Paris quickly followed Denmark’s lead, and England came along slowly behind. Every man, woman, and child rides a bicycle nowadays. On their first appearance, and for many years afterwards, bicycles were not allowed in the parks, but gradually it was found impossible to keep them out, and in 1904 an order was issued allowing them to be ridden anywhere in Hyde Park except at the busiest hours. Even that restriction was shortly afterwards withdrawn, and one cycled among thousands of riders passing in a constant stream between the Achilles statue and along the banks of the Serpentine to the Magazine.
The cycle craze, however, as a means of town amusement for the fashionable world, has already died out. In Hyde Park it had but a short life. One year everyone flocked to Battersea Park, where in certain hours of the day the cycling throng mustered in battalions, and most of them were smart young Englishwomen. But nowadays the cyclists seen in the Park are not those who come out to while away an hour or two, but mostly riders taking a short cut to distant parts of London or to the country.
The evolution of the twentieth-century girl began with the “bike” at the end of the previous decade, and is taking root in the suffragette.
The motor seems to be the last word in locomotion, and until the flying machine is more firmly established to enable us poor groundlings to course through the air, it is difficult to foresee what is going to displace it. The first efforts of motoring were not altogether happy. So terrible had the smell and the noise of the petrol cars become, that in 1906 an order was issued that none but electrically driven vehicles were to pass through the Park between the hours of four and seven. Then those delightfully silent electric landaulettes plied in and out of the horsed traffic, almost unperceived, and the objectionable fumes disappeared.
Frequently the King’s car is to be seen in Hyde Park. One day, a year or two ago, his Majesty’s motor came to a sudden stop in Richmond Park, and a crowd which promptly assembled enjoyed the agreeable spectacle of the King instructing his chauffeur how to deal with a breakdown, and showing in a number of ways his intimate knowledge of motor-car mechanism.
His Majesty’s immunity from accident is owing as much to his own discretion in driving as to the abilities of his chauffeurs. His car seldom exceeds the twenty miles an hour limit, although he is subject to no speed regulations. His explicit instructions are that a moderate pace must be observed in passing towns or villages.
In these pages we have seen that the history and romance of Hyde Park dates from the time of the Roman encampment near the rude settlement of the Trinobantes, which the invaders called Londinium.
That Tyburn, probably the most tragic, if not the most historical, spot in all England, stood in the vicinity where the Marble Arch now stands. That the first hanging took place there in 1196, and executions continued until 1783. Every offence, from stealing a yard of ribbon to murder, heresy, and treason, paid its penalty at Tyburn, and the perpetrator was hanged, drawn, and quartered at the gallows.
Hyde Park has been a Royal Forest, the happy fishing ground of monks, from whose hands it passed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A closely preserved Royal Park, the scene of vile tragedies, a famous racecourse (the precursor of Newmarket), the training-ground of Cromwellian troops; and it was even sold by auction. The playground of Society, a refuge from the plague, the scene of public rejoicings, and the Great Exhibition of 1851. The safety-valve of individuals with grievances, the most remarkable, perhaps, of latter days being the revolution of the suffragettes in 1907.
And Hyde Park still remains the great social open-air centre of London, where the gay world desports itself as it has done through many centuries. That great green sward has been the high-ground of history and romance.