MASKS AND PATCHES
A Well-known story relates that one day Charles II. was returning from
Hyde Park, where he was just as fond of walking as James Duke of York
was of riding. He was attended by two courtiers only, and was crossing
at Hyde Park Corner when he met James coming home from the hunt on
Hounslow Heath. The Duke of York was driving in great style in his
coach, with an escort of Royal Horse Guards. He stopped, stepped from
his carriage to greet the King, and remonstrated with him for putting
himself in danger by walking in the public highway attended by only two
gentlemen.
“No kind of danger,” said Charles, “for I am sure that no man in
England will take away my life to make you King!”
And King Charles, who knew men and women well, and concealed many a
telling truth under his buoyant humour, was quite right. The three
years of James II.’s misrule are doubtless full of interest to the
historian, but they give little material for this volume, and may be
passed over with a bare mention.
Society, however, pursued its way, and the daily drive and lounge
survived during all the religious and political turmoil. Hyde Park
remained the great _rendezvous_, though James was rarely seen there,
and under the trees were discussed, as of old, the affairs of the
Court, the plots of the Roman Catholics, precedence of great ladies,
rivalries and jealousie, dress and equipage. A new excitement was added
to the fashionable walk by a custom which began among the beaux and
_grandes dames_ of wearing masks in the Park, and by their means many
intrigues were set afoot. Philip 2nd Earl of Chesterfield has left in
his _Letters_ a short correspondence with a masked lady with whom he
had walked in the Park four times. She remained unknown. It was a point
of honour not to attempt to identify a masked person unless the name
was guessed outright.
What a curious thing it must have been to see men and women at all
hours of the day walking or riding masked. They even went to theatres
so disguised. These half-masks were called “visors,” and by some people
“hide-blushes.”
Others found methods of gallantry more daring than this. From Nell
Gwynne’s time—I do not know whether the Royal favourite’s previous and
more honourable calling had anything to do with it—it had become the
custom to buy oranges and cakes from orange-girls in Hyde Park. This
custom lasted for many years. Constant mention is made of these girls
in the gossip of the day, and they are reported to have carried more
romantic wares than the yellow fruit, for they were often the chosen
bearers of _billets doux_ from gallants to their ladies, and _vice
versâ_.
From the half concealment of a mask it was but a step for a great lady
of a sportive turn to disguise herself as an orange girl and bear the
burden of the basket, the true owner of which, washed, painted and
powdered, and dressed out of recognition, mixed among the gay crowd
and added to their bewilderment. The great figure of Sarah Duchess of
Marlborough appears as one of those who found amusement in this very
undignified change of station.
King James retired, unlamented, into exile, and his daughter Mary and
William of Orange came over to take the English throne. Though great
as a Queen, Mary seems to have been a somewhat unfilial daughter, if
we accept Evelyn’s testimony when saying that she came into Whitehall
“laughing and jolly as to a wedding, seeming quite transported,” or
that other account of her routing about the Queen’s apartments, in and
out of every room, in her night attire, before the household were astir
in the morning.
The fashionable crowd about the Parks seemed less at ease, and no
doubt there were numerous absentees. Men pursuing their daily duties,
the merchant in the City, or the dandy of the day sauntering in the
morning, on whom the slightest suspicion of Jacobitism rested, would
be accosted by a gruff individual, shown a Privy Council warrant, and
dragged off, ruffle, cravat, embroideries, and wig notwithstanding. An
ignominious retreat from a gay scene or a busy world.
Writing in 1690 to her husband, William III., who was in Holland, Queen
Mary says: “I was only last night in Hyde Park, for the first time
since you went: it swarmed with those that are now ordered to be clapt
up.”
Mary, unfortunately, was not able to convey much of her “jolliness”
to the Park, where the lighter side of London life loved to assemble.
King William suffered from asthma, and a damp riverside Palace at
Westminster did not suit him. He was recommended to migrate to
Kensington, near the Gravel Pits. This was far remote from the town;
but possibly the dryness of the gravel soil settled the choice.
Ten years after his reign began, old Whitehall Palace was consumed in
flames, and the severance was then complete. The King had bought a
house and grounds from the Earl of Nottingham, and there raised the
present building of Kensington Palace, wherein Queen Victoria was born.
Though still so near, Hyde Park saw little of them, for William was
occupied in State affairs, and Queen Mary preferred the quietness of
their private gardens. Thus whatever little tone and vigour remained in
Society, soon disappeared, and a greater laxity made itself apparent.
