Hyde Park, Its History and Romance

by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

On the site of the Hospital the King built the “Manor House of St. James,” afterwards known as St. James’s Palace. It did not become a Royal residence, however, until long afterwards. A new tilt-yard was laid out close by the palace at the Mall, and bowling alleys, tennis courts, and a cockpit between St. James’s and Whitehall added to the attractions of this Royal quarter of the town.

As time and events ripened for the dissolution of the monasteries, the enclosure of yet more of the Church lands became an easy matter. But a few years had passed before Henry VIII. made a still greater enlargement of his Park and hunting-ground by crossing the little Tyburn stream, which had hitherto formed its boundary, and taking in the whole of the Manor of Hide which lay beyond.

Westminster was one of the few religious houses that the Tudor monarch treated with a light hand, possibly inspired by some superstitious dread, as his father was buried in the Abbey. Instead of waiting a convenient opportunity to seize all that the monks possessed, giving nothing in return, as was his habit, he granted in exchange for Hide, lands that had previously belonged to the Priory of St. Mary, Hurley, Berks.

The charter of 1537 granting the Manor to the King is printed in the Calendars of State Papers and Letters of Henry VIII. It describes the area surrendered to the Sovereign by the Abbot of Westminster, as “the manor of Neyte within the precinct of the water called the mote ... the site of the manor of Hyde, Midd. and all lands etc. belonging to the said manor ... the Manor of Eybery, Midd. with all lands etc. reputed parts or parcels thereof....” Three years later the Monastery at Westminster was itself surrendered to the Crown, and the Abbey converted into a Cathedral church under the governance of a Dean and twelve Prebendaries.

So Hyde Park by successive bargainings, in which no doubt the monarch, and not the monks, had much the best of the deal, became a personal possession of the King, and in a measure has remained so ever since, though the public have the free enjoyment of its glorious spaces. It was far otherwise at the outset. Once in possession of his new domain, now extended by successive additions from Whitehall to the modern Kensington Gardens, Henry VIII. took effective steps to secure its privacy. A wooden paling was raised to keep in the deer and keep out intruders, thereby making it a park. The cotters who had tilled patches of land amidst the swamps and woodland while it belonged to the Church were turned adrift. The whole area was given over to the chase. Officials were appointed to the estates of Hide and Neyte. The cruel laws of the time were applied with uncompromising vigour to preserve the game.

In his soaring ambitions, flattered by the growth of absolute power, Henry contemplated a great Royal hunting-ground, encircling the capital away to Hampstead. It would have gratified his selfish craving for enjoyment, at whatever expense to others, and at the same time served the yet more important purpose of curtailing the growth of the capital to dimensions he could rule by his personal will. But this gigantic encroachment on the rights of the people proved too much even for Henry VIII. and his self-willed daughter Elizabeth to accomplish.

Hyde Park and the adjoining lands, denuded of their few human inhabitants, must rapidly have returned to the condition of primeval forest. The streams feeding the numerous marshes doubtless attracted numbers of wild fowl, and hawking was a popular sport. It was practised on foot with a long hawking pole. King Henry loved the sport, which required even more energy than following the falcon’s course on horseback. He was addicted, in spite of his size, to taking immense leaps on his pole, and there is a quaint record of an accident on one of these occasions when following the hawk over swampy ground. His pole broke, and, failing to clear a muddy brook, the king fell headlong into the oozy slush, where he would have been suffocated but for the aid of his attendants. What an amusing spectacle this pompous monarch must have made, mud-besmeared, being hauled out of the mire by his servants.

More cheerful things than hunting and death appear in the days of Henry VIII. Sometimes romance steps in. May Day games begun in early Plantagenet times were a national festival.