It was at a Review a few days after that Pepys “saw more, walking out of my coach as other gentlemen did, of a soldier’s trade than ever I did in my life; the men being mighty fine, and their commanders, particularly the Duke of Monmouth, but methought the trade but very easy as to the mustering of their men, but indifferently ready to perform what was commanded, in the handling of arms.” This entry is followed up by a bit of gossip such as Pepys dearly loved to retail:
“Here the news first talked of Harry Killigrew’s being wounded in nine places last night by footmen in the highway, going from the Park in a hackney coach towards Hammersmith to his house at Turnham Greene; they being supposed to be my Lady Shrewsbury’s men, she being by, in her coach with six horses, upon an old grudge.”
The above quotations are among the closing entries of the old writer. That month of May often brought him to Hyde Park—“in our own coach” as he proudly indites. He drove there on Whit-Sunday, and twice took his wife for refreshment to “The World’s End,” which he describes as a drinking-house by the Park, at Knightsbridge; and both he and Evelyn mention the wonderful display of fireworks on the King’s birthday (29th May 1669).
Records and letters preserved by many of the noble families contain numerous references to the gaieties of Hyde Park under the Restoration.
In the Harley Papers at Welbeck Abbey, and the Rutland Manuscripts at Belvoir Castle, letters exist written by Edward Harley to his father, Sir Edward Harley, and from Lady Mary Bertie to her niece, describing in detail the review that was held in “Hide Parke” in honour of the visit of the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.), then a youth of nineteen. Mr. Harley says: “Yesterday there was a review in Hyde Park of all the Guards, horse, foot, cannon, and pioneers, to entertain the Prince of Orange.”
Lady Rachel Russell writes to Lady Granby at Belvoir Castle:
“Lady Salisbury was at Hyde Park a Sunday night, mighty Frenchified in her dresse, as your brother says.... Mr. Beaumont was upon the road and met two coaches and six horses, and the lady lifted up a curtain, and in French, spoke to aske how far ’twas to Hatfield.”
This was another evidence of the love of everything French under the régime of Charles II.
With another letter from the Rutland Papers, delightful and only a trifle scandalous, this chapter may be fitly closed. The little incident, told in such a matter-of-fact way, of her Grace of Sussex and Madame Mazarin going down to St. James’s Park with drawn swords under their night-gowns, and making “several fine passes” before an applauding circle of men, tells more of those times than pages of moralising. It is from Lady Chaworth to Lord Ross:
Dec. 25, 1676.