Some months ago the writer was startled by hearing, casually dropped by an old man visiting a shop in Royston, the strange remark--"My grandfather was chairman to the Marquis of Rockingham." The remark seemed like the first glimpse of a rare old fossil when visiting an old quarry. Of the truth of it further inquiry seemed to leave little doubt, and the meaning of it was simply this: The Marquis of Rockingham, Prime Minister in the early years of George III., would, like the rest of the _beau monde_, be carried about town in his Sedan chair, by smart velvet-coated livery men ["I have a piece of his livery of green silk velvet by me now," said my informant, when further questioned about his grandfather] preceded at night by the "link boy," or someone carrying a torch to light the way through the dark streets! I have been unable to find any trace of the use of the Sedan Chair by any of the residents of Royston, albeit that gifted but ill-fated youth, John Smith, alias Charles Stuart, alias King Charles I., did, with the {8} Duke of Buckingham, alias Thomas Smith, come back to his royal father, King James I., at Royston, from that romantic Spanish wooing expedition and bring with him a couple of Sedan Chairs, instead of a Spanish bride! The old stage wagons succeeding to the pack-horses, which carried goods and occasionally passengers stowed away, were a curiosity. A long-bodied wagon, with loose canvas tilt, wheels of great breadth, so as to be independent of ruts, except the very broadest; with a series of four or five iron tires or hoops round the feloes, and the whole drawn by eight or ten horses, two abreast with a driver riding on a pony with a long whip, which gave him command of the whole team! Average pace about 1 1/2 to 2 miles an hour, including stoppages, as taken from old time tallies, for their journeys! These ponderous wagons, with their teams of eight horses and broad wheels, were actually associated with the idea of "flying," for I find an announcement in the year 1772, that the Stamford, Grantham, Newark and Gainsboro' wagons began "flying" on Tuesday, March 24th, &c. Twenty and thirty horses have been known to be required to extricate these lumbering wagons when they became embedded in deep ruts, in which not infrequently, the wagon had to remain all night. Many a struggling, despairing scene of this kind has been witnessed at the bottom of our hills, such as that at the bottom of Reed Hill, before the road was raised out of the hollow; the London Road, before the cutting was made through the hill; and along the Baldock Road by the Heath, on to which wagons not infrequently turned and began those deep ruts which are still visible, and the example, which every one must regret, of driving along the Heath at the present day, with no such excuse as the "fly wagons" had. [Illustration: OLD STAGE WAGON, A.D. 1800.] {9}