Hyde Park, Its History and Romance. Mrs. Alec-Tweedie
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