This exodus from the City had the same effect in those days that the modern red brick villa has on the present generation. The aristocracy fled before it and moved westwards. Lord Burlington went to Sir John Denham’s house, enlarged it, and named it Burlington House; Lord Berkeley built Berkeley House, which was burnt down later, on the site where Devonshire House now stands. Many others of the nobility followed suit. Added to this, the introduction of the coach brought country gentry so much more frequently to town that they also needed houses of their own, and joined the westward “trek.”
Entrance to Hyde Park on a Sunday.
From a Print in the Crace Collection, British Museum.
The student of social development finds a yet deeper change in the migration. Class distinction became strongly marked. It was no longer considered dignified to belong to the City of London, and trade devolved on the middle class, who henceforth held positions that had been filled by the younger branches of the nobility. Thus the Society of the City of Westminster looked down on the Society of the City of London, and nowhere was this more emphasised than in Hyde Park, which the aristocracy regarded as their own. It was only on Sundays that the City of London hied thither, and on these occasions My Lady turned up her nose and My Lord sniffed high in the air, while the Londoners stared and remarked on the fine inhabitants of the western city.
Under the Georges this feeling did not abate; in fact, during the week the high-born aristocracy regarded Hyde Park as so exclusively their happy playground, that in the early Georgian days ladies and gentlemen spoke without introductions. Everybody knew who everybody else was. The chief course of study the Society lady pursued was that of heraldry and pedigree. It must be borne in mind that the aristocracy were not so numerous as in these times. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the whole population of London was but half a million.
Livery servants were allowed to enter Hyde Park, although still excluded from St. James’s and Kensington Gardens, and when ladies walked in the Park they were attended by a flunkey carrying a long staff as his rod of office, and often by a little black slave-boy.
Manners and morals were sadly missing in this fashionable centre. The licentiousness established under Charles II. had spread and thrived throughout the realm, and George I. and his son publicly encouraged it. In fact, when the former attended the theatre he was carried in his sedan-chair with a guard before and behind, and his two mistresses—popularly known as the “Elephant” and the “Maypole,” from their respective breadth and length,—brought up the rear, borne by men in the Royal livery.
It is hard for the Londoner of 1908 to realise that two hundred years ago neither children, nor the “man in the street,” nor the loafer, nor the orator, were permitted to enter Hyde Park. In fact, the only part the poor labouring folk ever knew of it was its high brick wall.
When the Jacobite risings were fermenting, a military camp was formed in Hyde Park. The newspapers contain grand accounts of the rejoicings among the troops, and the feast given to the men by the Duke of Montague, who was in command, in honour of the Prince of Wales’s birthday.
Joseph Addison, writing to a friend in June 1715, says: