It is a doubtful question whether the devil brought tobacco into
England in a coach, for both appeared at the same time." According to
Stow, coaches were introduced here 1564, by Guilliam Boonen, who
afterwards became coachman to the queen. The first he ever made was
for the Earl of Rutland; but the demand rapidly increased, until there
ensued a great trade in coach-making, insomuch that a bill was brought
into Parliament, in 1601, to restrain the excessive use of such
vehicles. Between the coachmen and the watermen there was no very
cordial understanding, as the above quotation from Taylor sufficiently
demonstrates. In 1613 the Thames watermen petitioned the king, that
the players should not be permitted to have a theatre in London, or
Middlesex, within four miles of the Thames, in order that the
inhabitants might be induced, as formerly, to make use of boats in
their visits to the playhouses in Southwark. Not long afterwards
sedans came into fashion, still further to the prejudice of the
watermen. In the Induction to Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels,"
performed in 1600, mention is made of "coaches, hobby-horses, and
foot-cloth nags," as in ordinary use. In 1631 the churchwardens and
constables, on behalf of the inhabitants of Blackfriars, in a petition
to Laud, then Bishop of London, prayed for the removal of the
playhouse from their parish, on the score of the many inconveniences
they endured as shopkeepers, "being hindered by the great recourse to
the playes, especially of coaches, from selling their commodities, and
having their wares many times broken and beaten off their stalls."
Further, they alleged that, owing to the great "recourse of coaches,"
and the narrowness of the streets, the inhabitants could not, in an
afternoon, "take in any provision of beere, coales, wood, or hay;" the
passage through Ludgate was many times stopped up, people "in their
ordinary going" much endangered, quarrels and bloodshed occasioned,
and disorderly people, towards night, gathered together under pretence