“_Item_, That five charres diversely apparelled for the ladies and gentlemen, be ready at the same time at the same Tower, whereof one of the chief must be richly apparelled and garnished for the said Princess, and the other four to serve such ladies as be appointed by the Queen’s Chamberlain.” At Catharine’s Coronation with Henry VIII., “chariots covered, with ladies therein,” followed her litter; and when Anne Boleyn came to London she made a State entry in a most wonderful litter ornamented with the richest materials. When Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., went to Scotland, whose King James IV. she married, she was conveyed “on varey rich litere, borne by two fair coursers vary nobly drest, in the wich litere the sayd queene was borne in the intryng of townes, or otherways to her good playsure.” Can one imagine anything more horrible than being swung about in a litter for weeks as that poor woman was on her journey from London to Scotland? The bumps and shakes, the discomfort of the cramped position, seem terrible to think of in these days of Pulman cars, restaurants, and quick trains. By the middle of the sixteenth century riding pillion fashion was again much in vogue, the lady sitting behind the gentleman, in a kind of chair similar to that used by the Anglo-Saxon dames. They called the board for their feet a “planchette.” Queen Mary Tudor went from the Tower to Westminster at her Coronation “sitting in a chariot of cloth of tissue drawn with six horses,” followed by another chariot “with cloth of silver” and six horses, in which sat Anne of Cleves and the Princess Elizabeth. Great Queen Bess, when it came to her turn to be crowned, also used a chariot for her State procession to the Abbey. The coach is said to have been introduced in 1564 by Boonen, a Dutch coachman employed by Queen Elizabeth, who enjoyed her first drives and the pleasures of her new possession in London’s spacious parks. These equipages were almost too gorgeous for description. The Queen seems to have employed them at times in her different progresses and for her State entries, but her chief mode of locomotion was riding on horseback. This was undoubtedly on account of the dreadful state of the roads, which rendered impossible the common use of the coach in the country for some years. In fact, in London itself, the streets were so narrow, so ill-kept, and so uneven, that it was a very jolting business to drive at all.