Hyde Park in the early Commonwealth--Its sale--Toll on horses and
carriages--A hurling match--Cromwell’s accident--Attempts to shoot
him in the Park--Notices against trespassers--The Park at the
Restoration.
It was not until after the martyrdom of the King, and a little before
Cromwell found himself strong enough to become Lord Protector of the
three Kingdoms, that the Parks, etc., were sold. But on Dec. 31, 1652,
was passed “An Act for the Exposing to Sale divers Castles, Houses,
Parks, Lands and Hereditaments, Belonging to the late King, Queen, or
Prince, Exempted from sale by a former Act:” and among them was “All
that Park commonly called _Hide Park_, in the county of _Middlesex_,
with all Houses, Woods and Perquisits thereunto belonging.”
At the beginning of the troubles between the King and Parliament, the
exclusiveness of the Park grew somewhat lax, and it became a place of
fashionable resort; but the sour, puritanical spirit of the times
prevailed, and, in 1645, it was ordered “that Hyde Park and Spring
Gardens should be kept shut, and no person be allowed to go into any of
those places on the Lord’s day, fast and thanksgiving days, and hereof
those that have the keeping of the said places are to take notice and
see this order obeyed, as they will answer the contrary at their
uttermost peril.” And, presumably, this order was acted on until 1649,
when it was resolved that the London Parks--Whitehall, Hampton Court,
the New Park at Richmond, Westminster Palace, Windsor Castle and Park,
and Greenwich House and Park--should be the property of the
Commonwealth, and thrown open to the public.
But in 1652, it was thought fit to sell Hyde Park, Greenwich House and
Park, Windsor Park and Meadows, Cornbury Park, Oxon, Somerset House, and
Vauxhall House and Grounds, for the benefit of the Navy, and duly sold
they were. Three lots were made of Hyde Park--called the Gravel Pit
division, or that part abutting on the Bayswater Road, which was very
well wooded; the Kensington division, which lay on the south, which was
principally pasture land; whilst the third comprised what were termed
the Middle, which comprised the Ring, the Banqueting division--in which
was the Cake House--near the present site of the Receiving House of the
Royal Humane Society; and the Old Lodge division, which said Old Lodge
was near Hyde Park Corner; and this third lot was very well wooded.
The first lot was bought by Richard Wilcox for the sum of £4144 11_s._;
the second was secured by John Tracy for £3906 7_s._ 6_d._; and the
third fetched £9020 8_s._ 2_d._, and became the property of Anthony
Dean, a ship-builder, who let the right of pasture of his portion; and
the lessees immediately began to recoup themselves by exacting a toll on
the carriages and horses entering the Park. Says Evelyn, in his diary,
under date of April 11, 1653, “I went to take the aire in Hide Park,
where every coach was made to pay a shilling, and horse sixpence, by
these sordid fellows who purchas’d it of the State as they were cal’d.”
This toll seems afterwards to have been raised, or it might only have
been for the occasion, which was the first of May, when it was
fashionable to be seen in the Park; for, in a letter dated May 2,
1654,[18] J. B. informs Mr. Scudamore that “Yesterday, each coach (and,
I believe, there were fifteen hundred) paid half-a-crown, and each horse
one shilling. The benefit accrues to a brace of citizens, who have taken
the herbage of the Park from Mr. Dean, to which they add this excise of
beauty. There was a hurling in the _paddock course_ by Cornish
gentlemen, for the great solemnity of the day, which, _indeed_ (to use
my Lord Protector’s word), was great. When my Lord Protector’s coach
came into the Park with Colonel Ingleby and my Lord’s daughters only
(three of them, all in green-a) the coaches and horses flocked about
them like some miracle. But they galloped (after the mode court pace
now, and which they all use wherever they go, round and round the Park,)
and all that great multitude hunted them, and caught them still at the
turn, like a hare, and then made a lane with all reverent haste for
them, and so after them again, that I never saw the like in my life.”
Cromwell himself was present at this hurling match, according to the
_Moderate Intelligencer_ of April 26--May 4, 1654. “This day there was a
hurling match of a great ball by fifty Cornish gentlemen on the one
side, and fifty on the other; one party played in red caps, and the
other in white. There was present his Highness the Lord Protector, many
of the Privy Council, and divers eminent gentlemen, to whose view was
presented great agility of body, and most neat and exquisite wrestling
at every meeting of one with the other, which was ordered with such
dexterity, that it was to show more the strength, vigour and nimbleness
of their bodies, than to endanger their persons. The ball they played
withal was silver, and designed for that party which did win the goal.”
