VAGARIES OF MONARCHS
Queen Mary has not come down to us in a social light. The very idea of
her as a Society personage seems grotesque.
“Bloody Mary” she was in her own time, and as such she will probably
always be known. She rarely went far afield, and her only association
with Hyde Park seems to have been the unusual number of people she
hanged at Tyburn.
The park was still far remote from the town. Streets did not creep
up to its precincts until quite a century and a half later. When Sir
Thomas Wyatt marched with his rebels upon London, his ordnance was
planted at Hyde Park Corner, and his men occupied the fields where now
stand Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood to the south.
It must be recollected that Sir Thomas Wyatt had raised his standard
in Kent to protest against the Spanish marriage of Queen Mary. He had
travelled slowly towards London after defeating the Queen’s forces at
Rochester Bridge. He had wasted much time at Blackheath; and when at
last (3rd February 1554) Wyatt and his army appeared in Southwark, they
found the Queen and the citizens of London prepared, and London Bridge
closed and fortified. He remained at Southwark shooting impotently and
trying to get into London, until the 5th, when he started to march to
the next bridge up the river (Kingston-on-Thames). The weather was
wet and miry, Wyatt’s men disheartened, and he inept as a commander.
They found Kingston Bridge broken and had to ferry across. They then
marched all night through the rain without food, and, tired and wet,
reached Hyde Park Corner early in the morning of the 7th. He posted
his main body across the road at Hyde Park Corner, whilst the Queen’s
forces were set at the top of the opposite hill where Devonshire House
now stands. Wyatt himself, with five companies of men, seems to have
turned down what is now Grosvenor Place, and to have gone along the
Mall towards Charing Cross, a part of his men under Vaughan dividing
from them and going towards Westminster, the object apparently being to
attack Whitehall on both sides, from Charing Cross and from Westminster.
In an extract from the _Diary of a Courtier_ (Sir E. Peckham,
probably), published by the Camden Society, the following passage
occurs:
“Here was no small ado in London, and likewise the Tower made great
preparation of defence. By 10 of the clocke or somewhat more, the
Earle of Pembroke had set his troopp of horsemen on the hill in the
highway above the new bridge, over against St. James, his footemen
was set in 2 battailes somewhat lower and nearer Charing X ... his
ordnance being posted on the hill side. In the mean season Wyatt and
his company planted his ordnance upon the hill beyond St. James over
against the Park Corner; and himself after a few words spoken to his
soldiers came down the olde Lane on foot, hard by the Court Gate of
St. James, with 4 or 5 ensigns, Cuthbert Vaughan and about 2 ensigns
turned down towards Westminster. The Earle of Pembroke hovered all this
while without moving, until all was passed by, saving the tayle, upon
which they dyd sett and cut off. The other marched forward and never
stayed or returned to the ayde of their tayle. The great ordnance shott
off freshly on bothe sydes. Wyatt’s ordnance over shott the troope
of horsemen. The Queen’s ordnance one piece struck three of Wyatt’s
Company in a rank upon their heads and slaying them, struck through the
wall into the (Hyde) Park. More harm was not done by the great shott of
neither partie. The Queen’s hole battaile of footmen standing stille,
Wyatt passed along the wall towards Charing X, and here the said
horsemen that were there, set upon part of them but were soone forced
back.”
An account of this is also given in an extract from Brit. Mus. MSS.
Add. 15215:
“And so came (Wyatt) that day toward St. James felde where was the
Earle of Pembroke the Queen’s lieutenant, and my lord Privy Seal (the
Earl of Bedford) and my Lord Paget, and my Lord Clynton which was Lord
Marshal of the camp, with dyvers other Lords on horsebacke—which Lord
Clynton gave the charge with the horsemen by the Park Corner about
12 of the clocke that day, and Wyatt so passed himself with a small
company towards Charing X.”
_Machyn’s Diary_ (Camden Society) records this battle of Hyde Park as
well:
“The 7th day of February in the forenoon Wyatt with his army and
ordnance were at Hyde Park Corner. There the Queen’s host met him with
a great number of men at arms on horseback besides foot. By one of
the clock the Queen’s men and Wyatt’s had a skirmish; there were many
slain, but Master Wyatt took the way down by St. James’s with a great
company and so to Charing Cross.”
Hyde Park saw brighter scenes under Elizabeth. Splendour and pageantry
marked the age. The Parks, like everything else, were used for purposes
of ostentatious display, with greater frequency than had been the case
under Henry VIII. Hyde Park remained a close Royal preserve, but the
general public began to see more of it.
Among other traits of her father, the Queen inherited his love of
hunting, and herself killed deer in the Royal parks, as also on her
stately progresses through the country when visiting her favourite
nobles. Sometimes she stayed at Westminster, and made hunting
expeditions from there to Hanworth and Oatlands. Lord Hunsdon, her
cousin, she appointed Keeper of Hyde Park, in which office he received
an allowance of fourpence a day, with the “herbage, pannage, and browse
wood for deer.” During his tenure, 1596, the first review was held in
the Park.
Of course, the visits to England of Elizabeth’s many admirers were
made occasions for grand doings, hunts being enjoyed at the outlying
parks of Hampton Court, Windsor, and also in Hyde Park. When John
Casimir, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, came over, he
was entertained right royally, and Hyde Park was the scene of a great
hunting party. It is related that the favoured guest “killed a barren
doe with his piece, amongst three hundred other deer.”
Indeed, the confines of Hyde Park were kept pretty busy with hunts and
executions, sometimes one, sometimes the other; for the great Queen had
the Tudor abruptness of method in dealing with undesirable busybodies.
There must have been many days, indeed, when Elizabeth rode with
courtly grace along the paths, listening to the flatterer’s tongue,
coquetting with one of her many suitors, her courtiers thronging
around their Royal mistress, while just through field and wood some
fellow-creature was ending his earthly career by her decree at Tyburn.
When, in 1581, Count John of Emden and Count Waldeck came to see the
Royal lady, Elizabeth demanded from Lord Hunsdon a report respecting
the game in Hyde Park, and was not at all pleased with the result.
Whether birds and beasts increased thereafter is not told. A year later
stands were erected in Marybone and Hyde Park for the Queen and her
visitor and suitor, the Duke of Anjou, with his train, to view the
chase. Probably, however, the results of the various hunting parties
were unsatisfactory, for a record still exists among the State Papers
of a command by Queen Elizabeth to the cooks of London as to the buying
and selling of venison, forbidding them to purchase from unauthorised
people in the city.
It was evidently supposed that the cooks were the chief offenders in
the matter, and ordered their venison at a cheap rate purloined from
her Majesty’s preserves. On 11th June 1585 we find Sir Thomas Pullyson,
Lord Mayor of London, writing to Walsingham:
“Right Honourable,
“Here yesterday I received this from Her Majesty’s most honorable prime
[minister] advertising me that her Highness was informed that venison
that was ordinarily sold by ye cookes of London was often stole—To the
great destruction of the game—Commanding me thereby to take severall
bondes of —— the yeere of all the cookes in London not to buy or sell
any venison hereafter uppon payne of forfayture of the same bondes;
neither to receive any venison to bake without keeping note of their
names that shall deliver the same unto them. Whereupon presently I
called the wardens of the Cookes before me, advertising them each.
Requiring them to raise their whole company to appeare befor me to the
end I might take bondes.”
The bond was a surety of £40 each—an enormous sum in those days—given
by each cook not to sell any manner of venison in or outside of the
City. It is rather amusing to find that the theft of venison from the
Royal Park was so highly punished in Elizabethan times, but the bond
did not do away with poaching. How those old cooks would smile if they
could see the pheasants, grouse, and partridges on sale in the best
London shops, almost before there has been time for the cartridges to
be fired on the opening days appointed by law, still less for the game
to reach the London market.
Coaches came in with Elizabeth. There was no fashionable chronicler
of the day to tell us exactly which were the favourite resorts of
Society, but it would not be surprising if the rough roads cut in the
spacious parks which extended so far from Whitehall were first put to
use for carriage exercise by Elizabeth’s courtiers. Hyde Park has been
the fashionable drive for centuries. One likes to think of those bumpy
old contrivances, of colossal weight and build, with the stoutness of
a farmer’s cart, as setting the fashion of driving in the park which
has come down unbroken to the present year of grace. These vehicles
afforded Elizabeth’s beruffed gallants and gorgeously attired dames
an opportunity of airing themselves, and probably gave them as much
pleasure, lumbersome though they were, as smart-horsed victorias and
electric landaulettes give their occupants to-day.
That Hyde Park was looked upon as a rural resort for the courtiers and
others who wished for greater seclusion than was to be found in St.
James’s Park, is shown in Major Martin Hume’s _Calendar of Spanish
State Papers of Elizabeth_ (Record Office).
“Count de Feria writes to Philip II. from London, 19th March 1559:
“Since I wrote on the 6th instant I have had a long conversation
with the Treasurer of the Household (_i.e._ Sir Thomas Parry) about
religious affairs, and the obligations that the Queen and the country
owe to your Majesty. He is not so good a Catholic as he should be, but
he is the most reasonable of those near the Queen. She knew that he
was coming to St. James’s Park on that day to speak with me; and she
told him to ask me to go with him to another Park higher up nearer the
execution place, so that the Earl of Pembroke and other gentlemen would
be walking in St. James’s Park might not see us together. The Earl and
the others who were walking there would have been just as shy of being
seen with me, by the Queen or the Treasurer. I say this to show how
suspicious and distrustful they are.”
It was easy enough to take a drive in Hyde Park, but when the Queen
moved farther afield, even for such a short distance as the seven or
eight miles from Chelsea to Richmond, the arrangements required more
attention. Preserved in the Records of the Stationers’ Company is the
following letter:
“By the Mayor,
“To the Wardens of the Companye of Stationers.
“Where the Quene’s most excellente Majestie intendith in her Royal
psonne to repair to her Princelie Palace of Whitehall, on Thursdaie
next, in thafternoone; and for that I and my brethren thaldermen
are commanded to attend on her Majesties psonne from Chelsey to
the Whitehall; Theis therefore in her Majestie’s name to require
you, that yourselfes, with six of the comliest psonages of your
said Companye, be readie at the Parke Corner above Sainte James, on
horseback, apparelled in velvette coats with chaynes of gold on
Thursdaie by twoo of the clocke, in the afternoone, to waite upon
me and my brethren the Aldermen to Chelsey for the recreating her
Majestie accordinglie. And also that you provide sixe staffe torches
lighth as need shall be required. Not failinge hereof, as you will
answere the contrarie at your perill.
“From the Guyldhall, this 28th of Januarie, 1588-9.
“SEBRIGHTE.”
Accordingly, on 30th “January 1588-9” (one may learn from Nichols) the
Queen “travelled from Richmond to Chelsea and so to Westminster, and
the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commoners of her Citie of London, in coates of
velvet and chaines of golde, all on horsebacke, with the Captaines of
the Cittie, to the number of fortie, betwixt five or six of the clock
at torchlight.”
Foreigners say we English take our pleasures sadly; and so we do in
this rushing age. It is well, therefore, that we are being made to
realise what the pageantry of ancient times really meant when our land
was known as “Merrie England.”
Latterly, our so-called “pageants” have been very tame—a few Venetian
masts, some tawdry paper flowers, a little stained bunting, a multitude
of dirty flags of all descriptions, and the route is ready.
This tinsel display reached such a pitch in America, that a few years
ago an order was made forbidding tawdry decorations, and nothing is
allowed but flags—a perfect sea of flags. It so chanced that I was in
America during the last two Presidential campaigns, and both in New
York and Chicago there were thousands, yes, tens of thousands of flags
arranged most beautifully and producing a wonderful effect: nothing
more majestic could be imagined, even sky-scrapers looked less hideous.
The appearance of our quaint old English streets on such occasions
could be much improved by such a systematic arrangement, instead of
festoons of damp and draggled pink and green tissue paper we call
decoration.
In olden times the houses along the route of a pageant were hung with
silks, brocades, and costly cloths. The City Companies marched in
gorgeous array along the ill-kept roads, which at an early date were
gravelled for the honoured one to pass, just as they are sanded to-day
for a Royal procession. The Tyburn waters were checked at the Conduits,
and wine—red and white—flowed from them as the goodly company paced by
with stately mien. At every landmark along the route were stationed
groups of citizens in symbolic costumes. Each forming in itself a
picture.
Every movement of Royalty was accompanied by pageantry, a very
different state of affairs from these modern days, when the King of
England hires a hansom off the rank, or the Prince of Wales strolls
through the streets alone shopping. Edward VII. steps into his motor
at Buckingham Palace absolutely unheeded by anyone, and starts for
Newmarket. His life, except for public functions, is that of a private
gentleman; big displays are few and far between, and even then
seldom, if ever, reach the gorgeousness of olden times. Maybe our
ancestors would be surprised at the great length of route traversed by
present-day Royal personages in their Progresses, for it must be borne
in mind that the pageants of old relate to a very limited London.
Apart from coronations, many records remain of mediæval pageantry.
Edward I., on his return from Palestine in 1274, found wine pouring
from the Conduits, and handfuls of gold and silver were showered upon
him as he passed. A little girl, dressed as an angel in spotless white,
handed wine from the Conduit in Chepe to Richard II. and his Queen;
Henry V., after his victory at Agincourt, was greeted at the north end
of London Bridge by an “angelic host,” and another “heavenly choir” was
stationed in Chepe, while virgins blew golden leaves upon him. When the
child-king Henry VI. arrived in London from France in 1432, Enoch and
Elias addressed him, while Nature, Grace, and Fortune, each attended by
fourteen Virgins, showered gifts upon him.
But to Elizabeth belongs the crowning point of perfection in pageantry.
She loved the pomp, the show, the acclamations of her people; she
encouraged her subjects to vie with each other in the conception and
execution of symbolic groups, asking the meaning of, and bestowing
admiration on, the symbolic groups formed to do her honour. Charles I.,
after a sojourn in Scotland, was the hero of a pageant through London;
Charles II. attended the Lord Mayor’s Show for many years, and as time
passed this display was the chief remnant of those old Progresses our
forbears so enjoyed.
It is strange that the outcome of the Pageant Revival at Sherborne,
1904, by Louis N. Parker, the Master of Pageantry, should have heralded
the “Pageant of London” to be held in 1909. No sooner was the idea
mooted than ten, nay, twenty, thousand people came forward to take the
parts selected.
The love of display is inherent in human nature. The Chinese, the
Greeks, the Romans, and the savage of to-day all in turn have enjoyed
beating drums, flaring torches, and “dressing up.” A revival such as we
are having in London is of the greatest value. The man in the street at
Sherborne, Warwick, St. Albans, Oxford, Bury St. Edmund’s, all learnt
something of the history of their own towns through the pageants which
have lately taken place in their midst.
These revivals in pageantry are a great history lesson, and as
improving to the adult mind as the picture-book is to the child. We
realise so much quicker what we see than what we hear or read.
Poor Elizabeth. Stout-hearted as any man when large matters of State
called for her decision, and yet essentially feminine in her love of
dress, her vanity, and coquetry. Dress became a truly serious burden
of expense in her day, and she wisely regulated it by sumptuary laws
to encourage thrift and common-sense among the masses. Costumes were
ill-adapted for outdoor use, and if we could see again any of those
splendid fêtes in the Royal Park of which the Queen was the central
figure, surrounded by her gallants and grand dames, we should probably
smile at the preposterous awkwardness of everybody in that brilliant
company, despite their magnificence. There is a wonderful picture of
Elizabeth at the Lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge, the residence of
the Master (Dr. Butler), wherein she appears so tightly laced as to
have no interior organs at all, and her voluminous hoops, ruff, and
sleeves cover all the canvas.
Largely it was outward show. Elizabeth has come down to us as a Queen
possessing three thousand silken gowns and one chemise. She did not
own a pair of silk stockings until 1560, when, after receiving some as
a gift, she insisted on always wearing silken hose, and they became
universal. Both ladies and gentlemen wore high-heeled shoes, and
sometimes the heels measured over four inches. Fans were much used,
people of rank having the handles inlaid with diamonds and precious
stones, while those of the middle class adopted silver and ivory
handles. Perfume was in great vogue.
Here is a vision of the Queen as we may imagine her at one of the
fashionable crushes of the time:
“The ruff was profusely laced, plaited, and apparently divergent from
a centre on the back of her neck; it was very broad, extending on each
side of her face, with the extremities reposing on her bosom, from
which rose two wings of lawn edged with jewels, stiffened with wire,
and reaching to the top of her hair, which was moulded in the shape of
a cushion and richly covered with gems. The stomacher was strait and
broad, and though leaving the bosom bare, still formed a long waist by
extending downwards; it was loaded with jewels and embossed gold, and
was preposterously stiff and formal.”
Men’s ruffs never reached the extravagant size of the ladies’ attire,
but they grew to such an extent that Elizabeth considered it necessary
to order that any beyond “a nayle of a yard in depth” should be
clipped. The edge of the ruff was called a “piccadilly,” as may be
seen in several of the earlier dictionaries, hence the name of the
fashionable street abutting on Hyde Park to-day. When there were
practically no houses there, a ruff shop kept by a man named Higgins
existed, and was called a “piccadilly.” Higgins is said to have made
money, and built a row of houses to which he handed on the name. The
term “Pickadilla” is applied to this district in Gerarde’s _Herbal_,
where it is mentioned that “the small wild buglosse” was growing on the
banks of the dry ditches “about Pickadilla.”
Queen Elizabeth was so anxious that she should not be surpassed in
the beauty of her own dress, that in addition to her sumptuary laws
regulating the clothes worn by the different classes of society, young
and old alike, she personally snubbed anyone who she thought wore too
rich a gown or too high a ruff. It is told of Lady Mary Howard that
she appeared at Court in a velvet suit richly trimmed, Her Majesty
looked at it carefully, and the next day sent privately for the robe,
and, donning it herself, entered the room where Lady Mary and her
other ladies were sitting. She then asked what they thought of her
“new-fancied suit,” further inquiring of the owner if it were not too
short. That chagrined lady delightedly answered in the affirmative.
Whereupon the Sovereign gave a sharp retort that if it was too short
for her, it was certainly too fine for Lady Mary, and she must never
wear it more.
Of course, as Queen Elizabeth had sandy-coloured hair, that also became
the fashion, and ladies dyed their tresses and painted their faces.
This curious old Queen, with her enamelled complexion and darkened
eyes, her love of dress, her endless admirers, her hard-hearted and
level-headed administration, is reported to have danced an Irish jig
only a few days before her death.
Pinched and old, and yet rouged to the eyes—for she was vain to the
last—Elizabeth disappears from the scene she had so adorned, and James
VI. of Scotland rides into London—in hunting costume, “a doublet,
green as the grass he stood on, with a feather in his cap, and horn
by his side”—to claim the English throne. On the way he had delayed
his progress to make two or three sporting expeditions from the great
houses at which he stayed. Clearly this was a type of monarch under
whom Hyde Park would be put to other uses than the shows and fêtes and
fashionable dallyings of Elizabeth. So it quickly proved. His first
act of authority over the Royal demesne was to appoint Robert Cecil,
Earl of Salisbury, Keeper of Hyde Park for life, with significant
instructions. The Queen, his predecessor, being a woman, had been too
lenient; he now wished closer supervision, more careful preservation of
the game, and a smart eye to be kept on poachers.
Hyde Park again became the closest of Royal preserves, maintained for
hunting alone. An occasional passage met with in contemporary letters
shows how strictly the forest laws were enforced. Osborne, writing of
this time in 1658, long after James’s death, says of the game laws
instituted by that monarch:
“Nay, I dare boldly say one Man might with more safety have killed
another than a raskall-Deare; but if a Stagge had been knowne to have
miscarried, and the authour fled, a Proclamation with a description
of the party had been presently penned by the Attourney-generall, and
the penalty of His Majesty’s displeasure (by which was understood the
Star-Chamber) threatened against all that did abet comfort or relieve
him. Thus satyricall, or if you please Tragicall, was this sylvan
Prince, against Dear-Killers and indulgent to man-slayers.”
A deer was of more value than a man, and a mole was apparently of
importance. Among the State Papers is a Warrant issued the day after
Christmas, 1603, authorising the Vice-Chamberlain to pay Richard
Hampton, _official Mole-taker_ in St. James’s Park, and the gardens and
grounds at Westminster, Greenwich, Richmond, and Hampton Court, the fee
of fourpence a day and twenty shillings yearly for livery. A man had
just resigned the post, which was evidently considered a lucrative one,
as there were several applications for it.
James I. was a good sportsman, even down to cock-fighting, for he
restored the cockpit which Elizabeth had been at particular pains to
abolish, and appointed a Cockmaster for breeding, feeding, and managing
the King’s game-cocks. But this was an occasional pastime. He enjoyed
many a manlier diversion in the excitement of the hunt, refreshing
himself between times at the Banqueting House erected in the middle
of Hyde Park, with a deep draught of good sack ere he returned to
the Palace of Whitehall. When his Queen was visited by her brother,
the King of Denmark, a series of Royal entertainments were arranged
for him. In an old MS. preserved in the _Harleian Miscellany_ a full
description of some of these occasions is given, and it may be read
that:
“... In the morning very early, being Saturday (Aug. 2nd, 1606), they
hunted in the park of St. James, and killed a buck. Then passed they
on to Hyde Park, where they hunted with great delight, spending the
rest of the forenoon in following their pastime; and about the time of
dinner they returned and there dined; and about four o’clock, their
barges being by commandment ready at the privy stairs, they went by
water to Greenwich.”
To the sporting proclivities of James I. we owe a _Book of Sports_,
in which the Royal writer authorised all those who had been to their
own parish church, to indulge in “sports on the Lord’s Day,” including
dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May games, morrice dances, and
setting up of Maypoles; though bull and bear baiting, interludes, and
bowls, were prohibited. The King ordered the book to be read in the
churches, but the Primate absolutely refused to do so. About twenty
years later, news of deer escaping from the Old Park at Wimbledon, and
having been killed, reached Charles I. He therefore forbade any person
to go into his woods carrying a gun, or engine, to take, or destroy the
game, and if any presumed _after notice given in the churches_, to come
thus provided, the King would have them punished.
Is it not a bit of delightful irony that the Lord’s Day Observance Act,
abolishing all these revels, and under which even now tradesmen are
occasionally fined for opening their shops on Sundays, was a gift to
our generation from that austere monarch Charles II.?
Owing, no doubt, to the strict laws for its preservation made by James
I., game seems to have much increased in the forest glades and about
the marshes and rivulets in Hyde Park. Still the cooks appear to have
been playing their old trick of trying to get venison cheap, for in
1619 the State Papers have a record that two men were found shooting
deer in Hyde Park. They were captured by the keepers, and were hanged
at Hyde Park Corner, as well as an unfortunate labourer whom they had
employed to hold their dogs. One wet season played havoc with the deer
in “Marybone” Park—known to-day as Regent’s Park—and a warrant was
issued to the Keeper of Hyde Park to send three brace of bucks to help
make up the deficiency.
A quaint manuscript is in existence, recording an outlay for the upkeep
of Hyde Park at this period.
“An account of monneys disbursed by Sʳ Walter Cope, Knight, in his
Majesties Parke called Hide Parke, from October 1611 until October 1612:
“Imprimis laid out for two hundred of lime trees brought out of the
Lowe Countries at ten shillings the peece amounts unto twentie poundes;
wᶜʰ were planted along the walkes in the places of those that were
decaied. Also for mending the pondheads and gravelling them, being
spoiled by the floudes in the winter. Also for reparacions about the
lodges, the Parke pale, the standinges, and charges for making the haie
for the deere twentie marks. All wᶜʰ amounts unto 33 li.
(Signed) “WALTER COPE.”
An order for the payment of these moneys follows in the handwriting of
the Earl of Suffolk of the day.
With all his usurpations and vagaries and the pedantry of a narrow
mind, one retains a lingering fondness for James I. He was the last of
the line of British monarchs, going back to the earliest feudal times,
with whom the love of hunting the wild animal in his native glades
remained an absorbing passion. When he passed the way of all men Hyde
Park underwent a great change. It ceased to be a close game preserve,
and became for the first time a real centre of social enjoyment, such
as we still find it. In the wilder parts hunting was practised, but
Charles I. seems to have thrown the park—or at least a large part of
it—open to all comers, with few limitations.
With the ill-fated Stuart King, rather than with Henry VIII., the park
as a place of popular resort really begins.
Life out of doors became more safe, people took more pleasure in going
about, locomotion became easier and money circulated more freely.
As the fashionable world began to take the air farther afield than
St. James’s Park and Pall Mall, more keepers, more lodges, and more
accommodation were required in Hyde Park. Mention is made in the
State Papers that on 20th November 1635, £800 was paid for building a
new lodge in Hyde Park; and three years later there was a payment of
£1123, 5s. 5d. for further work done at the new lodge, according to the
estimate of the famous architect, Inigo Jones.
The area of the Park in which the fashion and beauty of Stuart London
mostly foregathered was that which in after years became famous as “The
Ring,” the precursor of modern racing.
