaches at this period were hung comparatively high, being necessarily above the perch. Berlin Coaches or Vis-à-vis were hung between two perches, and therefore nearer to the ground. The body of some Berlins also had a solid top or roof, but the sides and ends were of leather, which could be rolled up to admit of more air. These may have given the idea of a singular carriage which preceded the Landau. [Plate 23.] Some coaches had windows in the side quarters. A few were still made to hold eight persons inside. The shapes admitted of considerable variety; the elbow line was straight or in three or four curves; the quarters either what we call the britchka quarters, or a concave single sweep from the elbow to the end of the bottom side, like the shape of Her Majesty’s State Coach. Chariots were made with the hind quarter similar in shape to the front pillar, that is with a concave sweep. M. Roubo goes on to tell us that chariots, being smaller than coaches and lighter, were at first called diligences. But in consequence of the speedy passage of a stage coach from Paris to Lyons, it obtained the name of diligence, which has since remained to those large double coaches still in use on the Continent. We also find the drawing of an invalid or Dormeuse coach, very ingeniously contrived, and descriptions of the different summer open carriages, some with and some without springs; there are a few of really elegant shapes. He enumerates
chaises, phaetons, cabriolets, caleches, “_Anglaises desobligeants_” (or what we should call sulkies, that would only contain one person), lastly and the wourst, a vehicle introduced from Germany for sporting, and which is a Russian drosky, but very much longer than those we have seen in England, there is a crane neck in the perch to allow the wheel to turn, and the seat, which is hung on braces, is very narrow, for the passengers to sit on it astride.
M. Roubo describes at length, and gives a plan of the Anglaise. It is a chariot, with the modern curved lower quarter panel suspended upon a double swan-necked perch, rather high front wheels, and four whip springs, and with a small hammer-cloth in front. [Plate 24.] There is one very similar preserved in the Museum of the Hotel Cluny at Paris. But on this vehicle M. Roubo remarks, “I see no beauty nor grace in the _voiture à l’Anglaise_, but it is no doubt sufficient that the invention of this vehicle comes from England, to make all the world desire to have them, as if there existed some law which obliges us to be the servile imitators of a nation who is our rival, and which, although it is respectable, and admirable even, in some respects, can never be equal to us for works of taste in general, and above all in Coachbuilding.”
Whilst we may smile at M. Roubo’s jealousy, we must allow the general truth of what he says, viz., that in works in which taste reigns paramount, the French do usually surpass the English; and as regards Coachbuilding, although we have the name for superior vehicles, and deservedly so as regards quality, durability, and ease, the French are beyond us in applying tasteful painting, trimming, and decoration of all sorts.
In the French Encyclopædia of 1772, by Diderot, there are elaborate descriptions of the art of Coachbuilding, the workshops and tools used, and plates of the different carriages in use. I have mentioned these two works, one by M. Diderot on his own account, and the other by M. Roubo for the French Academy, partly to shew the great care taken by our neighbours to instruct the people in the technical principles on which their manufactories should be conducted. It may be that having these superior models before their eyes, and being assured by the wise men of the day that thus carriages should be constructed, the French Coachbuilders were content with their achievements, and allowed other nations to advance more rapidly, during the remainder of the century, with daring innovations in lighter and easier vehicles.
But the teaching of the Academy would nevertheless tend to create a careful and thoughtful body of workmen, who, if they developed but slowly, would develop carefully, and turn out good work in their generation.
There is one vehicle which appears almost solely in this epoch, and had a marked effect in introducing our English post-chaise. This was the _chaise de poste_. [Plate 25].
From the engraving and description in the Encyclopædia it appears to have been a small chariot body, very little longer than a sedan chair, and like a sedan chair, it had the door in front; this door was hinged at the bottom, and fell forward on to a small dasher like a gentleman’s cabriolet; there was a window in each side. It was hung upon two very lofty wheels and long shafts for one horse, and the body was rather in front of the wheels, so that the weight on the horse’s back must have been considerable. It was suspended at first upon leather braces only, but later upon two upright or whip springs behind, and two elbow springs in front from the body to the cross-bar, which joined the shafts and carried the steps.
Count Gozzadini tells us that in 1672 Cabriolets, or gigs with hoods, were introduced from Paris into Florence--“an affair with a curved seat fixed on two long bending shafts, placed in front on the back of a horse and behind upon two wheels; to this was given the name of gig, and they so increased in number that in a few years there were nearly a thousand in the city of Florence.”
These vehicles, in which the shafts were really very long, appear to be the origin of the carriole of Norway, the calesso of Naples, and the volante of Cuba. In the Museum at South Kensington we have a specimen of one of these, adorned with much elegant carving. It has no hood. The seat is very small. Beneath the shafts are two long straps of leather and a windlass to tighten them; this apparatus was, no doubt, to regulate the spring of the vehicle to the road travelled over.
There was a small-sized vehicle in use called _Cabriolet_, the body only a shell, with a hood which would put up and down, composed of three iron hoopsticks, jointed in the middle to fall upwards; the setting joints are straight, the covering appears to have been cloth or canvas.
Although these French books appeared about 1770, they describe carriages that had been a long time in use.
In the meantime the English had been making a great many small chariots. Dean Swift, in 1770, speaks in his journal of driving down to Hampton Court and to several gentlemen’s country houses near London in a chariot and pair of horses, to dine with some great man, and returning after dinner to town. He mentions that he could not have done the same in the neighbourhood of Dublin on account of the absence of turnpike roads. He drove from Windsor to London, twenty-three miles, in two hours and forty minutes, and from Wycombe to London, twenty-seven miles, in five hours, and from Windsor to Bucklebury, near Newbury, twenty-six miles, in four hours.
In 1744 Lady Hervey wrote in her “Letters,” that light-bodied chariots were then advertised as fit for town or country. As a further illustration of this period, there is a chariot in the South Kensington Museum belonging to the Earl of Darnley’s family, which is supposed to have been built in 1750. I should think it is of rather earlier date, probably 1700. The body is small, and abounds in curves and sweeps like furniture of the date of Louis XIV. The glasses of the doors and of the front rise and fall in frames. There is a broad perch, with two iron handsomely-forged cranes (exactly like those in the _diligence Anglaise_, which, unfortunately, did not please M. Roubo). The body is slung upon leather buckle braces, with small elbow springs at the bottom of the body at the hinder part. There is a small hammer-cloth on which the coachman could sit (the origin of the name is supposed to be from its original use in covering the budget which held the hammer and other tools that were frequently carried with carriages, especially travelling carriages, as late as the year 1840); the footboard is framed to the carriage part. There is a splinter-bar, by which the horses would be attached, and the wheel-irons hook on to this bar, and are attached at the hinder part to the ends of the front axletree. The front wheels are 2 ft. 9 in. high, and the number of spokes eight. The hind wheels have twelve spokes, and are 5 ft. high. The whole is hung low. We can well suppose that this was not a heavy carriage after the horses.
When the first coach quarters were covered with leather, they were nailed on and the heads showed. After 1660 these nail heads were covered with a strip of metal made to imitate a row of beads; from this practice arose the name of “beading,” which has been retained, although beading is now made in a continuous level piece, either rounded or angular.
The use of coaches had by this time spread from Europe to the colonies, and in 1740 there were many coaches and chariots in use at Spanish Town, Jamaica, and other large towns in America, wherever colonised by Europeans.