But, if Cromwell could drive the coach of State, he could not always
manage to drive his own, and there is one memorable instance of his
coming to grief in Hyde Park, in 1654, in endeavouring so to do, the
story of which is thus told by General Ludlow (who was no friend to the
Protector) in his Memoirs.[19]
“In the mean time, _Cromwel_ having assumed the whole Power of the
Nation to himself, and sent Ambassadors and Agents to Foreign States,
was courted again by them, and presented with the Rarities of several
Countries; amongst the rest the Duke of _Holstein_ made him a Present of
a Set of gray _Frizeland_ Coach-Horses, with which taking the Air in the
Park, attended only with his Secretary _Thurlow_, and Guard of
Janizaries, he would needs take the place of the Coachman, not doubting
but the three pair of Horses he was about to drive would prove as tame
as the three Nations which were ridden by him: and, therefore, not
contented with their ordinary pace, he lashed them very furiously. But
they, unaccustomed to such a rough Driver, ran away in a Rage, and
stop’d not till they had thrown him out of the box, with which Fall, his
Pistol fired in his Pocket, tho without any hurt to himself; by which he
might have been instructed how dangerous it was to intermeddle with
those things wherein he had no Experience.”
In Thurloe’s _State Papers_ (vol. ii. p, 652) there is another account
of this accident, in a letter, dated October 16, 1654 (N.S.), from “The
_Dutch_ embassadors in _England_, to the States General.
MY LORDS,--After the sending away of our letters of last friday, we were
acquainted the next morning, which we heard nothing of the night before,
that about that time a mischance happened to the lord protector, which
might have been, in all likelihood, very fatal unto him, if God had not
wonderfully preserved him; as we are informed the manner of it to be
thus. His highness, only accompanied with Secretary Thurloe and some few
of his gentlemen and servants, went to take the air in Hyde Park, where
he caused some dishes of meat to be brought; where he made his dinner,
and, afterwards, had a desire to drive the coach himself, having put
only the secretary into it, being those six horses, which the earl of
Oldenburgh had presented unto his highness, who drove pretty handsomely
for some time; but, at last, provoking those horses too much with the
whip, they grew unruly, and run so fast that the postillion could not
hold them in; whereby his highness was flung out of the coach box upon
the pole, upon which he lay with his body, and, afterwards, fell upon
the ground. His foot getting hold in the tackling, he was carried away
a good while in that posture, during which a pistol went off in his
pocket; but, at last, he got his foot clear, and so came to escape, the
coach passing away without hurting him. He was presently brought home,
and let blood; and, after some rest taken, he is now pretty well again.
The secretary, being hurt on his ancle with leaping out of the coach,
hath been forced to keep his chamber hitherto, and been unfit for any
business; so that we have not been able to further or expedite any
business this week.”
Larwood, in his _Story of the London Parks_, gives quotations from two
poetical lampoons, which I have not been able to verify, and, therefore,
give them on his authority. And, he says, there was a poem called _The
Jolt_, by Sir John Birkenhead, treating of this accident. The first
quotation he gives he does not say whence it is taken, and is as
follows:
“Every day and hour has shown us his power,
And now he has shown us his art.
His first reproach was a fall from a coach--
And his next will be from a cart.”
A pleasant allusion to his probable fate, for a criminal who was to be
hanged, was taken to the gallows on a cart, and, the halter being round
his neck, the horse was whipped, and the cart being drawn from under
him, the unfortunate man was left swinging.
The other quotation, he says, occurs in a ballad called, “Old England is
now a brave Barbary.”
“But Noll, a rank rider, gets first in the saddle,
And make her show tricks, curvate and rebound;
She quickly perceived he rode widdle-waddle,
And, like his coach-horses, threw his Highness to the ground.”
Hyde Park seems to have been fraught with danger to the Protector, for
in 1657 there was a plot to have assassinated him. The chief
conspirators were a man named Sindercombe, or Fish, a cashiered
quarter-master in Monk’s army, and another named Cecil, who turned
approver; who in his evidence[20] said,
“That the first time they rode forth to kill him, was the latter end of
_September_ last, (_viz._) the Saturday after he had left going to
_Hampton Court_.
