HYDE PARK 25 



Westminster, they were probably well cultivated by 

 their tenants, and doubtless the game with which they 

 abounded from early times afforded the Abbot some 

 pleasant days' sport and tasty meals. The first time 

 any of the Manor became part of the royal demesne, 

 was when the Abbot Islip exchanged 100 acres of what 

 is now St. James's Park, adjoining the royal lands, for 

 Poughley in Berkshire, with Henry VIII. in 153 1-2. 

 This Abbot, who had an ingenious device to represent 

 his name — a human eye and a cutting or " slip " of a tree 

 — died in the Manor House of Neate or Neyte the 

 same year. He gave up the lands from Charing Cross 

 " unto the Hospital of St. James in the fields " (now 

 St. James's Palace), and the meadows between the 

 Hospital and Westminster. Five years later, when the 

 upheaval of the dissolution of the monasteries was 

 taking place, the monks of Westminster were forced to 

 take the lands of the Priory of Hurley — one of their own 

 cells just dissolved — in exchange for the rest of the manor. 

 Henry VIII., who loved sport, found these lands first- 

 rate hunting-ground. From his palace at Westminster, 

 through Hyde Park, right away to Hampstead, he had 

 an almost uninterrupted stretch of country, where hares 

 and herons, pheasants and partridges, could be pursued 

 and preserved " for his own disport and pastime." 

 Hyde Park was enclosed, or " substancially empayled," 

 as an old writer states, and a large herd of deer kept 

 there, and various proclamations show that the right 

 of sport had to be jealously guarded. 



What a gay scene must Hyde Park have often wit- 

 nessed in Elizabeth's reign. The Queen, when not 

 actually joining in the chase, watched the proceedings 

 from the hunting pavilion, or "princelye standes therein," 



