FASHION AND FRIVOLITY
Great changes came over Hyde Park with the arrival of Charles II. in
England.
All the purchases of Royal Lands were annulled as unlawful and the
property was seized for the Crown. As the new King, once he had made
his position secure, showed no desire to prevent his subjects sharing
with himself the enjoyment of the parks, the step was most popular.
Anthony Deane’s “porters with long staves”—presumably to trounce
intruders who did not pay for entrance—were swept away, and again the
public were free to pass in at their own will.
On the very spot where the Parliamentary troops had been massed, and
Cromwell had harangued them, enormous crowds assembled to shout a
welcome to the returned monarch.
That was a great day.
In order that the reception should be a thoroughly imposing one, all
the representatives of the City attended. Troops were poured into
the Park, and there was an Order by the new Council of State to the
militia of London[1] “to Rendezvous their Regiments of Trained Bands
and Auxiliaries at Hide Park. Major Cox, Quarter Master General of
the City, hath since by their order been to view the Ground; and
hath allotted a place to be erected for the reception of the Lord
Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the Commissioners for the Militia.
The Lord Mayor intends to appear there with his Collar of Esses, and
all the Aldermen in Scarlet Robes, attended with the Mace and Cap of
Maintenance as usual at great Ceremonies.”
So, amid tumultuous rejoicings, and surrounded by all the glamour and
pageantry of the restored Court, King Charles II. came back to England
from his exile on the Continent. The breach from the sterner Puritan
ideals was complete. The coarse spirit of the age, so long suppressed,
broke out afresh in utter abandonment of all restraint, and with
Charles II. there came a period of open licentiousness which happily
is unexampled in our history—though, truth to tell, the scandals to
which the Merry Monarch and his voluptuous courtiers gave rise in such
profusion form piquant reading for people of later days.
Charles had no idea of restoring the Park to its original condition as
a game preserve. Such liberties as his father had granted to the public
he freely extended. The public took full advantage of them. The diaries
of the day are packed with references to Hyde and St. James’s Parks,
which at a bound again became the centre of all the gay and fashionable
life of the town. To do him justice, Charles made no pretentions
towards a love of sport. A cock-fight amused him, but rather he
preferred the excitement of his flirtations, his amours, the races in
the Ring, his birds, his spaniels, and his passion for gambling.
A few scattered portions of the pasture lands, however, seem to have
been let out as farms. The Park was placed in the general care of the
Duke of Gloucester, to whom a warrant was made “of the Custody of
Hyde Park with all Houses, etc. belonging thereto; fee, 8d. per day.”
Mr. James Hamilton—after whom Hamilton Place was named—was appointed
Ranger. Some one with a money-making turn of mind evidently thought it
would be a good plan to utilise land for growing fruit, and Hamilton
began negotiations for enclosing a portion of the grounds as an
orchard. Later in the reign some of the deer were restored to the Park,
and an ornamental path and wall were made round it. A more substantial
brick wall, 6½ feet high inside and 8 feet outside, was built by George
I. to enclose the Park, and remained standing until 1828, when it was
replaced by open iron railings.
Hamilton fared by no means badly with his Rangership, for on his
retirement he received a pension of £850 a year, and a pension of £500
was granted to his widow to commence on his death, to be paid out of
the clergy tenths or tithes in certain dioceses.
The fashion of the period was to resort to Hyde Park for a drive, but
St. James’s Park, Spring Gardens, the Mulberry Gardens (on the present
site of Buckingham Palace, which had been planted by James I. to
encourage the silk industry) were the favourite places of recreation.
Sports and games abounded in St. James’s, which, being close to
Whitehall, was always held in the highest favour by the Merry Monarch,
who loitered there mornings and afternoons, surrounded by his courtiers
and mistresses. He extended its attractions, planting trees, laying out
walks, and improving the canal, which, however, still remained straight
and uninteresting. Cages with numerous species of birds were placed in
the trees of Bird Cage Walk, then known as the Aviary. The King loved
to feed and fondle these pets of his, coming with his pockets full of
their favourite foods, his dogs following him. So numerous were the pet
birds and so carefully tended by their Royal Master, that hemp-seed
remained for a long time one of the items of expense in the bills of
the Royal Mews.