The Park, as it ceased to be a Royal preserve and properly cared
for, became infested with undesirable characters, and Knightsbridge,
which, as already mentioned, had always been looked on as a locality
frequented by robbers, presented many hiding-places for footpads of the
most desperate description. Hyde Park sank into a period of degradation
unexampled either before or since.
Still it was an age of romance. It is rather amusing to read of the tax
on bachelors. It must be remembered that at the beginning of the reign
of William and Mary the population of England was only five and a half
millions, and the revenue amounted to £1,400,000.
No wonder that in 1695 an Act was passed obliging all bachelors and
widowers above twenty-five years old to pay a tax of one shilling
yearly; a bachelor or widower duke, £12, 10s.; a marquis, £10 a year.
While attempting to increase the revenues, the only attempt made at
municipal improvement during the reign seems to have been the lighting
of the principal thoroughfares from St. James’s. Apparently William had
little use for the Park but to pass through it and the Green Park on
his way from Kensington to the town, and this he often had to do after
sunset. The road was rough and dark; in fact, was altogether unsafe
after nightfall. The King decided that, whatever the cost, it must be
lighted. Accordingly he had about three hundred lamps placed along the
way. But this was too great an expense in those days to be kept up
except in the winter, and the spluttering oil-wick lamps only dimly
lighted it for a few months of the year.
This was rather a difference from our present-day lighting
arrangements, which many people still consider totally insufficient.
Vice flies before illumination. In this year of grace the Park is
lighted with electric arc lamps as well as incandescent gas. The policy
is to light up main roads and paths, but not the whole surface of the
Park. Certain wide spaces, like the “Lecture Ground” near the Marble
Arch, the road from the Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner, and the Band
Stand enclosure, are lighted by electricity.
When William and Mary increased the popularity of Kensington by going
to live at the new Palace, they also improved the prospects of the
ever enterprising light-handed fraternity. Social gatherings of all
sorts took place, gambling was indulged in for high stakes, and ladies
attending Court functions at St. James’s and private entertainments at
Kensington had to pass along this dreary road, laden with jewels or the
proceeds of the basset tables. The thieves were so active and daring
that at last a guard-house had to be erected within the park, and the
place patrolled, while on occasions of any Court functions the Park
guard was doubled.
The _London Post_ of 7th December 1699 records that
“On Monday night the Patroul of the Guards was doubled between
Kensington and the City, and marched continually to and fro till day to
prevent any Robberies being committed upon those that returned from the
Basset-tables held there that Evening.”
In ill-repute though it had become, “persons of quality” still enjoyed
their afternoon drive in Hyde Park. Its worst side was reserved for
the night. The gilded coaches, the painted women, and swaggering men,
with their wigs, their long waistcoats and their swords, moving about
among the trees, gave an appearance of festivity, even if the times
were remarkably dull. Tom Brown’s _Amusements Serious and Comical_,
published in 1700, gives a picture of Hyde Park manners near the close
of William III.’s reign which is certainly not edifying. The author is
supposed to be showing “an Indian” over London:
“From Spring Garden we set our Faces towards Hide Park, where Horses
have their Diversions as well as Men, and Neigh and Court their
Mistresses almost in as intelligible a Dialect. Here People Coach it
to take the Air, amidst a Cloud of Dust, able to choak a Foot Soldier,
and hinder’d us from seeing those that come hither on purpose to show
themselves. However, we made hard shift to get now and then a glance at
some of them.
“Here we saw much to do about nothing: a World of Brave Men, Gilt
Coaches, and Rich Liveries. Within some of them were Upstart Courtiers,
blown up as big as Pride and Vanity could swell them to; as if a Stake
had been driven through them. It would hurt their Eyes to exchange a
Glance upon anything that’s Vulgar, and that’s the Reason they are so
sparing of their Looks, that they will neither Bow nor move their Hats
to anything under a Duke or a Duchess, and yet if you examine some of
their Original; a Covetous, Soul-less Miser, or a great Oppressor, laid
the Foundation of their Families, and in their Retinue there are more
Creditors than Servants.
“‘See,’ says my Indian, ‘what a Bevy of Gallant Ladies are in yonder
Coaches; some are Singing, others Laughing, others Tickling one
another, and all of them Toying and devouring Cheese-cakes, March Pane,
and China Oranges. See that Lady,’ says he; ‘was ever anything so black
as her Eye and so clear as her Forehead? one would swear her face had
taken its Tincture from all the Beauties in Nature.’ ‘And yet perhaps,’
answered I to my Fellow-Traveller, ‘all this is but Imposture; she
might, for ought we know, got to Bed last night as ugly as a Hagg,
tho’ she now appears like an Angel; and if you did but see this Puppet
taken to pieces, her whole is but Paint and Plaster ... these are
Birds to amuse one, that change their Feathers two or three times a
Day.... In a word, the generality of Women are Peacocks when they walk:
Water-wagtails when they are within doors, and Turtles when they meet
Face to Faces.’”
Even in broad daylight the fashionable throngs were liable to be
subjected to annoyance. In the _Post Boy_ of 7th June 1695 it says:
“Some days since several Persons of Quality having been affronted at
the Ring in Hide Park, by some other Persons that rode in Hackney
Coaches with Masks, and Complaint thereof being made to the Lords
Justices, an order is made that no Hackney Coaches be permitted to go
into the said Park, and that none presume to appear there in masks.”
The law against hackney coaches survives, and they are still only
allowed to cross between the Park and Kensington Gardens. Masked
ladies and gallants have ceased to exist, although a music-hall
performer, apparently wishing to attract attention and advertisement,
drove through Hyde Park fully masked in 1906, and even plunged into
the Serpentine to rescue a boy she presumed to be drowning. The modern
policeman on duty probably had never heard of the old law forbidding
masks to be worn in the Park, and let the good lady pass with a smile.
The deplorable condition into which affairs had fallen is duly admitted
in the Act of Parliament passed in 1695, the preamble of which recites:
“Whereas the crimes of burglary and breaking open of houses in a
felonious manner, and the crime of stealing goods privately out of
shops and warehouses, commonly called Shop-lifting, and the stealing of
horses, are of late years much increased.” However, the method adopted
for dealing with the growing evil shows how little the true means of
diminishing crime and handling criminals was then understood. The Act
provided that—
“All and every person or persons, who shall apprehend and take any
person guilty of any of the felonies beforementioned, and prosecute
him, her, or them so apprehended and taken, until he, she, or they
be convicted of any of the aforesaid felonies, such apprehenders and
takers, for his, her, or their reward, upon every such conviction,
without any fee or reward to be paid for the same, shall have
forthwith, after every fresh conviction, a certificate, which shall be
under the hand or hands of a judge, Justice or justices, before whom
every such conviction shall be had, certifying such conviction, etc.
... which certificate shall and may be once assigned over and no more,
and the original proprietor of such certificate, or the assignee of the
same, whomsoever of them shall have the interest therein, by virtue
thereof and this present Act, shall and may be discharged of and from
all and all manner of parish and ward wherein such felony or felonies
shall be committed, and such party or assignee is hereby declared to be
discharged therefrom.”
A fee of one shilling was charged for the enrolling of this
certificate, which became known as the “Tyburn Ticket,” and acted as a
small incentive to the righteous to bring the thief to the gallows. It
remained in use for more than a century.
As late as 1772 the state of Hyde Park was so bad that a bell used
to be rung at stated intervals in Kensington, to gather together
people who had ventured from London and were wishing to return. When a
sufficient number had assembled the party started eastwards, and were
safely escorted through the lonely neighbourhood of Hyde Park by the
guard. Mr. Horsley, the artist, mentions in his _Memoirs_ that a friend
of his childhood could remember this arrangement, and he himself knew
the time the Park gates were closed at eight o’clock in the evenings.
[Illustration: Tyburn Ticket.
_Preserved in the Guildhall Library. Market value in the 18th Century
was from £25 to £30._]
London was, indeed, unsafe at night until well into the last century.
In fact, when the great Duke of Wellington was speaking in the House
of Lords in favour of the Police Act, he was able to quote—as proof
of need of an efficient police force—that his mother’s coach had been
stopped in Grosvenor Place, and valuables, money, and jewellery carried
off.
Twice at least Queen Mary reviewed the troops in Hyde Park when her
husband was absent on the Continent; not, it would seem, with very good
grace. “I go,” she wrote to him, “to Hyde Park to see the Militia drawn
out there next Monday; you may believe I go against my will.” It was
necessary to keep well-drilled regiments in readiness for action in
those troublous times, and this great open space formed an excellent
manœuvring ground. James, on the French side of the Channel, was always
a source of danger, while Jacobite risings might occur at any time, and
William’s wars in the Netherlands were no light matter. In 1692 it was
deemed wise to be ready for a French invasion, and trained bands in the
Cities of London and Westminster were assembled to the number of ten
thousand.
