“Bloody Mary” she was in her own time, and as such she will probably always be known. She rarely went far afield, and her only association with Hyde Park seems to have been the unusual number of people she hanged at Tyburn.
The park was still far remote from the town. Streets did not creep up to its precincts until quite a century and a half later. When Sir Thomas Wyatt marched with his rebels upon London, his ordnance was planted at Hyde Park Corner, and his men occupied the fields where now stand Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood to the south.
It must be recollected that Sir Thomas Wyatt had raised his standard in Kent to protest against the Spanish marriage of Queen Mary. He had travelled slowly towards London after defeating the Queen’s forces at Rochester Bridge. He had wasted much time at 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.