The Mall was kept in splendid condition for the old game of _Paile
Maille_, from which some say we derive the word Pall Mall, now the name
of a neighbouring street, while the Royal Cockpit was again in constant
use by the King and his courtiers. Dryden is said to have wandered in
the Mulberry Gardens and eaten the fruit while he composed his verses.
“Hyde Park” (writes Count de Grammont) “as every one knows, is to
London what the Cours is to Paris. Nothing was then so much in Fashion
during the fair Season as the taking the Air at the Ring, which was the
ordinary Rendezvous of Magnificence and Beauty. Whoever had bright Eyes
or a fine Equipage never failed to repair thither, and the King was
extremely delighted with the place.”
Those were the days of wigs and velvets and extravagance in men’s
dress. They wore silk stockings with shoes, or long boots curling
over at the top, embroidered coats, lace, frills, and plumed hats.
Picturesque and beautiful was their attire. The women’s full skirts
were made of handsome stuffs, and rivalry of splendour was still
rampant. Verily an age of extravagance. The Ring long remained the
chief social centre in the Park. It seems to have been but poorly laid
out, judging by Wilson’s description, 1679, in his _Memoirs_, published
many years afterwards:
“Here the people of fashion take the diversion of the Ring. In a pretty
high place, which lies very open; they have surrounded a circumference
of two or three hundred paces diameter with a sorry kind of balustrade,
or rather with postes placed upon stakes but three feet from the
ground; and the coaches drive round this. When they have turned for
some time round one way, they face about and turn tother: so rowls the
world!”
Among the customs of the Stuart and early Hanoverian periods was
that of issuing—in the absence of the voluminous Press of our
time—“broadsides” and “satyrs” on leaflets, which were distributed
through London, and “took off” the leading people and topics of the
day. The Ring afforded a rich field for these so long as it lived, and
held as important a place in that class of literature as Hyde Park does
in our modern Society papers.
So much is said about the Park by the diarists Pepys and Evelyn, that
the social life of the place may almost be pictured from their pages
alone.
Pepys is always a delight. One may still see his famous MS. “Diary”
in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge. It is in four or five
volumes of shorthand, neatly written, with tidy margins, and the names
of persons and places in well-formed letters in longhand. Presumably
he did not intend it for publication, or he would not have written it
in shorthand, and that of an extraordinarily complicated nature. Years
elapsed before it was deciphered, and still more years passed before it
became a classic in literature.
Samuel Pepys was the son of a tailor; but he became Secretary of the
Admiralty, an appointment he filled most ably for many years. He was
also President of the Royal Society. His mind was both as refined and
as coarse as the age in which he lived. He jotted down the minutest
details of the day. At his death he left his library to his old
College, and, strange to relate, the double rows in the shelves were
arranged by him according to size, and in no way according to subject,
so that a tiny note-book of James I. in this remarkable collection
comes number one.
John Evelyn, the contemporary of Pepys, has also left entries of his
daily round for a period of about sixty years, made complete by a
slight sketch of his life up to the time his _Diary_ commences. He came
from a good Surrey stock, Royalist to their heart’s core; but owing
to the Great Rebellion he lived abroad for some years, returning to
England in 1652, when he diligently wrote various books. Evelyn was
later made a Fellow of the Royal Society, then newly founded, and now
the most coveted position a man of science and learning can attain.
From that time his work embraced various scientific subjects. Amongst
them he laid before the Society observations on the growth of trees,
which he afterwards fully discussed in _Sylva_. The early _Reports of
the Royal Society_ contain this quaint announcement: “Mr. Evelyn gave
some account of the experiment recommended to him, of putting some
flesh and blood in a vessel covered with flannel, in order to see what
insects it would breed, and he observed that it bred nothing. He was
requested by the Society to continue the Experiment.”