In the closing days of the year 1694, Queen Mary lay dying at
Kensington Palace. News then spread but slowly. A man was seen lurking
among the bushes and swampy thickets in Hyde Park and round Kensington
Gardens. As darkness gathered he became somewhat bolder, and kept in
sufficient communication with passers-by to find out how events were
going. This vigil was kept in order that he might at once convey the
news to James II. at St. Germains. Mary died in the early hours of
the morning on 28th December, and long before daylight the Jesuit
was making his way towards the coast to cross the Channel with the
news for King James. It is related that the exile was in great grief,
not only at his daughter’s death, but because there had been no
reconciliation, nor was there even a message for him from the deathbed.
After William and Mary came Queen Anne. She was not the person to
become a leader of society and raise its tone. She seldom did anything
smart. A good, homely soul, wrapped up in her domestic surroundings,
she tried hard to be an example to those about her, and help forward
anything beneficial to her kingdom. But political personages rather
than Society gathered round her. She took little interest in sport or
games, and her drives in the Park were more for the benefit of her
health than to attend social functions or big shows.
Poor Anne! The mother of nineteen children, all of whom died in infancy
or early youth, those rows of little coffins in Westminster Abbey tell
in heartbreaking accents the tragedy of her life. She was afflicted
with gout, and, having lost her husband, to whom she was devoted, no
wonder she found it easier to let Society take care of itself, and
Sarah Jennings and Mrs. Masham rule over her.
Society did go on, but went too far and too fast.
There is an old Satire containing many quaint descriptions of the modes
of the day in Hyde Park. It is too wordy to be reprinted in full, but
the part here given will suffice for the purpose:
The
CIRCUS:
OR,
BRITISH OLYMPICKS
A
SATYR
ON THE
RING in Hide-Park.
Sunt quos Curriculo Pulverem Olympicum.
Colegisse juvat. HORAT. _Od._ I.
LONDON.
Printed: and Sold by the Booksellers of
London and Westminster. 1709.
Price One Penny.
THE
CIRCUS:
or
BRITISH OLYMPICKS, &c.
From vulgar Eyes, on Plains exalted high,
Where noble Dust does in Confusion fly,
Whither the Wealthy and the Great repair,
To draw Contagion from polluted Air.
In gilded Chariots some delight to ride,
And with their Folly, gratify their Pride,
While the vile ends they court from this Address,
Gives them false Notions of true Happiness.
* * * * *
A thousand diff’rent whims possess the Mind,
To-day they love, to-Morrow are Inclin’d
Fantastically to vary like the Wind,
Flora her-self, tho’ much more nice and gay,
Changes her Liv’ry not so oft as they.
* * * * *
But Heavens, is’t possible for to believe
Mankind should study Mankind to deceive,
To see such glorious Shows of outside shine
And find no kind of furniture within,
Ensigns of Grandeur painted at the Door,
But all within diminutively poor?
The gawdy Slaves may show their Master’s vain,
And cheat the unwary with a num’rous Train;
That spite of all the tawdry Coat and Lace,
Th’ unthinking Thing will peep out of the Glass,
And shew the Multitude his Monkey-Face.
Sometimes alone th’ insipid Ideot rowls
The Admiration of fond gazing Fools,
Whose slender Opticks can no further go,
Than to the Splendor of the gilded Show.
Sometimes to prove their Conversation bright,
They bring with them a Gamester, Rake, or Wit;
Then decently deride the beauteous _Ring_,
And bawdy Jests around the Circle fling.
With bouncing Bell a lusheous Chat they hold,
Squabble with _Mall_, or _Orange Betty_ scold,
Then laugh immoderately, vain and loud,
To raise the wonder of th’ attentive Crowd;
At last to finish here their Puppy-Show
The Bawd’s dispatched to serve a Billet doux.
* * * * *
Here, in this view, a thousand diff’rent ways
There are, to raise Men’s wonder, and to please:
Some satisfy with gaudy Cloaths their Pride,
And some in Stuffs so in a Coach will ride;
Such diff’rent things our Inclination guide,
No Hunger pinches, when prepared with Pride.
Six Days the Niggard shall his Carcass pine,
That on the seventh he may nobly dine.
