In a letter to the Times in 1795, the vexed subject of tips is discussed:
“If a man who has a horse puts up at an Inn, besides the usual bill he must at least give 1s. to the waiter, 6d. to chambermaid, 6d. to ostler, and 6d. to jack-boot. At breakfast you must give at least 6d. to waiter and hostler. If the traveller only puts up for refreshment, besides paying for his horses, he must give 3d. to hostler; at dinner, 6d. to waiter and 3d to hostler; at tea, 6d. between them, etc.”
Jane Austen herself came late enough for the old days of rigid severity towards children to be past. She says: “No longer were mere babies taken to see executions and whipped on their return to enforce the example they had beheld.”
Londoners still flocked to the west on Sundays in their best attire, and on one occasion, in 1759, Lady Coventry was mobbed in Hyde Park. The King, hearing of it, ordered that a guard of twelve sergeants should disperse in the Park on the following Sunday, and that a reinforcement of a sergeant and twelve men should be ready in case of need. This Lady Coventry knew, of course, and she went to the Park the following Sunday, immediately pretended to be frightened, summoned the guard, and walked about for some time with the twelve sergeants in front of her, her husband and Lord Pembroke beside her, and the sergeant and twelve men behind her.
“It is at present the talk of the whole town,” says the Hon. J. West in a letter to a friend.
It was this same Lady Coventry who, when conversing with George II., one day remarked: “The only sight I am eager to see is a coronation.”
The old King laughed heartily, and repeated it as a good story. She did not realise her wish, because she died a few days before His Majesty.
That gay stream of fashion on the south side was a wondrous sight, and yet Hyde Park had a vast extent of quiet bosky acres, where old ladies took their favourite lap-dogs for a run, as Mrs. Thrale speaks of doing when she lived in Hanover Square. At Hyde Park Corner, where a woman named Allen had sold apples and other refreshments from a small portable stall, was erected an ugly little building by special permission of the King, who recognised in the woman’s husband a soldier who had fought under him at Dettingen—the last battle in which a King of England ever took part. This land was afterwards sold by Allen’s descendants to Apsley, Lord Bathurst, who built Apsley House, afterwards the home of the famous Duke of Wellington. George II. also rewarded a pilot who had saved his life on one of his journeys to Hanover by allowing him to “vend victuals” in Hyde Park—kindly deeds which soften many ugly lights in his character.
It was just after the death of this monarch that the Park played its part in the romance of his grandson, George III. The story of the love and admiration of the young King for the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox (daughter of the Duke of Richmond) is well known. Lady Sarah loved Lord Newbattle, and he was probably the cause of her coolness to George III. When she was staying with her aunt at Holland House a meeting was arranged in Hyde Park between the lovers by Lord Newbattle’s sister, Lady George Lennox, and it was there decided that he should at once ask his father’s consent to the marriage. Lord Ancrum, however, would not give permission, and there the matter ended.
But when Cupid walks in high places, Intrigue is busy dogging his footsteps. And in this case Lord Bute in some way heard of the projected meeting in the Park, and not only informed the Royal suitor, but contrived for him to be a witness of it, and thus reconciled him to his marriage with Charlotte of Mecklenburg.