Coaches and vehicles of all descriptions now became general, and in 1635 a patent was granted to Sir Saunders Duncombe for the introduction of sedans; their purpose being “to interfere with the too frequent use of coaches, to the hindrance of the carts and carriages employed in the necessary provision of the city and suburbs.” A rivalry now sprung up between coach and sedan, and gave rise to a humorous tract, in which they hold a colloquy as to which should take precedence, a brewer’s cart being appointed umpire. The coaches at this period were fearfully and wonderfully made. There are several examples of them scattered about in the various museums. The people who used them at this time had no great ideas of them, for so formidable an affair was the undertaking of a journey reckoned, that even from Birmingham to London a departure was the signal for making a will, followed by a solemn farewell of wife, children, and household! Towards the end of the seventeenth century improvements began to take place. In Wood’s diary mention is made of a machine called the “Flying Coach,” which performed the journey between Oxford and London in thirteen hours! This was express rate for that age, especially as there was some talk of making a law to limit the ground covered by a coach to thirty miles a day in summer, and twenty-five miles a day in winter. Oh, those good old times! The outcry lessened, and the imperfect vehicles and bad roads were left to passengers unmolested. What the latter were may be imagined from the fact that, when Charles III. of Spain visited England, and Prince George of Denmark went out to meet him, both princes were so impeded by the badness of the roads that their carriages were obliged to be borne on the shoulders of the peasantry, and they were six hours in performing the last nine miles of their journey. In the eighteenth century improvements were made in the construction of coaches, but they were still heavy lumbering contrivances, so that little or no progress was made in the rate at which they travelled. Even so late as 1760 a journey from Edinburgh to London occupied eighteen days, a part of the roads being only accessible by pack horses. There is a very good specimen of the vehicle of the early part of the eighteenth century in the South Kensington Museum, belonging to the Earl of Darnley’s family, and is well worthy of study as being one of the lightest examples known of this period.