Bacteriologists who find such wondrous products and germs in blood must
smile over his barren result.
As soon as the gaieties of the Park were revived we find Pepys to the
fore, anxious to miss nothing. In the autumn of the Restoration year he
writes:
“With Mr. Moore and Creed to Hide Park by coach, and saw a fine
foot-race three times round the Park between an Irishman and Crow, that
was once my Lord Claypole’s footman. Crow beat the other by above two
miles.”
In the following year the Diarists both refer to the May-Day
demonstrations as unsurpassed. Pepys was obliged to be out of town on
business, and again expresses his regret at not being “among the great
gallants and ladies, which will be very fine”; while one detects in
Evelyn’s note the Royalist’s satisfaction over the Restoration: “I went
to Hide Park” (he says) “to take the air, where was His Majesty and an
innumerable appearance of gallants and rich coaches, being now a time
of universal festivity.”
Pepys was more fortunate in reaching the Park on May Day, 1663, but he
was not pleased:
“Turned and rode through the fields and then to Holborn ... towards
Hide Park, whither all the world, I think, are going.... I saw nothing
good, neither the King nor my Lady Castlemaine nor my great ladies
or beauties being here, there being more pleasure a great deal at an
ordinary day; or else those few good faces that there were were choked
up with the many bad ones, there being people of all sorts in coaches
there, to some thousands I think. Going thither in the highway, just by
the Park gate, I met a boy in a sculler boat, carried by a dozen people
at least, rowing as hard as he could drive, it seems upon some wager.
By and by, about seven or eight o’clock homeward ... coaches going in
great crowds to the further end of the town almost.”
Hearts seemed light and Society gay, for the Diarist makes mention
of several visits to the Park during that year; of the King and his
mistress Lady Castlemaine, who finally died in poverty, greeting one
another from their respective coaches “at every tour”; of a drive with
Mrs. Pepys, wherein there was little pleasure on account of the dust,
and one of the horses falling down and getting his leg over the pole;
and another occasion when the worthy couple enjoyed the sight of a
“store of coaches and good faces.” Only when Charles II. pulled up
to speak to his friends—chiefly ladies—was the continuous string of
carriages allowed to stop.
But the day of that season seems to have been a great Review held in
Hyde Park on 4th July. Both Diarists write of this event, and as the
entries are truly characteristic of the different style of the two
journals, I give them both. First Evelyn:
“I saw his Majesty’s Guards, being of horse and foot 4000, led by the
General, the Duke of Albemarle [General Monk, who had done so much to
bring about the Restoration], in extraordinary equipage and gallantry,
consisting of gentlemen of quality and veteran soldiers, excellently
clad, mounted and ordered, drawn up in battalia before their Majesties
in Hyde Park, where the old Earl of Cleveland trailed a pike, and led
the right-hand file in a foot-company, commanded by Lord Wentworth,
his son: as worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and
valiant soldiers. This was to show the French Ambassador, Monsieur
Comminges; there being a great assembly of coaches etc. in the Park.”
It is left to Pepys to pourtray the lighter side:
“Thence with Creed to hire a coach to carry us to Hide Park, to-day
there being a general muster of the King’s Guards, horse and foot; but
the demand so high, that I, spying Mr. Cutler the marchant, did take
notice of him, and he going into his coach, and telling me that he was
going to shew a couple of Swedish strangers the muster, I asked and
went along with him; where a goodly sight to see so many fine horses
and officers, and the King, Duke, and others come by a-horseback, and
the two Queens in the Queen-Mother’s coach, my Lady Castlemayne not
being there, I ’light and walked to the place where the King, Duke,
etc., did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge their
guns, to show a French Marquisse (for whom the muster was caused) the
goodness of our firemen; which indeed was very good, though not without
a slip now and then; and one broadside so close to our coach we had
going out of the Park, even to the nearness to be ready to burn our
hairs.”
