worse, and many an honest man encumbered in his journey. But what speak I of these things whereof I do not think to hear a just redress, because the error is so common, and the benefit thereby so sweet and profitable to many by such houses and cottages as are raised upon the same.

WILLIAM HARRISON, Description of England 1587 (2nd ed.)

The Cambridge to London road

On the road we passed through a villainous boggy and wild country and several times missed our way because the country thereabouts is very little inhabited and is nearly a waste; and there is one spot in particular where the mud is so deep that in my opinion it would scarcely be possible to pass with a coach in winter or in rainy weather.

Visit of Frederick, Duke of Würtemberg, 1592 [Rye]

Means of Communication

SCENE. Rochester. An Inn-yard

Gadshill. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock ?

First Carrier. I think it be two o'clock.

Gadshill. I prithee, lend me thy lanthorn, to see my gelding in the stable. Second Carrier. ...Lend me thy lanthorn, quoth a'? marry, I'll see thee hanged first.

Gadshill. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London ? Second Carrier. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen: they will along with company, for they have great charge.

The Post

1 Henry IV., II. i. 36-51

In England towards the south, and in the west parts, and from London to Berwick upon the confines of Scotland, post-horses are established at every ten miles or thereabouts, which they ride a false gallop after some ten miles an hour sometimes, and that makes their hire the greater: for with a commission from the chief post-master, or chief lords of the Council (given either upon public business, or at least pretence thereof) a passenger shall pay twopence halfpenny each mile for his horse, and as much for his guide's horse: but one guide will serve the whole company, though many ride together, who

may easily bring back the horses, driving them before him, who know the way as well as a beggar knows his dish. They which have no such commission pay threepence for each mile. This extraordinary charge of horses' hire may well be recompensed with the speed of the journey, whereby greater expenses in the inns are avoided. All the difficulty is to have a body able to endure the toil. For these horses the passenger is at no charge to give them meat, only at the ten miles' end the boy that carries them back will expect some few pence in gift. Some nobleman hath the office of chief post-master, being a place of such account as commonly he is one of the King's Council. And not only he, but other lords of the Council, according to the qualities of their offices, use to give the foresaid commissions signed with their hands jointly or severally but their hands are less regarded than the postmaster's, except they be favourites, and of the highest offices, or the business be important.

Inn-charges

In the inns men of inferior condition use to eat at the host's table, and pay some sixpence a meal: but gentlemen have their chambers, and eat alone, except perhaps they have consorts and friends in their company and of their acquaintance. If they be accompanied, perhaps their reckoning may commonly come to some two shillings a man, and one that eats alone in his own chamber with one or two servants attending him, perhaps upon reckoning may spend some five or six shillings for supper and breakfast. But in the northern parts, when I passed towards Scotland, gentlemen themselves did not use to keep their chambers, but to eat at an ordinary table together, where they had great plenty of good meat and especially of choice kinds of fish, and each man paid no more than sixpence and sometimes but fourpence a meal. One horse's meat will come to twelve pence, or eighteen pence the night for hay, oats and straw, and in summer time commonly they put the horses to grass, after the rate of threepence each horse, though some who ride long journeys will either keep them in the stable at hard meat as they do in winter, or else give them a little oats in the morning when they are brought up from grass. English passengers taking any journey seldom dine, especially not in

winter, and withal ride long journeys. But there is no place in the world where passengers may so freely command as in the English inns, and are attended for themselves and their horses as well as if they were at home, and perhaps better, each servant being ready at call, in hope of a small reward in the morning. Neither did I ever see inns so well furnished with household stuff.

