The oldest carriages used by the ladies in England were known under the now-forgotten name of _whirlicotes_. When Richard II., towards the end of the fourteenth century, was obliged to fly before his rebellious subjects, he and all his followers were on horseback; his mother only, who was indisposed, rode in a carriage. This, however, became afterwards somewhat unfashionable, when that monarch’s queen, Ann, the daughter of the emperor Charles IV., showed the English ladies how gracefully and conveniently she could ride on a side-saddle. Whirlicotes therefore were disused, except at coronations and other public solemnities[176]. Coaches were first known in England about the year 1580, and, as Stow says, were introduced from Germany by Fitz-allen, earl of Arundel[177]. In the year 1598, when the English ambassador came to Scotland, he had a coach with him[178]. Anderson places the period when coaches began to be in common use, about the year 1605. The celebrated duke of Buckingham, the unworthy favourite of two kings, was the first person who rode with a coach and six horses, in 1619. To ridicule this new pomp, the earl of Northumberland put eight horses to his carriage. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Charles of Anjou made his entrance into Naples, the queen rode in a carriage, called by historians _caretta_, the outside and inside of which were covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with golden lilies, a magnificence never before seen by the Neapolitans. At the entrance of Frederic II. into Padua, in the year 1239, it appears that there were no carriages, for the most elegantly dressed ladies who came to meet him were on palfreys ornamented with trappings (_sedentes in phaleratis et ambulantibus palafredis_). It is well known that the luxury of carriages spread from Naples all over Italy. Coaches were seen for the first time in Spain in the year 1546. Such at least is the account of Twiss, who, according to his usual custom, says so without giving his authority[179]. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, John of Finland, on his return from England, among other articles of luxury, brought with him to Sweden the first coach[180]. Before that period, the greatest lords in Sweden, when they travelled by land, carried their wives with them on horseback. The princesses even travelled in that manner, and, when it rained, took with them a mantle of wax-cloth. It appears that there were elegant coaches in the capital of Russia so early as the beginning of the seventeenth century[181].