Yet another strange personage to be seen was the Duke of Queensberry, known as “old Q,” whose worldliness and licentiousness in an era by no means strict in morals have given his name a sinister notoriety. He survived to the venerable age of eighty-six, sitting out to the last on his balcony in Piccadilly watching the gay world passing into the Park, a spectacle which caused Leigh Hunt to “wonder at the longevity of his dissipation and the prosperity of his worthlessness.” In his drawing-room in Piccadilly he enacted his famous reproduction of the scene on Mount Ida, with three of the most beautiful women in London to represent the goddesses—“in the same dress, so to speak,” as Mr. Street so tactfully puts it[4]—and himself as Paris to award the apple.
The Prince of Wales had already broken out into all sorts of extravagance, and his appearances in the Park were occasions for his greatest displays. His mock marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert at Carlton House, and their legal marriage in her own home in Park Street, Park Lane, near Hereford Gardens, were the talk of the day, and they were, before and after, constantly to be seen together in the Park. In the winter before this marriage there was again skating on the Serpentine, and the gay Prince appeared in a fur coat which cost £800, and a large black muff. In fact, one might devote a whole volume to the extravagance indulged in by this young man, in order that he might figure loudly in his favourite London resort.
Reviews and prize-fights were great attractions in the Parks. Gay ladies rode in Rotten Row, among whom a well-known personality was the wonderful Marchioness of Salisbury, who was seen there daily for so many years, and was also famous for her support of Pitt in his elections, while her rival, the Duchess of Devonshire, canvassed for Fox.
It was a critical time for England: wars without, the dark shadow of insanity resting on the Sovereign, men striving for first place in the realm; and the nation hailed with true rejoicing the news of King George III.’s recovery in 1789. London was one great blaze of illuminations from end to end. The monarch was at Kew, but the Queen and Princesses drove up to town to see the displays, making Apsley House their headquarters, and returning home very late at night. Hyde Park took no small share in these festivities.
Soon after the marriage of Caroline of Brunswick with the Prince of Wales, she appeared in the Park and was the object of great admiration, which, in spite of all her faults, was accorded to her by the English public until the end of her life. So far as a selfish man can love, the object of the Prince’s affection was Mrs. Fitzherbert, and he only submitted to the marriage with his cousin in order to pay his debts, for the Princess brought with her a dowry of a million sterling.
In spite of all his efforts, the Prince was about this time eclipsed in Hyde Park, for a man, who largely owed his position to Royal favour, outstripped him in the elegance and costliness of his dress. This was Beau Brummel, the son of one of the Whitehall Secretaries. His aunt, Mrs. Searle, lived as gate-keeper of the Green Park, inhabiting a little cottage in a small enclosure in which she kept cows. This good body often received visits from the Princes and Princesses, and it was here that the Prince Regent met the youthful Brummel, and was so attracted by him that he secured for him a commission in the army. Hyde Park saw much of this dandy in his finery, with his mincing ways and absurd conceits. He scored heavily for a time, but was destined to end his days in poverty.
In 1800, George III. was reviewing the Grenadier Guards in the Park, when a musket-ball entered the leg of a gentleman standing a few yards from him, piercing his thigh. It was subsequently found that the ball had gone through the coat of a Frenchman, and also struck a boy on the way. His Majesty remained where he was, and laughed the matter off. It was, however, thought to be an attempt on his life—a true surmise evidently, for a pistol was fired at him in the theatre the same evening.
After the overdressing of earlier days, with a superabundance of stuffs and ruffs, fashion had reduced the feminine attire to a sparseness that was indecent, and brought indignant denunciation from both the Pope and the Protestant clergy. The last year of the eighteenth century was a distinguished one in Hyde Park, on account of the number of beautiful women to be seen driving there. Many of them handled the ribbons in fine form, chief in this art being the Marchioness of Donegall and the Countess of Mansfield. A figure, long to adorn the Park with his presence, was Sir Arthur Wellesley. He was a faithful lover of the Row and those more secluded roads to the west and north, where he generally rode a beautiful Arab horse, and these graceful animals became the vogue. Humble heroes as well were brought to mind, for the King granted a little cottage near the Royal Humane Society’s House—not the present one, which was opened later by Sir Arthur Wellesley when Duke of Wellington—to Mrs. Sims, an unfortunate woman who had lost all her six sons in battle.
Strutt, writing in his Sports and Pastimes in 1801, says:
“I have seen, some years back, when the Serpentine River in Hyde Park was frozen over, four gentlemen there dance, if I may be allowed the expression, a double minuet in skates with as much ease, and I think more elegance, than in a ballroom; others again, by turning and winding with much adroitness, have already in succession described upon the ice the form of all the letters of the alphabet.”