26 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



and feasted the guests in the banqueting-house. There 

 were brilliantly caparisoned horses, men and women in 

 costly velvets and brocades, stiff frills, plumed hats and 

 embroidered gloves. Picture the cortege entering by the 

 old lodge, where now is Hyde Park Corner, the honoured 

 guest, for whom the day's sport was inaugurated — such 

 as John Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine, who showed 

 his skill by killing a particular deer out of a herd of 300 

 — surrounded by some of his foreign attendants, and 

 escorted by all the court gallants of the day. 



The Park must then have been as wild as the New 

 or Sherwood Forests of to-day. The tall trees, with 

 their sturdy stems, were then untouched by smoky 

 air, the sylvan glades and pasture lands had no distant 

 vistas of houses and chimneys to spoil their rural aspect, 

 while far off the pile of the buildings of Westminster 

 Abbey — without the conspicuous towers, which were 

 not finished till 17 14 — might be seen rising beyond the 

 swamps and fens of St. James's Park. Hyde Park on 

 a May evening even now is still beautiful, if looked at 

 from the eastern side across a golden mist, against 

 which the dark trees stand up mysteriously, when a 

 glow of sunset light seems to transform even ragged 

 little Cockney children into fairies. It wants but little 

 imagination to see that same golden haze peopled with 

 hunstmen, and to hear the sound of the horn instead 

 of the roar of carriages. 



The next scene which can be brought vividly before 

 the mind's eye is very different from the last pageant. 

 These are troublous times. The monarch and his 

 courtiers are occupied in far other pursuits than hunt- 

 ing deer. Charles I. was fighting in the vain endeavour 

 to keep his throne, and Londoners were preparing to 