A few days later Pepys describes another visit to Hyde Park:
“Hearing that the King and Queen are rode abroad with the Ladies of
Honour in the Park, and seeing a great crowd of gallants staying here
to see their return, I also staid walking up and down.... By and by
the King and Queen, who looked in this dress (a white laced waistcoat
and a crimson short petticoat, and her hair dressed _à la negligence_)
_mighty_ pretty; and the King rode hand in hand with her. Here was also
my Lady Castlemaine rode among the rest of the ladies, but the King
took, methought, no notice of her.”
Pepys was a man of many parts, and one of the most human of his kind.
This wonderful _Diary_ of his contains the moralising of a philosopher,
mixed with descriptions of the skittish flirtations of the man about
town, the deeper _amours_ of the licentious Court, and the coarsest
scandal and gossip, prices of various articles, political events, the
weather, the servant question, and details of ladies’ gowns. He even
sent a “poor fellow” to sit at the Duke of York’s playhouse to keep a
seat for him, as messenger boys are sent to-day to secure seats in the
pit.
When at this time the riding habit for ladies was first displayed in
Hyde Park, Pepys writes:
“I saw them with coats and doublets with deep skirts, just like mine,
and their doublets buttoned up the breast, with perriwigs and hats, so
that only for a long petticoat dragging under the men’s coats, nobody
would take them for women in any point whatever.”
On another occasion we find him discussing ladies’ dress with Lady
Carteret:
“She tells me the ladies are to go into a new fashion shortly, and that
is to wear short coats, above their ancles; which she and I do not
like, but conclude this long trayne to be mighty graceful.”
In 1664 he thus speaks of Lady Castlemaine:
“To Hide Parke, where I have not been since last year; where I saw the
King with his periwigg, but not altered at all; and my Lady Castlemayne
in a coach by herself, in yellow satin and a pinner on; and many brave
persons. And myself being in a hackney coach and full of people, was
ashamed to be seen of the world, many of them knowing me.”
Poor Pepys, what a love of display and dress.
Gloves seem to have been a valued article of dress at this time. De
Grammont mentions the fact that they were given as presents, and much
store put upon them: “Martial gloves were then very much the fashion.”
This rather flavours of reviews, but he does not refer to anything
military, only to a famous firm of glovers in Paris, Martial by name,
whose gloves—like all things French in those days—were in great
request.
Pepys leaves behind him a graphic chronicle of the licentiousness and
profligacy of the period, which had best be thrust aside, but his
description of the Court generally may be quoted here:
“The Court, as hinted before, was the seat and Fountain of Sports,
Pleasures and Enjoyments, and all the polite and magnificent
Entertainments, which are generally inspired by the Inclinations of a
tender, amorous and indulgent Prince. The Beauties studied to charm,
the men to please; And all, in short, improved their talents the best
they could. Some distinguished themselves by Dancing, others by Show
and Magnificence, some by their Wit, many by their Amours, but very few
by their Constancy.”
It was about this time that Lord Arlington erected a house near the
Mulberry Gardens, and during the Plague he brought the first pound of
tea from Holland, which cost him thirty shillings; so that probably the
first cup of tea drunk in England was enjoyed where Buckingham Palace
now stands.
James Hamilton, the Ranger of Hyde Park, and John Birch, the Auditor
of Excise, were, after much discussion, successful in the negotiations
for their orchard, and in 1664 they received a grant “of 55 acres
of land on the borders of the said park, to be planted with trees
for eating-apples or cider, reserving a way through Westminster to
Kensington, on condition of their enclosing and planting the ground
at their own cost, paying a rental of £5, and giving half the apples”
(which were to be redstreaks or pippins) “for the use of the King’s
Household.” The State Papers also record that a lease of forty-one
years of 55 acres in the north-west corner of Hyde Park, for growing
apples, was granted on the above conditions.
But in the following year the Great Plague, more virulent and more
fatal than ever, broke out and raged in London. Such a visitation, bad
as the plagues had been in mediæval times, had never been known. Panic
ensued, and everyone who could do so left London and its suburbs. The
Metropolis became a deserted city.
Hyde Park was made a plague camping-ground. Among those quartered
within its boundaries were regiments of soldiers from the Tower and
elsewhere. One of these men, evidently an amusing, observant fellow,
without any poetical gifts, bethought himself to write a doggerel
account of his experiences. It is an excellent picture of the time, and
depicts the horrors of the Plague even as far afield as Hyde Park was
at that day:
HIDE PARK CAMP
Limnd out to the Life,
Truly and Impartially, for the Information and Satisfaction of such
as were not Eye Witnesses, of the Souldiers’ sad sufferings, In that
(never-to-be-forgotten) Year of our Lord God, one thousand six hundred
and sixty-five.
Written by a fellow souldier and Sufferer
in the said Camp.
Help now (Minerva), stand a Souldier’s friend,
Direct my Muse, that I may not offend.
’Tis known I write not for to gain applause,
My Sword and Pen shall maintain Martial Laws.
* * * * *
In July, Sixteen hundred sixty and five,
(O happy is the Man that’s now alive)
When God’s destroying Angel sore did smite us,
’Cause he from sin by no means could invite us;
When lovely London was in mourning clad,
And not a Countenance appeared but sad;
When the Contagion all about was spread;
And people in the streets did fall down dead;
When Money’d Fugitives away did flee,
And took their Heels, in hopes to scape scot-free,
Just then we march’t away, the more’s the pitty,
And took our farewell of the Doleful City.
With heavy hearts into Hide Park we came,
To chuse a Place whereas we might remain.
Our ground we viewed, then straight to work didfall,
And build up Houses without any wall.
We pitch’t our Tents in ridges and in Furrows,
And there encamp’t, fearing the Almighty’s Arrows.
But O, Alas! what did this avail;
Our men (ere long) began to droop and quail.
Our lodgings cold, and some not us’d thereto,
Fell sick and dy’d, and made no more adoe.
At length the Plague amongst us ’gan to spread,
When ev’ry morning some were found stark dead.
Down to another Field the sick were t’ane;
But few went down, that e’er came up again.
For want of comfort, many I observed,
Perished and dy’d, which might have been preserved.
But that which most of all did grieve my soul
To see poor Christians dragged into a hole.
Tye match about them, as they had been Logs,
And Draw them into Holes, far worse than Dogs.
When each man did expect his turn was next,
O then our Hearts with sorrow was perplext.
Our officers amazed stood, for dread,
To see their men no sooner sick than dead.
But that which most of all did grieve them, why?
To help the same, there was no remedy.
A Pest house was prepared, and means was us’d,
That none should be excluded, or refused:
Yet all would not avail, they dy’d apace,
As one dy’d out, another took his place.
A sad and dismal time, as ere was known,
When Corps, in the wide fields, about was thrown.
* * * * *
Methinks I hear some say, Friend, Prithee hark,
Where got you drink and victuals in the Park?
I, there’s the Query; we shall soon decide it,
Why, we had men called Sutlers, provided;
Subtle they were, before they drove this Trade,
But by this means they all were subtler made.
No wind or weather, ere could make them flinch
Yet they would have the Souldiers at a pinch.
For my part I know little of their way,
But what I heard my fellow-Souldiers say:
One said, Their Meat and Pottage was too fat;
Yes, quoth another, we got none of that:
Besides, quoth he, they have a cunning sleight,
In selling out their meate by pinching weight,
To make us pay sixpence a pound for Beefe,
To a poor Souldier, is no little grief.
Their Bread is small, their Cheese is markt by th’ Inch,
And to speak the Truth, they’re all upon the pinch.
As for their Liquor, drink it but at Leazure,
And you shall ne’re be drunk with over measure.
* * * * *
But leave them now because Tattoo has beat
And fairly to our tents let us retreat,
Where we keep such a coyl, and such a quarter,
And all to make the tedious nights seem shorter.
Then down we lie, until our bones do ake,
First one side, then the other weary make.
When frost did pinch us, then we shake and shiver,
And full as bad we were in stormy weather.
A boisterous blast, when men with sleep were dead,
Would bring their houses down upon their head.