Th’ ambitious Fair aspiring to be Great,
Shall for these Ends, refuse to drink or eat,
So that on _Sunday_ they be sure to bring
A handsome Equipage to make the _Ring_.
Others there are, rather than not appear,
Will hire a Chariot fifty times a year;
Good natur’d Madam strip her Petticoat
To make her Coachman fine in a Surtoot;
Tho’ in a Garret laid, and homely Bed,
The Coach and Horses still run in her Head.
Those quell the Vapours, and those stagnant Fumes,
Which, as ’tis said, for want of Motion comes;
For Hippo will in some so strongly fix
It can’t be cur’d without a Coach and six;
Whose swift career whirls with such force about,
It drives gymnastickly the Vapour out;
* * * * *
Seldom to Park the good-natured Ninny drives,
But pleads, thus must we do to please our Wives.
* * * * *
Here Heads ’gainst Heads are drawn up in Array,
When careless Negligence shall win the Day;
Hoods against Hoods, and Ribbons singly prove
The Colour which conduces most to love;
Ev’n Handkerchiefs are Ensigns now of War,
At once attract our Eyes, and guard the Fair,
Thus glitt’ring Ornaments most deeply wound,
And dart us thro’, as hurry’d swiftly round.
Just like the heated Wheels, the Heart grows warm,
And struggling Nature sucks in ev’ry Charm;
Lab’ring for Breath, instead of cooling Air,
We draw in Poyson, cast out by the Fair.
* * * * *
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, herself a constant visitor to the Park,
writing to her future husband a couple of years later, refers to the
same scene: “... all the fine equipages that shine in the Ring, never
gave me another thought than either pity or contempt for the owners,
that could place happiness in attracting the eye of strangers.”
From the days of her early childhood, Lady Mary had been before the
eyes of London Society, as well as an admired member. The daughter of
the Duke of Kingston, she shone not merely for her ready wit, and in
the Courts of George I. and George II., but she introduced inoculation
for smallpox in England. Not only did Mary II. in England and Louis XV.
of France die of smallpox; but William III. and Caroline Wilhelmina,
wife of George II., were fearfully disfigured by its ravages. Even
kings were not immune. One has only to read the Correspondence of those
days, and the frequent mention of beautiful women and comely men marked
with that frightful disease, to realise the strides science has made in
conquering this malady. One wonders what would be Lady Mary’s piquant
remark could she now see the enormous development of inoculation for
other diseases made by science to-day.
As a child she became the toast of the Kit-cat Club, one of the
first of these institutions ever formed. The exigencies of the times
necessitated gentlemen having some place where those of like politics
and tastes could meet; and several Whig noblemen and esquires held
their assemblies at a public-house “with the sign of the Cat and
Fiddle,” in Shire Lane, which was kept by Christopher Kat. Amongst its
members were the most distinguished men of the day, and when politics
assumed a less pronounced tone, men of literary and other merits were
accepted as members. This club finally moved to Barn Elms, and is known
as Ranelagh to-day.
Among the habitués of the Park was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who
took a prominent place in the Society of this reign, while another
impressive figure was the Duchess of Buckingham. The Duke of Buckingham
bought the house that Lord Arlington had built in the Mulberry
Gardens, and changed its name to Buckingham House, the year after
Anne’s accession. His lady was the illegitimate daughter of James II.
and the Countess of Dorchester, and never was a real Royal Princess
more exacting as to regal precedence and etiquette. On the anniversary
of the execution of her grandfather, Charles I., she used to sit in
Buckingham House in state, attired in deep mourning; and from both
Anne and George I. she claimed the right of driving through the Royal
private enclosures near St. James’s Palace. When her only son died,
she demanded from the Duchess of Marlborough the loan of the wonderful
coach that had borne the body of the Duke from Marlborough House to St.
Paul’s, and, on receiving a curt refusal, ordered one to exceed it in
grandeur to be built. Thereupon she made all preparations for her own
obsequies, and wrote epitaphs for her son and herself, insisting that
their remains should be buried in Westminster Abbey.
[Illustration: The Drinking Well in Hyde Park.]