[Illustration:
CHEESECAKE HOUSE. _Print from “The Gentleman’s Magazine.”_
_Where Society partook of syllabub, and the Duke of Hamilton was
carried mortally wounded._]
From before the Restoration until far into the Georgian period it
remained the great resort of all the _beau monde_. The site lay to
the north of the present Serpentine, close by the ground now enclosed
in the Ranger’s private gardens. Such a space—only 300 yards in
diameter—seems too limited to be the rendezvous for the votaries of
fashion, when we think of the crowds in Hyde Park to-day. But Society
was then but a fraction of what the term represents in our time, and
it will be seen that this was the case even after the Ring had long
disappeared. The new tea-house to be opened about 1908, under the
auspices of Mr. L. Harcourt, will stand upon the south-western corner
of the “Ring.” It seems a pity that part of Crosby Hall, anyway the old
banquetting hall, could not have been utilised for this object. By such
means one of the most historical spots in London would have been kept
in our midst. It would be curious should fashion again migrate to the
spot which to Pepys and other gossips, two and a half centuries ago,
was the centre of all the town’s attractions.
A lodge, built of timber and plaster and probably erected in the reign
of James I., stood near by the Ring. It was first known as “Grave
Maurice’s Head,” and there the people frequenting the Park obtained
refreshment. It figures as “The Lodge” in Pepys’ accounts of his
outings, but later was known as the Cheesecake House, probably from the
fact of that special viand being sold there; another name was the “Lake
House.”
There, amid the greenery, the gay world thronged. Cavaliers with
waving plumes, some riding with spurs and swords, others in their new
equipages, while bright-eyed ladies accompanied them to watch the races
and the crowd. Gay gallants courted pretty wenches, smart diplomatists
dropped secrets in the ears of beautiful women. Love-making and court
intrigues were hatched in Hyde Park, and many a romance, many a comedy,
was unfolded under the shade of the trees.
Of the social life of the times in which Hyde Park now began to play
an important part, there is a delightful picture in a letter from one
Mrs. Merricke to Mrs. Lydall, written on 21st January 1638. It is very
modern in sentiment, although written nearly three hundred years ago.
The poor lady was most anxious about her personal appearance, even
in bed, and equally distressed that her library consisted of only two
books. The letter runs:
* * * * *
Letter from Mrs. Merricke to Mrs. Lydall, 21st January 1638.
“Faire Mrs. Lydall,
“For soe my owne eyes bid mee call you, whilst others happie in a
neerer familiaritie intitle you wife, sister, sweetehart, chayce
conceite or the like: give me leave in this rude paper to present
my service, and humblie to begg a boone of you: ’Tis the felicitie
of your place to bee neere the person of my honourable Lady; and
’tis not unknowne how lovelie and solitarie the countrie at this
tyme is, soe tedious indeede to mee (whoe have ever lived among
good companie) that longer than the springe I shall never be able
to indur’t. My earnest suite to you therefore is, to solicite her
honor in my behalfe that her Laᵖ will be pleased to graunte mee her
favour to come upp to towne in Hide-park time. For (howe it comes
about I cannot tell) I feele in my selfe a strange desire to be
satisfied whether I shall injoye my love this yeare or noe; and I
beelive your nightingales there, knowe more in the saye of love then
ours at Wrest, by reason they have the advantage of being bred neere
the Court. Yet I confesse the feare of war with the Scotts does
not a litle trouble mee; for should all the young gallants goe for
souldiers, howe shuld you and I doe for servants? (which, I take it,
is all wee ladyes consider in that businesse) or whoe shuld attend us
to that place of pleasure, which both of us soe jealouslie affect,
that rather then be absent weele venture to committ the absurditie
of going with our own husbands! You would not think how I long to see
those French ladyes, Madam Mornay and Madam Daray, whose beauty has
ariv’d to our eares, and those new starres of our English Court, Mrs.
Harrison and Mrs. Vaughan. I remember when you and I last discourst
of hansome woemen wee thought our penny as good silver as the best,
nor will wee ever, if rul’d by mee, yeild precedence to anie. Let
it not be grievous to enquire of you the newest fashions, whether
they weare theire sleeves downe to the wrests still, the mode the
Dutchesse of Chevereuse brought over, or whether they weare their
neckes up; a fashion in which I confesse I love not my selfe; nor doe
I hold her worthy of a faire necke, or any other good part, that is
not free to showe it. I have a further request unto you, that wou’d
bee pleas’d, when your owne occasions invite you to the Exchange,
to buy mee halfe a dozen of white night coyfes which tye under the
chinn, and as many white hoods to weare over um a dayes, when I’m
not well; for truelie I endeavour as much to looke well by night
as by daye; in the house as abroade; and (for I dare tell you any
thing) I constantly dresse my selfe by my glasse when I goe to bed,
least shou’d a gentleman peepe in my Chamber in the morning (and
gentlemen, you knowe, sometymes will bee uncivill) I shou’d appeare
to him, though not ill-favoured, yet lesse pleaseing. I cou’d wish my
selfe with you, to ease you of this trouble, and with all to see the
Alchymist, which I heare this tearme is reviv’d, and the newe playe a
friend of mine sent to Sʳ John Sucklyn and Tom Carew (the best witts
of the time) to correct. But for want of these gentile recreations,
I must content my selfe here with the Studie of Shackspeare, and the
historie of Woemen, all my Countrie Librarie. Newes have I none to
send you, onely at my Lady Mores wee have lately had a ball, where
your Company was much wished. I had intended to ha’ requited ’um with
another at Wrest, and given ’um the addition of a small banquet,
but they desired it might be put off till you come downe, that your
presence mayᵉ crowne the meeting. I beseech you at your best leisure
honour me with a few lines from your faire hand.
