David Francis, late post of Northop, petitions thus:--"There is £90 in arrear to petitioner for execution of the said place, as appears by the last account of Lord Stanhope to the Auditors. Has been three months in town soliciting payment, and received fair promises from Mr. Witherings; but now he absolutely says petitioner shall have none, so that he is like to be imprisoned. Has spent near his whole estate in coming to town to solicit for his father's arrears, who was post of Chester 60 years. Prays order to receive part with the rest who are in the privy seal, otherwise he is like to perish by the prosecution of his greedy creditors."
Richard Scott, innkeeper of Stilton, Huntingdonshire, petitions Coke and Windebank for the place of a postmaster who discharges his office by deputy. "For some years past," says he, "the place of post of Stilton, being in the high North road, has been executed by a deputy, who keeps an alehouse there, the postmaster living twelve miles distant, and his deputy no ways able to receive gentlemen and travellers, much less noblemen, whereby the posts are forced to travel at unseasonable times and are not fitted with able horses. Petitioner being an innkeeper in the town, both able and willing to give noblemen and gentlemen entertainment, prays that he may serve His Majesty in that place."
Royston, a market-town in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, was an important place in relation to the posts for two reasons: it was a stage not far distant from London, on the great North road, and a place of residence for the king when he retired to hunt in the neighbourhood. Now, on these two accounts there must have been frequent demands made upon the postmaster to provide horses, and, on occasions, considerable numbers of horses. We are little familiar with the demands then made for horses when the sovereign was pleased to go on progress. In _Nichols' Progress of James I._, it is stated that the number of carts employed when the sovereign went on progress was, about the year 1604, reduced from 600 to 220! And even when the king moved about, not in a formal progress, it is probable that large orders were given for horses. In an account of the number of post horses taken up at Royston by four o'clock in the morning of one day in February 1638, it is recorded that, from nineteen parishes, 200 horses were so taken up, each parish contributing from six to fourteen horses. That the duties of the postmaster were more than usually onerous, is recognised in the fact that he and the postmaster of Newmarket, where there was another royal hunting seat, were paid (or were supposed to be paid) on the highest scale allowed to postmasters, namely, 4s. 4d. a day, as will be seen by the list of wages previously given.