Coaches and hackneys

Coaches are not to be hired anywhere but only at London; and howsoever England is for the most part plain, or consisting of pleasant hills, yet the ways far from London are so dirty as hired coachmen do not ordinarily take any long journeys, but only for one or two days any way from London, the ways so far being sandy and very fair and continually kept so by labour of hands. And for a day's journey, a coach with two horses used to be let for some ten shillings the day (or the way being short for some eight shillings, so as the passengers paid for the horses' meat) or some fifteen shillings a day for three horses, the coachman paying for his horses' meat. Sixty or seventy years ago coaches were very rare in England, but at this day pride is so far increased, as there be few gentlemen of any account (I mean elder brothers) who have not their coaches, so as the streets of London are almost stopped up with them. Yea, they who only respect comeliness and profit, and are thought free from pride, yet have coaches; because they find the keeping thereof more commodious and profitable than of horses, since two or three coach-horses will draw four or five persons, besides the commodity of carrying many necessaries in a coach. For the most part Englishmen, especially in long journeys, use to ride upon their own horses. But if any will hire a horse, at London they use to pay two shillings the first day, and twelve or perhaps eighteen pence a day for as many days as they keep him, till the horse be brought home to the owner, and the passenger must either bring him back, or pay for the sending of him, and find him meat both going and coming. In other parts of England a man may hire a horse for twelve pence a day, finding him meat and bringing or sending him back; and if the journey be long, he may hire him at a convenient rate for a month or two.

Carriers

Likewise carriers let horses from city to city, with caution that the passenger must lodge in their inn, that they may look to the feeding of their horses, and so they will for some five or six days' journey let him a horse, and find the horse meat themselves for some twenty shillings. Lastly, these carriers have long covered waggons, in which they carry passengers from city to city: but this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason they must take waggon very early, and come very late to their inns, as none but women and people of inferior condition, or strangers (as Flemings with their wives and servants) use to travel in this sort.

FYNES MORYSON, Itinerary 1617

A carrier is his own hackneyman, for he lets himself out to travel as well as his horses. He is the ordinary ambassador between friend and friend, the father and the son, and brings rich presents to the one, but never returns any back again. He is no unlettered man, though in shew simple, for questionless he has much in his budget which he can utter too in fit time and place. He is like the vault in Gloucester church, that conveys whispers at a distance; for he takes the sound out of your mouth at York, and makes it be heard as far as London. He is the young students' joy and expectation, and the most accepted guest, to whom they lend a willing hand to discharge him of his burden. His first greeting is, "Your friends are well"; then in a piece of gold delivers their blessing. You would think him a churlish blunt fellow, but they find in him many tokens of humanity. He is a great afflicter of the highways, and beats them out of measure; which injury is sometimes revenged by the purse-taker, and then the voyage miscarries. No man domineers more in his inn, nor calls his host unreverently with more presumption, and this arrogance proceeds out of the strength of his horses. He forgets not his load where he takes his ease, for he is drunk commonly before he goes to bed. He is like the prodigal child still packing away, and still returning again. But let him pass.

JOHN EARLE, Micro-cosmographie 1628

English Inns

Servants in league with highwaymen

Chamberlain. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight: there's a franklin in the wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already and call for eggs and butter: they will away presently.

*

Gadshill. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man.

Chamberlain. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. 1 Henry IV., 11. i. 58-103

Those towns that we call thoroughfares have great and sumptuous inns builded in them for the receiving of such travellers and strangers as pass to and fro. The manner of harbouring wherein is not like to that of some other countries in which the host or goodman of the house doth challenge a lordly authority over his guests, but clean otherwise, sith every man may use his inn as his own house in England and have for his money how great or little variety of victuals, and what other service himself shall think expedient to call for. Our inns are also very well furnished with napery, bedding and tapestry, especially with napery for beside the linen used at the tables, which is commonly washed daily, is such and so much as belongeth unto the estate and calling of the guest. Each comer is sure to lie in clean sheets, wherein no man hath been lodged since they came from the laundress or out of the water wherein they were last washed. If the traveller have an horse, his bed doth cost him nothing, but if he go on foot he is sure to pay a penny for the same: but whether he be horseman or footman if his chamber be once appointed he may carry the key with him, as of his own house, so long as he lodgeth there. If he lose ought whilst he abideth in the inn, the host is bound by a general custom to restore the damage, so that there is no greater security anywhere for travellers than in the greatest inns of England. Their horses in like sort are walked, dressed and looked unto by certain hostlers or hired servants, appointed at the charges of the goodman of the house, who in