Thus in extremity we often lay,
Longing to see the dawning of the day,
Which brought us little comfort, for the Air
Was very sharp, and very hard our fare.
Our sufferings were almost beyond belief,
And yet we found small hopes to have relief.
* * * * *
We were as glad when we got to a Cup
Of Nappy ale, to take a pretty sup:
But durst not go to town, on any cause,
For fear the Martial catch us in his claws.
About the park to walk for recreation,
We might be free, we knew our bounds and station,
But not a coach was stirring anywhere,
Unless ’twere such as brought us in our Beer.
Alass, Hide Park, these are with the sad dayes,
The Coaches all are turned to Brewers’ Drayes;
Instead of Girls with Oranges and Lemons,
The Baker’s boys, they brought in Loaves by dozens;
And by that means, they kept us pretty sober
Until the end of wet October.
They proms’d we should march, and then we leapt,
But all their promises were broke (or kept).
They made us all, for want of Winter Quarters,
Ready to hang ourselves in our own Garters.
At last the Dove came with the Olive branch,
And told for certain, that we should advance
Out of the Field; O then we leapt for joy,
And cried with one accord, Vive le Roy.
What did the Sutlers then? nay, what do ye think?
For very grief, they gave away their drink.
But it’s no matter, let them laugh that wins,
They were no loosers. (God forgive their sins.)
Upon Gunpowder Treason Day, (at night)
We burnt our Bed-straw, to make Bonfire light;
And went to bed that night so merry-hearted
For joy, we and our Lodgings should be parted:
Next morning we were up by break of day,
To be in readiness to march away.
We bid adue to Hide Park’s fruitful Soil,
And left the Countrey to divide the spoyl.
* * * * *
God bless King Charles, and send him long to Reign,
And grant we may never know the like again.
(LONDON. Printed by P. L. for J. P.)
[Illustration: A Prostitute Drummed Out of Hyde Park.]
People were at their wits’ end to know what to do at the time of the
Plague, but some laughed at a novel proposal made in London while
the scourge was raging, that a vessel should be freighted with peeled
onions and sail along the Thames to absorb the infection of the air;
after which it should proceed to sea and throw them overboard.
But an unexpected disinfectant followed in the Great Fire, which
stamped out the contagion so well that never again has London been
visited by the plague. A half-witted Frenchman swung on the gallows
at Tyburn on his own confession of having started the conflagration,
though when making his final exit from this world he denied it.
This Frenchman was named Robert Hubert. In the opinion of many he was a
madman, but in spite of this an inscription was placed on the Monument
that the Great Fire was the result of a Papist conspiracy. This was
removed by James II., but replaced by William III. and remained until
1830, when it was finally done away with.
In the same year as the Fire, and almost before its flames were
quenched, the gay world resumed the daily drive to the Park, and we
again find Pepys joining a colleague at the Admiralty and adjourning
thither in a coach to secure a quiet _tête-à-tête_ on some State
question. We read of him attending a theatre or conducting his
favourite actress or another of his _amours_, for a drive in the Park,
or refreshment at the Lodge. Syllabub was greatly in fashion at Cake
House. It was composed of milk whipped up with wine and sugar, or cream
whipped with cider.
Pepys took his wife for frequent outings, enjoying the gossip round
the Ring, dining at the “Pillars of Hercules”—an inn near the site of
the present Apsley House—or eating a cheese-cake at the Lodge “with
a tankard of milk”; experiencing a sense of shame at being seen in a
hackney coach. “To Park in a hackney coach, so would not go into the
Tour, but round the Park, and to the House, and there at the door eat
and drank.”
His criticism of dress was strong to the last, for one of the first
entries he makes after the return of “London” to Hyde Park was on 21st
April 1666, and runs:
“Thence, with my Lord Brouncke [the first President of the Royal
Society] in his coach to Hide Parke, the first time I have been
there this year. There the King was; but I was sorry to see my Lady
Castlemaine, for the mourning forceing all the ladies to go in black,
with their hair plain, and without any spots [patches] I find her to be
a much more ordinary woman than ever I durst have thought she was.”
