“... I shall send your Lordship the peck of chesnuts, and 5 lb. of vermicelli by the Munday carrier, and hope you will find them all good, 3 lb. of the vermicelli being the same, but made up in new shapes, which Signore Brunetti sends me word the King had 300 lb. of last weeke.... Lady Sussex is not yet gone, but my Lord is better and holds his resolution of goeing as soone as the weather breakes up to make good travailing. She and Madame Mazarin have privately learnt to fence, and went downe into St. James’s Parke the other day with drawne swords under theire night gownes, which they drew out and made severall fine passes with, to the admiration of severall men that was lookers on in the Parke.... The Dutchesse [of York, sister-in-law to Charles II.] is much delighted with making and throwing of snowballs, and pelted the Duke soundly with one the other day, and ran away quick into her closet and he after her, but she durst not open the doore. She hath also great pleasure in one of those sledges they call Trainias, and is pulled up and downe the ponds in them every day, as also the King, which are counted dangerous things, and none can drive the horse which draws them about but the Duke of Monmouth, Mr. Griffin, and Mr. Godolphin, and a fourth whose name I have forgot!”
CHAPTER VI
MASKS AND PATCHES
A Well-known story relates that one day Charles II. was returning from Hyde Park, where he was just as fond of walking as James Duke of York was of riding. He was attended by two courtiers only, and was crossing at Hyde Park Corner when he met James coming home from the hunt on Hounslow Heath. The Duke of York was driving in great style in his coach, with an escort of Royal Horse Guards. He stopped, stepped from his carriage to greet the King, and remonstrated with him for putting himself in danger by walking in the public highway attended by only two gentlemen.
“No kind of danger,” said Charles, “for I am sure that no man in England will take away my life to make you King!”
And King Charles, who knew men and women well, and concealed many a telling truth under his buoyant humour, was quite right. The three years of James II.’s misrule are doubtless full of interest to the historian, but they give little material for this volume, and may be passed over with a bare mention.
Society, however, pursued its way, and the daily drive and lounge survived during all the religious and political turmoil. Hyde Park remained the great rendezvous, though James was rarely seen there, and under the trees were discussed, as of old, the affairs of the Court, the plots of the Roman Catholics, precedence of great ladies, rivalries and jealousie, dress and equipage. A new excitement was added to the fashionable walk by a custom which began among the beaux and grandes dames of wearing masks in the Park, and by their means many intrigues were set afoot. Philip 2nd Earl of Chesterfield has left in his Letters a short correspondence with a masked lady with whom he had walked in the Park four times. She remained unknown. It was a point of honour not to attempt to identify a masked person unless the name was guessed outright.
What a curious thing it must have been to see men and women at all hours of the day walking or riding masked. They even went to theatres so disguised. These half-masks were called “visors,” and by some people “hide-blushes.”
Others found methods of gallantry more daring than this. From Nell Gwynne’s time—I do not know whether the Royal favourite’s previous and more honourable calling had anything to do with it—it had become the custom to buy oranges and cakes from orange-girls in Hyde Park. This custom lasted for many years. Constant mention is made of these girls in the gossip of the day, and they are reported to have carried more romantic wares than the yellow fruit, for they were often the chosen bearers of billets doux from gallants to their ladies, and vice versâ.