would find that his well-thought-out costume, far from evoking admiration, would be regarded only with ridicule and contempt. The days of the gorgeous equipages which at one time formed one of the principal sights in Hyde Park during the season are also over; there seems a strong probability, indeed, that in the not very distant future horsed carriages in London will become something very like curiosities, being supplanted by motors, which, notwithstanding certain inconveniences, are essentially suited to a modern city.
Probably the only person now living who used a vis-à-vis, a form of carriage once very fashionable but now totally obsolete, is the present Lady Cardigan, who now, I believe, seldom leaves Deene Park, her lovely place in Northamptonshire. I remember my brother once being very much amused, after having been on a visit there, at a little incident of which he was the hero. Met at the station by a dogcart, he observed that the driver treated his attempts at conversation with a somewhat tolerant familiarity. On coming up to the house and finding that no stop was made at the front door, he proceeded to inquire the reason, when he was told that the servants’ entrance was elsewhere. He then found that he had been taken for a French cook, whose arrival had been eagerly looked for—a discovery which caused him the greatest amusement and delight, for there was nothing that he liked more than telling a joke against himself.
DUELLING
At the east end of Hyde Park once stood a fine avenue of walnut trees, but these were destroyed in the early part of the nineteenth century, when the wood was sold to be made into gunstocks.
Duelling, though practically obsolete in England after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, lingered on up to about the middle of the ’forties, when an encounter between Lieutenant-Colonel Fawcett and Lieutenant Munro, in which the former was shot dead, led to a debate in the House of Commons owing to the wife of the former being refused a pension. On this occasion Sir Charles Napier declared that but one way existed of effectually putting an end to duelling. No duel should be allowed which was not fought across a table. Of the two pistols used only one should be loaded with ball, lots being drawn to see who should have the loaded one. If this produced no result, then both pistols should be loaded with ball, and the survivor, should there be one, hanged. The last duel actually fought in Hyde Park is believed to have taken place in April 1817, when two gentlemen exchanged shots, both of them being wounded. As late, however, as 1822 a duel was fought in Kensington Gardens between the Dukes of Buckingham and Bedford.
At one time a perfect mania prevailed for fighting duels, and this was by no means confined to the well-to-do classes. In 1780 two negro servants fought a duel in Hyde Park, neither of the combatants, however, being seriously hurt; but an encounter which occurred some three years later between two footmen in the same place was of a much more serious character, both being severely wounded. Towards the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, duels began to be much fewer in number.
At my old home in Norfolk—Wolterton Hall—my nephew, the present Lord Orford, recently came upon a number of curious old documents, amongst them a copy of the codicil to the will of the eccentric Lord Camelford, drawn up by him two days before his fatal duel with Mr. Best. The reasons for this codicil being at Wolterton was no doubt that Lord Camelford’s mother had been a Miss Wilkinson, a family connected with Burnham, a property which for generations has belonged to the Walpoles.
LORD CAMELFORD
Lord Camelford, it will be remembered, was called out by Mr. Best under great provocation, of which an officious person was the cause. This individual had represented to Lord Camelford that Mr. Best had spoken slightingly of him to a Mrs. Simmons, a lady with whom Lord Camelford was on terms of considerable intimacy, whilst Mr. Best had formerly been her lover. The latter, who was noted as a deadly shot, did everything he could to avoid a conflict, and others also attempted to use their influence, but their efforts were all in vain, Lord Camelford declaring that the thing must go on. Accordingly a duel was fought in the fields behind Holland House, with the result that Lord Camelford was mortally wounded, expiring some four days after the fatal meeting.
A CURIOUS CODICIL