When the effect of the Plague and Fire had worn off, Hyde Park
evidently became gayer and gayer. Our old Diarist, who, like all the
gossips of the seventeenth century, was gifted with great powers of
curiosity and criticism, gives a full account of May Day, 1667.
At this time a most eccentric figure played a conspicuous part in
Society, in the person of the Duchess of Newcastle. Her attire and
equipage were so peculiar that she never sallied forth without a crowd
of boys and girls following to look at the quaint display. Such a
sight would delight Pepys, who several times mentions, with genuine
disappointment, the fact of not being able to see her properly on
account of the crowd of onlookers who formed her escort. She was a
great attraction in the Park on this May Day, for we read:
“Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his coach, Tiburne way, into the Park,
where a horrid dust, and number of coaches without pleasure or order.
That which we, and almost all went for, was to see my Lady Newcastle;
which we could not, she being followed and crowded upon by coaches all
the way she went, that nobody could come near her; only I could see she
was in a large black coach adorned with silver instead of gold, and so
white curtains, and every thing black and white, and herself in her
cap, but other parts I could not make. But that which I did see, and
wonder at with reason, was to find Peggy Penn in a new coach, with only
her husband’s pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and
in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see
one or other, for neatness and richness of gold, and everything that
is noble. My lady Castlemayne, the King, my Lord St. Albans, nor Mr.
St. Jermyn have so neat a coach that ever I saw. And Lord! to have them
have this, and nothing else that is correspondent, is to me one of the
most ridiculous sights that ever I did see, though her present dress
was well enough, but to live in the condition they do at home, and be
abroad in this coach, astonishes me.”
Reviews were held frequently. In the autumn of 1668, Pepys attended one
of these: “Colonel the Duke of Monmouth in mighty rich clothes, but
the well-ordering of the men I understand not,” he writes. A “thousand
coaches” were present, for it was a gay sight. The soldiers on these
occasions made a brave show with their Cavalier hats and bright coats,
while even the horses were bedecked with ribbons on their heads, manes,
and tails.
The next year saw the fulfilment of a long-deferred hope in Pepys’
fashionable life, for he then started his own coach. His words are too
quaint to omit:
“Thence to Hyde Park, the first time we were there this year, or ever
in our own coach, where with mighty pride rode up and down, and many
coaches there; and I thought our horses and coach as pretty as any
there, and observed so to be by others. Here staid till night.”
The new coach was put to frequent use. A fortnight later he writes:
“Thence to the Park, my wife and I: and here did Sir W. Coventry first
see me and my wife in a coach of our own: and so did also this night
the Duke of York, who did eye my wife mightily. But I begin to doubt
that my being so much seen in my own coach at this time may be observed
to my prejudice: but I must venture now.”
This new purchase added much to Mr. and Mrs. Pepys’ enjoyment of the
May-Day show, although their tempers were none of the best on that
occasion, seemingly:
“At noon home to dinner, and there find my wife extraordinary fine,
with her flowered tably gown that she made two years ago, now laced
exceeding pretty; and indeed was fine all over; and mighty earnest to
go though the day was very lowering; and she would have me put on my
fine suit, which I did. And so anon we went alone through the town with
our new liveries of serge, and the horses’ manes and tails tied with
red ribbons, and the standards there gilt with varnish, and all clean,
and green reines, that people did mightily look upon us; and the truth
is, I did not see any coach more pretty though more gay, than ours,
all the day. But we set out, out of humour—I because Betty, whom I
expected, was not to come to go with us; and my wife that I would sit
on the same seat with her, which she likes not, being so fine: and she
then expected to meet Sheres, which we did in Pell Mell, and against my
will, I was forced to take him into the coach, but was sullen all day
almost, and little complaisant; the day also being unpleasing, though
the Park full of coaches, but dusty and windy and cold, and now and
then a little dribbling rain; and what made it worst there were so many
hackney coaches as spoiled the sight of the Gentlemen’s; and so we had
little pleasure. But here was W. Batelier and his sister in a borrowed
coach by themselves, and I took them and we to the Lodge; and at the
door did give them a syllabub and other things cost me 12s. and pretty
merry: and so back to the coaches and there till evening.”
