MY interest in Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger, who rebelled against Queen Mary in January-February 1554, led me to The historie of Wyates rebellion (December 1554) by John Proctor, a Kentish schoolmaster who was an eyewitness of many of the events he describes. But Proctor himself admitted that his Historie was not the first printed account of Wyatt's rebellion. In his dedicatory epistle to Queen Mary he refers to ‘a printed book late[ly] set forth at Canterbury', from Which either of haste or of purpose [important matters] were omitted'. Proctor's modern editor, unable to identify the earlier book, gave to the page bearing Proctor's epistle the running title ‘The Lost History of Wyatt's Rebellion'. It was from this point that I began my search for the lost history.

Why Montaigne decided to use the title ‘Des coaches’ for one of the essays of Book III has never been clearly explained. Villey believes that the essay could have been divided into three distinct chapters, but that Montaigne ‘les a aboutés l'un à l'autre; il a entassé toutes ces réflexions sous un même titre. C'était trop; le cadre a éclaté.' He also suggests that ‘le luxe’ is really the ‘idée maîtresse qui revient de place en place comme un leit-motiv’ (Villey, II, 300), and which would have clarified matters for the reader had it been incorporated into the title. He concludes, however, that Montaigne was not aiming for clarity, and that ‘ce titre est là pour surprendre’ (Villey, II, 300).