“That the second time was when he rode to _Kensington_, and thence, the
back way to _London_.
“The third time, when he went to _Hide-Park_ in his coach.
“The fourth time, when he went to _Turnham Green_, and so by _Acton_
home, at which time they rode forth to kill him, and resolved to break
through all difficulties to effect it.
“The fifth time, when he rode into _Hide-Park_, where his Highness
alighting, asked him, the said _Cecil_, whose horse that was he rode on,
_Sundercomb_ being then on the outside of the Park; and then _Cecill_
was ready to have done it, but doubted, his horse having at that time
got a cold.”
That they meant to kill the Protector there can be little doubt, and
looked after their means of escape afterwards, for we read in the papers
of the day[21] how--“Once, they thought to have done their work as his
Highness was taking the aire in _Hide-Park_; and, to make way for their
Escape, they had, in one place, Filed off the Hinges of the Gates, and
rode about with the train attending his Highness, with intent to have
given him a fatall Charge, if he had chanced to have galloped out at any
distance from the company.” They also had pulled down some of the
fencing, so as to leave them another place of egress.
Sindercombe was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn
and quartered; but, on the night previous to his execution, he found
means to poison himself, and so cheated the gallows. The coroner’s jury
found a verdict of _felo de se_,[22] and “On the same day, _February
17_, _Miles Sindercom_ aforesaid, being found to have murthered himself,
his Body was, according to Law, drawn to the open place upon _Tower
Hill_, at a Horses Taile, with his head foreward, and there, under the
Scaffold of Common execution, a Hole being digg’d, he was turned in
stark naked, and a stake, spiked with Iron, was driven through him into
the earth; That part of the stake which remaines above ground, being all
plated with Iron, which may stand as an example of terror to all
Traytors for the time to come.”
Previous to this, it had been found necessary to protect the Park, by
authority, as we see by two entries in the _Journals of the House of
Commons_. “7 Oct., 1643. _Ordered_, That the Officers and Soldiers at
the Courts of Guard be required not to permit any to cut down Trees or
Woods in _Hyde Park_, or _Maribone Park_, but such as are authorized
thereto by Ordinance of Parliament; and not to suffer any such persons
to go out of the Works to cut the Woods in these two Parks, or to bring
any from thence, but by Warrant from the Committees appointed for that
Ordinance: and the Officers and Soldiers at the Courts of Guard are
required, from time to time, to be aiding and assisting to _Sir John
Hippesley_, a Member of this House, on all Occasions, to prevent the
cutting down or destroying of the said Parks, unless it be by Authority
of the Ordinance aforesaid.”
And there is another entry on Oct. 14, 1644. “Whereas Information hath
been given, That several unruly and disorderly Persons have, in a
tumultuous and riotous Manner, broken into _Hide Park_, pulled down the
Pales to destroy his Majesty’s Deer and Wood there, notwithstanding
strict Command hath been given to the Contrary: It is _Ordered and
Ordained_, by the Lords and Commons in Parliament, That the said Park
and Deer, and the Woods and Pales, belonging to the said Park, are
hereby protected from the Violence of any Person or Persons whatever:
and that no Soldier, or other, shall presume to pull down, or take away,
any of the Pales belonging to the same, nor kill, or destroy, any Deer
therein; or cut, fell, or carry away, any Wood growing in or about the
said Park, or Mounds thereof. And it is further _Ordered_ for the better
Prevention of the Mischiefs aforesaid, That all Captains and Commanders
of Guards and Forts near the said Park, shall give Notice of this
Ordinance to the Soldiers under their several Commands: And that they
themselves likewise do their Uttermost Endeavours, that this Ordinance
shall be obeyed in all Points: And, lastly, that if any Others, not
being Soldiers, shall offend contrary to this Ordinance, that the
Keepers of the said Park, or some of them may charge any of his
Majesty’s Officers with the said offenders: Who are to be brought before
the Parliament, to be proceeded with according to their Demerits.”
When the King “came to his own again,” the gentlemen who had purchased
Hyde Park, had to restore it to the Crown, on the grounds that the sale
had never been ratified by Parliament: and an early Act of His Majesty’s
was to build a wall around the Park, and re-stock a portion of it with
deer.
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