“Your most humble and most affectionate servant,
“ANN MERRICKE.
“Wrest, Janua: 21, 1638.”
Driving and walking became daily more fashionable at the Piccadilly
end of Hyde Park. The gay and frivolous George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, was wont to trip along in all his frills and frippery,
or sitting stately in his coach drawn by six horses, joking with
King Charles, and urging the monarch to some fresh imprudence. Many
looked darkly on the silly intercourse between these two men. Charles,
clinging to the ambitions of his powerful minister, with the obstinacy
of a weak and incapable nature, was far advanced on the way to the
scaffold, when John Fenton,—mixing with the crowds assembled at
Portsmouth to witness Buckingham’s departure for France,—stabbed the
favourite to the heart.
[Illustration: Queen Henrietta Maria’s Penance at Tyburn beneath the
“Triple Tree.”
_From an old Print in the Crowle Collection, British Museum._]
An incident of which much has been made, and which there is little
reason to doubt was grossly exaggerated by the religious bigots of the
time, associated Charles’s Queen, Henrietta Maria, with Hyde Park.
The early years of his French marriage were certainly not happy, the
meddling household of the Queen’s French attendants and Catholic
priests being responsible for the luckless monarch’s domestic broils.
His fierce hatred of their interference obtains expression in a letter
to Buckingham, by virtue of which the lot were “sent packing.” It is
addressed to his “faithful, constant, loving friend Steenie”:
“I command you to send all the French away to-morrow out of the towne,
if you can by fair meanes (but stike not long in disputing), otherwise
force them away, dryving them away lyke so manie wilde beasts, until
ye have shipped them, and so the devil goe with them. Let me heare no
answer, but of the performance of my command.”
Whatever his subsequent weakness, Charles I. was at least in early
years of kingship a forceful letter-writer.
Shortly before this missive was dispatched, the King had been moved
to intolerable anger by the accounts presented to him of the infamous
treatment of his Queen by her Popish entourage. In the early summer of
1626, Henrietta had asked to spend a certain time in retirement and
devotion. After a quiet day passed in the services of her church at
the chapel in St. James’s Park, she turned into Hyde Park, directing
her walk towards Tyburn, whether by intention or not remains unknown.
In any case, it was quite probable that, especially impressed by her
religious seclusion, she bethought herself of those who, not so many
years before, had suffered as martyrs on that gruesome spot for the
very religion she held so dear. She knelt to pray for them, and
perhaps for strength to bear her own weary lot.
A week or two passed before the tale of her surreptitious visit to
Tyburn reached the King. He was told that the Queen had been made
to walk thither barefoot as a penance, and to offer up prayers for
traitors who had ended their days on Tyburn gallows.
Whitelock’s _Chronicle_ gives the Protestant version of the affair:
“Distastes and jealousies were raised about the Government of the
Queen’s Family; wherein the King held himself traduced by some of her
French servants, who said that the King had nothing to do with them, he
being an Heretick.
“The Queen was brought to insist upon it, as part of the Articles, that
she should name all her servants, and some unkindness arose upon it.
The King was also distasted, that her Priests made the Queen to walk to
Tyburn on Penance.
“Upon these Passages the King dismist, and sent back into France all
the Queen’s French Retinue, acquainting the French King with it, and
excusing it to him; but it was ill resented in France, and by them held
contrary to the Articles of Marriage.”
That this was the account generally accredited and sedulously fostered
by the anti-Romish party in the State, is further shown by a letter
preserved in the Harleian MSS., written by Mr. John Pory, a well-known
public man, who had been a Member of Parliament in 1610. After relating
the dismissal of the servants and priests, he says:
“No longer agon then upon St. James his day last, those hippocritical
dogges made the pore Queen to walke afoot (some add barefoot) from her
house at St. James to the gallowes at Tyborne, thereby to honor the
Saint of the day in visiting that holy place, where so many Martyrs
(forsooth) had shed their blood in defense of the Catholic cause. Had
they not also made her to dable in the durte in a foul morning from
Somersett House to St. James, her Luciferian Confessor riding allong by
her in his Coach! Yea, they have made her to go barefoot, to spin, to
eat her meat out of tryne dishes (wooden dishes), to waite at the table
and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances.”
There is a picture of the Queen’s penance, of which a reproduction is
here given. The Queen is seen kneeling by the triangular scaffold,
whither she has been accompanied by her Father Confessor—presumably a
Cardinal—in his coach and six.
Of the “triple tree” itself, its origin and use, there is much to be
said in later chapters on Tyburn.
Strangely enough, when, in 1628, Charles I. raised the jointure of
Henrietta Maria to £28,000, one of the manors assigned to her to
produce the additional £6000 was that of Hyde.
As already said, the Park first became under Charles I. the fashionable
society rendezvous. Its greatest attraction, maybe, was the racing
in the Ring. The occasions, when organised meetings took place, were
special scenes of gaiety, and were evidently thought important events,
as even among the State Papers there is preserved the agreement for a
race that took place there. Though admitting the public so freely, and
himself mixing among them, Charles still looked upon the Royal Park
as a personal possession, and exercised his full authority within it.
