“Turned and rode through the fields and then to Holborn ... towards Hide Park, whither all the world, I think, are going.... I saw nothing good, neither the King nor my Lady Castlemaine nor my great ladies or beauties being here, there being more pleasure a great deal at an ordinary day; or else those few good faces that there were were choked up with the many bad ones, there being people of all sorts in coaches there, to some thousands I think. Going thither in the highway, just by the Park gate, I met a boy in a sculler boat, carried by a dozen people at least, rowing as hard as he could drive, it seems upon some wager. By and by, about seven or eight o’clock homeward ... coaches going in great crowds to the further end of the town almost.”
Hearts seemed light and Society gay, for the Diarist makes mention of several visits to the Park during that year; of the King and his mistress Lady Castlemaine, who finally died in poverty, greeting one another from their respective coaches “at every tour”; of a drive with Mrs. Pepys, wherein there was little pleasure on account of the dust, and one of the horses falling down and getting his leg over the pole; and another occasion when the worthy couple enjoyed the sight of a “store of coaches and good faces.” Only when Charles II. pulled up to speak to his friends—chiefly ladies—was the continuous string of carriages allowed to stop.
But the day of that season seems to have been a great Review held in Hyde Park on 4th July. Both Diarists write of this event, and as the entries are truly characteristic of the different style of the two journals, I give them both. First Evelyn:
“I saw his Majesty’s Guards, being of horse and foot 4000, led by the General, the Duke of Albemarle [General Monk, who had done so much to bring about the Restoration], in extraordinary equipage and gallantry, consisting of gentlemen of quality and veteran soldiers, excellently clad, mounted and ordered, drawn up in battalia before their Majesties in Hyde Park, where the old Earl of Cleveland trailed a pike, and led the right-hand file in a foot-company, commanded by Lord Wentworth, his son: as worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and valiant soldiers. This was to show the French Ambassador, Monsieur Comminges; there being a great assembly of coaches etc. in the Park.”
It is left to Pepys to pourtray the lighter side:
“Thence with Creed to hire a coach to carry us to Hide Park, to-day there being a general muster of the King’s Guards, horse and foot; but the demand so high, that I, spying Mr. Cutler the marchant, did take notice of him, and he going into his coach, and telling me that he was going to shew a couple of Swedish strangers the muster, I asked and went along with him; where a goodly sight to see so many fine horses and officers, and the King, Duke, and others come by a-horseback, and the two Queens in the Queen-Mother’s coach, my Lady Castlemayne not being there, I ’light and walked to the place where the King, Duke, etc., did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge their guns, to show a French Marquisse (for whom the muster was caused) the goodness of our firemen; which indeed was very good, though not without a slip now and then; and one broadside so close to our coach we had going out of the Park, even to the nearness to be ready to burn our hairs.”
A few days later Pepys describes another visit to Hyde Park:
“Hearing that the King and Queen are rode abroad with the Ladies of Honour in the Park, and seeing a great crowd of gallants staying here to see their return, I also staid walking up and down.... By and by the King and Queen, who looked in this dress (a white laced waistcoat and a crimson short petticoat, and her hair dressed à la negligence) mighty pretty; and the King rode hand in hand with her. Here was also my Lady Castlemaine rode among the rest of the ladies, but the King took, methought, no notice of her.”
Pepys was a man of many parts, and one of the most human of his kind. This wonderful Diary of his contains the moralising of a philosopher, mixed with descriptions of the skittish flirtations of the man about town, the deeper amours of the licentious Court, and the coarsest scandal and gossip, prices of various articles, political events, the weather, the servant question, and details of ladies’ gowns. He even sent a “poor fellow” to sit at the Duke of York’s playhouse to keep a seat for him, as messenger boys are sent to-day to secure seats in the pit.