It is well to imagine the setting in which these leaders of Society
showed themselves in their daily drives. Wild and beautiful, no doubt,
was the Hyde Park of Queen Anne, but it was not the luxurious garden
that we now know. Let us obliterate for a moment from our mind’s eye
the well-kept grounds of our favourite resort, with the waters of the
Serpentine sparkling in the sun, and replace them by thickets and
brushwood growing on marshy ground, here and there stagnant pools, with
the pungent smell that ever pervades any tract of swampy forest-land;
while instead of the light iron railing that encloses Hyde Park of
to-day, there stood the solid wall which had taken the place of Henry
VIII.’s wooden paling.
In 1712, Anne issued further orders “for the better keeping of
Hyde Park.” Gatekeepers were always to be on duty, and not to sell
intoxicating liquors. No one was to leap or ride over ditches and
fences, or to break the latter, and this also applied to the banks of
ponds. No person was to ride over the grass on the south side of the
gravelled coach road except Henry Wise, who was permitted to cross
the part of the Park leading to the door in the Park wall next his
plantation. Nobody should cut or lop trees, and the law forbidding
hackney coaches was extended to stage coaches, chaises with one horse,
carts, waggons, and funerals.
Gardens were becoming the fashion at this time, and Evelyn twice
mentions visiting the wonderful nursery gardens belonging to Mr. Wise
at Brompton, the site of famous nurseries until quite a recent date.
A great sensation was caused a few years later, in the reign of George
I., when some men of good birth one day hired a hackney coach, drawn
by six horses in the most terrible state of decay. Scavengers were
mounted on the box as footmen; chimney-sweepers acted as postillions
and shoeblacks ran behind.
The originators of the “joke” themselves entered the coach, and,
making a dash through the gates of Hyde Park, drove their dying steeds
furiously to the Ring and took their turn round it before they could be
prevented.
Although Queen Anne did not herself encourage people to waste their
time in the Parks, her reign saw Society considerably broadened,
somewhat to the disgust of the older families. The City merchants on
the Sabbath sallied forth with their fine ladies to join the habitual
frequenters, and the Church parade of gallants and dames became an
important function.
Society spent most of its Sundays there in the season, meeting and
chatting just as Society does to-day, and so began the custom of
sitting out on sunny Sunday afternoons, as is still the fashion.
Church-going was merely an opportunity for show, of bowing to
acquaintances who were present at the prayer-meeting, and probably
making arrangements for further gossip at a later hour of the day,
especially at St. Paul’s. The fashionable service was in the afternoon,
after which people again repaired to the Park.
Colley Cibber, in his _Apology for my Life_, writes:
“Kynaston (the celebrated actor) at that time was so beautiful a youth
that the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in
their Coaches to Hyde Park, in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play,
which in those days they might have sufficient time to do, because
Plays then were us’d to begin at four a-clock, the Hour that People of
the same Rank are now going to Dinner.”
What would poor old Colley Cibber, who was so surprised at a four
o’clock dinner, say to the fashionable hour in London of eight or half
past? Everything is later. We get up later, breakfast later, lunch
later; have instituted “tea” since those days, and have our dinner
when those good folk had their suppers. And what would the theatrical
world say to a performance beginning at four o’clock in London,
although in many German towns it still starts at six; but then in the
little German towns people dine at one o’clock, as they used to do in
England formerly. Only in Berlin does Society wear dress clothes, and
take the meal after seven o’clock in full feckle.
Knowing the attractions of Hyde Park for a certain section of great
folk in the reign of Edward VII., it is amusing to read the _Tattler_
of two hundred years ago speaking of the strange infatuation of walking
in the Park in spring. The gossiping writer says that
“No frost, snow, nor east wind can hinder a large set of people from
going to the park in February, no dust nor heat in June. And this is
come to such an intrepid regularity, that those agreeable creatures
that would shriek at an hind-wheel in a deep gutter, are not afraid in
their proper sphere of the disorder and danger of seven crowded rings.”
Later, Addison, remarking on this same custom, points out the
mischief-making done by the servants when waiting for their masters and
mistresses at the entrance to the Park: “The next place of resort,”
he says, “wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the entrance
of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the Ring. Hither people bring
their lacqueys out of state, and here it is that all they say at their
tables, and act in their houses, is communicated to the whole town.”
Whether these comments put an end to servants wasting their time,
wagging their tongues, and their general want of law and order while
waiting at the Park, is unrecorded, but the rule forbidding them
access to Kensington Gardens was still in existence, as quoted in
the Introduction: “Working people, servants in livery, and dogs were
not allowed in Kensington Gardens. On the occasion of a storm the
rule was relaxed, and footmen, for once, were allowed to bring in the
umbrellas.”