It was on one of these occasions that the King, seeing a licentious
Berkshire squire among the company, peremptorily ordered him out of
its confines, speaking of him to the courtiers as an “ugly rascal.”
This expression the squire overheard. He went away quietly; but vowed
vengeance, and gradually embittered the whole of his county against
the King. He had, indeed, his revenge, for writ large on Charles I.’s
death-warrant was the name of the “ugly rascal.”
In the tumultuous years with which the reign closed, Hyde Park saw
other scenes. There the Parliamentary troops mustered in stern array;
there Essex lay waiting with a small force the threatened attack on
London by King Charles, who was expected to march from Oxford to seize
the capital. There came band after band of sturdy patriots to join
the Roundhead army, and General Lambert added his men to those of his
chief. Raw recruits were drilled into the celebrated train-bands,
and in Hyde Park Cromwell reviewed his invincible Ironsides, his own
particular force whom he had especially trained to meet the cavalry
attacks of Prince Rupert.
In 1642 the inhabitants of the City of London made a large fortress
with four bastions south-east of Hyde Park, on the ground now occupied
by Hamilton Place. It was from part of this erection, which was called
“Oliver’s Mount,” that Mount Street, Park Lane, takes its name.
The following year, as the civil strife was still waging fierce and
hot between Royalists and Roundheads, three forts were constructed on
Tyburn Road. It is quaint to think of impromptu fortresses built by an
alarmed populace near Lancaster Gate and Oxford Street. The _Perfect
Diurnal_, an invaluable record of the time, states that the anxiety
of the citizens was such that thousands of men, women, servants, and
children, many members of the Council of the City, well-known public
men, and the trained bands from the Camp, together with feltmakers,
shoemakers, and other tradesmen, all worked their best in throwing up
these fortifications outside the City.
Samuel Butler, in his _Hudibras_, refers to this:
“Women, who were our first apostles,
Without whose aid w’ had all been lost else;
Women, that left no stone unturned
In which the Cause might be concern’d:
Brought in their children’s spoons and whistles,
To purchase swords, carbines, and pistols;
Their husbands, cullies, and sweethearts,
To take the saints’ and church’s parts;
Drew several gifted brethren in,
That for the Bishops would have been,
And fixed them constant to the Party,
With motives powerful and hearty:
Their husbands robb’d, and made hard shifts,
T’ administer unto their gifts
All they could rap, and rend, and pilfer,
To scraps and ends of gold and silver;
* * * * *
What have they done, or what left undone,
That might advance the Cause at London?
March’d rank and file, with drum and ensign,
T’ entrench the city for defence in;
Rais’d rampires with their own soft hands,
To put the enemy to stands;
From ladies down to oyster-wenches
Labour’d like pioneers in trenches,
Fell to their pick-axes and tools,
And help’d the men to dig like moles?”
The women, and even ladies of rank and fortune, not only encouraged
the men, but worked with their own hands. Dr. Nash mentions Lady
Middlesex, Lady Foster, Lady Anne Walker, and Mrs. Dunch as having been
particularly celebrated for their activity.
Again in the _Perfect Diurnal_ of 4th January 1643, one reads:
“Collonell Browne the Scotchman, upon some Complaints made against him
by his Souldiers, for detaining their pay, was apprehended this day by
the Court of Guard at Hide Park, by an order from the Close Committee,
and Committed to safe custody to answere the same.”
So we may conclude that all was not peace among the troops encamped in
the Park.
In the State Papers there are several references to Hyde Park, throwing
sidelights on the life of the people of the day. For instance, after
the Battle of Naseby every person of consequence who had been engaged
in the struggle was strictly supervised, and it was necessary for all
strangers to have a pass to enter the City of London.
The Earl of Northampton, wishing to cross to Holland, secured a pass to
embark from London, and arriving at the fortress at Hyde Park Corner,
then so called, but now the Marble Arch, duly handed it to the Captain
commanding the Guard. That officer, finding the Earl was accompanied
by five servants while his pass only allowed four, seized one of the
horses. The Earl, detained much to his annoyance by this incident,
petitioned the Committee of both Kingdoms to restore the animal. The
Committee, although commending the Captain for close observance of
duty, explained that as the Earl of Northampton was going beyond the
seas he would need the horse, and therefore they wished it returned.
This examination at Hyde Park must have been very searching, for in the
_Perfect Diurnal_ of 5th January 1643, it is recorded that
“Sir Edward Wardner, Doctor Castle of Westminster, Doctor Fuller of
the Savoy, Mr. Dinckson of Saint Clements, and some others this day
set forward towards Oxford with a Petition to His Majesty for an
accommodation (as is pretended); and being examined upon the way by
the Courts of Guard at Hide Parke, they produced a Warrant from the
Lords in Parliament for the free Passage with their Petition to His
Majesty without interception. Whereupon the Captaine of the Guard told
them that though he was commanded by their Warrant to give them free
Passage with their Petition, yet he would search them, that they should
carry nothing else to his Majesty, which he did accordingly, and found
divers Letters about them, especially Doctor Dinckson.”
These papers were handed to the Commons, and the Committee found them
to be “of a very high and dangerous consequence.” The party, after
having been stripped of all papers except their petition, had been
allowed to proceed to Oxford, but a troop of “Dragouners” was sent to
bring them back to Parliament, so back they came, done.