It was at a Review a few days after that Pepys “saw more, walking out
of my coach as other gentlemen did, of a soldier’s trade than ever
I did in my life; the men being mighty fine, and their commanders,
particularly the Duke of Monmouth, but methought the trade but very
easy as to the mustering of their men, but indifferently ready to
perform what was commanded, in the handling of arms.” This entry is
followed up by a bit of gossip such as Pepys dearly loved to retail:
“Here the news first talked of Harry Killigrew’s being wounded in nine
places last night by footmen in the highway, going from the Park in a
hackney coach towards Hammersmith to his house at Turnham Greene; they
being supposed to be my Lady Shrewsbury’s men, she being by, in her
coach with six horses, upon an old grudge.”
The above quotations are among the closing entries of the old writer.
That month of May often brought him to Hyde Park—“in our own coach”
as he proudly indites. He drove there on Whit-Sunday, and twice took
his wife for refreshment to “The World’s End,” which he describes as a
drinking-house by the Park, at Knightsbridge; and both he and Evelyn
mention the wonderful display of fireworks on the King’s birthday (29th
May 1669).
Records and letters preserved by many of the noble families contain
numerous references to the gaieties of Hyde Park under the Restoration.
In the Harley Papers at Welbeck Abbey, and the Rutland Manuscripts at
Belvoir Castle, letters exist written by Edward Harley to his father,
Sir Edward Harley, and from Lady Mary Bertie to her niece, describing
in detail the review that was held in “Hide Parke” in honour of the
visit of the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.), then a youth
of nineteen. Mr. Harley says: “Yesterday there was a review in Hyde
Park of all the Guards, horse, foot, cannon, and pioneers, to entertain
the Prince of Orange.”
Lady Rachel Russell writes to Lady Granby at Belvoir Castle:
“Lady Salisbury was at Hyde Park a Sunday night, mighty Frenchified in
her dresse, as your brother says.... Mr. Beaumont was upon the road and
met two coaches and six horses, and the lady lifted up a curtain, and
in French, spoke to aske how far ’twas to Hatfield.”
This was another evidence of the love of everything French under the
régime of Charles II.
With another letter from the Rutland Papers, delightful and only
a trifle scandalous, this chapter may be fitly closed. The little
incident, told in such a matter-of-fact way, of her Grace of Sussex
and Madame Mazarin going down to St. James’s Park with drawn swords
under their night-gowns, and making “several fine passes” before an
applauding circle of men, tells more of those times than pages of
moralising. It is from Lady Chaworth to Lord Ross:
DEC. 25, 1676.
“... I shall send your Lordship the peck of chesnuts, and 5 lb. of
vermicelli by the Munday carrier, and hope you will find them all
good, 3 lb. of the vermicelli being the same, but made up in new
shapes, which Signore Brunetti sends me word the King had 300 lb. of
last weeke.... Lady Sussex is not yet gone, but my Lord is better
and holds his resolution of goeing as soone as the weather breakes up
to make good travailing. She and Madame Mazarin have privately learnt
to fence, and went downe into St. James’s Parke the other day with
drawne swords under theire night gownes, which they drew out and made
severall fine passes with, to the admiration of severall men that was
lookers on in the Parke.... The Dutchesse [of York, sister-in-law to
Charles II.] is much delighted with making and throwing of snowballs,
and pelted the Duke soundly with one the other day, and ran away
quick into her closet and he after her, but she durst not open the
doore. She hath also great pleasure in one of those sledges they call
_Trainias_, and is pulled up and downe the ponds in them every day,
as also the King, which are counted dangerous things, and none can
drive the horse which draws them about but the Duke of Monmouth, Mr.
Griffin, and Mr. Godolphin, and a fourth whose name I have forgot!”
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Mercurius Publius_, 19-26th April 1660.