COACHES.
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At the election of the Emperor Matthias, the Ambassa-dor of Brandenburg had three coaches. When the consortof that Emperor made her public entrance, on her marriagein 1611, she rode in a carriage covered with perfumed lea-ther.
Marv, Infanta of Spain, spouse of the Emperor Ferdi-nand III . rode, in Carinthia, in 1631, in a glass carriage,in which no more than two persons could sit.' 3 The wed-ding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold , whowas a Spanish princess , cost with the harness 38,000florins. 14 The coaches used by that Emperor are thus de-scribed by Rink: “ In the imperial coaches no great mag-“ nificence was to be seen: they were covered over with“ red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and“ in the whole work there was no gold. The pannels were“ of glass, and on this account they were called the impe-“ rial glass coaches. On festivals the harness was orna-“ merited with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches were“ distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the“ ladies in the imperial suite were obliged to be content to“ be conveyed in carriages the traces of which were made" of ropes. At the magnificent court of Duke Ernest Au-gustus, at Hanover, there were, in 1681, fifty gilt coacheswith six horses each. 15 So early did Hanover begin to sur-pass other cities in the number of its carriages. The firsttime that ambassadors appeared in coaches, on a publicsolemnity, was at the imperial commission held at Erfurth,in 1613, respecting the affair of Juliers. 16
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, (according toRees's Cycloptedia, article Coach,) John of Finland, on hisreturn from England, among other articles of luxury, broughtwith him to Sweden the first coach. Before that period,the lords of Sweden , when they travelled by land, carriedtheir wives with them on horseback, and the princessestravelled in the same manner.
Beckmann also informs us, that the great lords of Germany first imagined that they could suppress the use of coachesby prohibitions. In the archives of the county of Markthere is still preserved an edict, in which the feudal nobilityand vassals are forbidden the use of coaches, under pain ofincurring the punishment of felony. 17 In the year 1588,