The first owners of coaches appear to have been those who had travelled abroad. So early as 1556, Sir Thomas Hoby, who had been our ambassador to France, possessed a coach and offered to lend it to the Lady Cecil. The account-book for 1573 of the Kytson family, of Hengrave, in Suffolk, mentions another early coach. “For my mʳᵉˢ [mistress’s] coche, with all the furniture thereto belonging except horses—xxxiiij_li._xiiij_s._ For the painting of my mʳ and mʳᵉˢ armes upon the coche—ij_s._vj_d._” In 1579 the Earl of Arundel is said to have brought a coach into England from Germany, and this coach is interesting from the fact that certain historians have credited it with being the first coach in England. How such a tradition arose is not clear, but it may be that this German coach had certain features which more nearly approached those of the later Stuart, fully-enclosed, coaches. Further details are to be found in the Manners notebooks, and these afford a glimpse of the methods adopted by the coachmakers, not yet a large body, of the day. In the notebooks of Thomas Screven, 1596-97, after an item for twenty-eight shillings for three-quarters of “scarlet sleves and labelles for his L[ordship’s] parlyament robes” comes another of six shillings “to my Lady Adeline’s coachman,” and one, just below, of greater interest:— “Item paid to Wm. Wright, coachmaker, in parte of xl_li._ for a coache now made, xx_li._” After that, in the 1598-99 book comes an item to “the Countess of South[ampton’s] coachman that wayted on my Lord to Dertford, v_s._” This suggests the growing popularity of the coach, more especially as there is another disbursement in the same year to the Countess of Essex’s coachman. Then follow from November 25th, 1598, details of the expenses of the new coach for my Lord’s own use—which apparently took considerable time to furnish. “Item for ij paire of new wheeles for the coache, tymber worke and iron work, and setting them on the axeltrees, iij_li._xiij_s._iiij_d._; payntinge them in oyle colour, vj_s._viij_d._; a new pole for the horses to drawe by, ij_s._vj_d._; a paire of springe trees, iij_s._iij_d._”