William Strickland, who purchased the manor of Boynton in 1549, sailed when a youth to the New World with Sebastian Cabot, and helped to discover Labrador and Newfoundland. He is said to have introduced the turkey into our country—a deed commemorated in the family crest. His descendant was created a baronet by King Charles I., and the present Sir Walter William Strickland, of Boynton Hall, is the ninth holder of the title. [Illustration: COAT-OF-ARMS OF THE STRICKLANDS.] Readers of _Tom Brown’s School-Days_ will all remember the hero’s friend Martin, his second in the historic fight with Slogger Williams. ‘The Madman’ was his name among his fellow school-boys, but it was as Sir Charles Strickland that he was known in the neighbourhood of Boynton. XXIV. STAGE COACH AND RAILWAY. Travelling for pleasure is something that we all understand. But our forefathers a few centuries ago would have thought a person mad if he had said he was going to take a journey for pleasure. Merchants had to travel, and so had messengers; but ordinary folk stayed at home, unless the burden of their sins moved them to undertake a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine. Such journeys were performed on horseback or afoot, but invalid women and infirm old men might use a horse-litter. [Illustration: ON THE ROAD IN 1812. AN EAST RIDING STAGE WAGGON. ] Until the reign of Queen Mary I. there was in England no such thing as a coach. The lumbering _stage waggon_ with wheels ten or twelve inches wide, and drawn by eight or ten horses attended by a driver who rode on the back of a pony, came into use during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its successor, the _stage coach_, was not invented till the time when King Charles paid his first visit to Hull. Two years before the accession of Charles II., a regular coach service from London to York was announced, the coaches to make the journey three times a week in the advertised time of four days. But this time was largely exceeded as a rule, and at nearly the close of the century we find the coach taking six days to reach London from York. The development of road travel may be said to date from the year 1662, when an Act of Parliament was passed for improving the condition of the main roads, permission being granted to those local authorities that desired it, to erect toll bars and charge travellers for the privilege of using the roads when put into repair. Yorkshire roads in particular were notoriously bad, as the letter written to Thomas Cromwell in 1538 shows.[60] Footnote 60: See pages 199–200. But few local authorities stirred themselves in the matter of road improvement, and an old coach bill still preserved at the _Black Swan_ in Coney Street, York, has a very significant reminder of the dangers attending the journey to London in 1706:—