Coaches came in with Elizabeth. There was no fashionable chronicler of the day to tell us exactly which were the favourite resorts of Society, but it would not be surprising if the rough roads cut in the spacious parks which extended so far from Whitehall were first put to use for carriage exercise by Elizabeth’s courtiers. Hyde Park has been the fashionable drive for centuries. One likes to think of those bumpy old contrivances, of colossal weight and build, with the stoutness of a farmer’s cart, as setting the fashion of driving in the park which has come down unbroken to the present year of grace. These vehicles afforded Elizabeth’s beruffed gallants and gorgeously attired dames an opportunity of airing themselves, and probably gave them as much pleasure, lumbersome though they were, as smart-horsed victorias and electric landaulettes give their occupants to-day. That Hyde Park was looked upon as a rural resort for the courtiers and others who wished for greater seclusion than was to be found in St. James’s Park, is shown in Major Martin Hume’s _Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth_ (Record Office). “Count de Feria writes to Philip II. from London, 19th March 1559: “Since I wrote on the 6th instant I have had a long conversation with the Treasurer of the Household (_i.e._ Sir Thomas Parry) about religious affairs, and the obligations that the Queen and the country owe to your Majesty. He is not so good a Catholic as he should be, but he is the most reasonable of those near the Queen. She knew that he was coming to St. James’s Park on that day to speak with me; and she told him to ask me to go with him to another Park higher up nearer the execution place, so that the Earl of Pembroke and other gentlemen would be walking in St. James’s Park might not see us together. The Earl and the others who were walking there would have been just as shy of being seen with me, by the Queen or the Treasurer. I say this to show how suspicious and distrustful they are.” It was easy enough to take a drive in Hyde Park, but when the Queen moved farther afield, even for such a short distance as the seven or eight miles from Chelsea to Richmond, the arrangements required more attention. Preserved in the Records of the Stationers’ Company is the following letter: “By the Mayor, “To the Wardens of the Companye of Stationers.