REGENTS PARK 87 



distinguished himself in the lists, and won the approba- 

 tion of Queen Elizabeth. She presented him with a 

 chessman in gold, which he fastened on his arm with 

 a crimson ribbon. This aroused the jealousy of Essex, 

 who said with scorn, " Now I perceive that every fool 

 must have a favour." Whereupon Blount challenged 

 him. They met in Marylebone Park, and Essex was 

 disarmed and wounded in the thigh. 



In Mary's time the Park witnessed a warlike scene 



in connection with one of the organised attempts to 



dethrone the Queen. The indictment of Sir Nicholas 



Throgmorton for high treason, because he, with Sir 



Thomas Wyatt and others, "conspired to depose and 



destroy the Queen," states that " the said Sir Nicholas 



plotted to take and hold the Tower, levy war in 



Kent, Devonshire, etc., and, with Sir Henry Isley and 



others, on 26 January 1554, rose with 2000 men, 



marched from Kent to Southwark, and by Brentford and 



Marylebone Park to London, the Queen being then at 



Westminster, but were overthrown by her army." The 



incidents which centre round this Park are few. Even 



in the accounts of all the royal lands it does not often 



occur. In 1607 one item in the Domestic State 



Papers, a list of nine parks, from each of which four 



bucks were to be taken, includes Hyde Park, but 



Marylebone is not mentioned, and in orders to the 



keepers it does not often occur. 



During the Commonwealth it comes more into 

 notice, from the sad fact that it was then sold and dis- 

 parked, and the trees cut down. When Cromwell sold 

 it to ''John Spencer of London, gent.," the proceeds 

 were settled on Col. Thomas Harrison's regiment of 

 dragoons for their pay. The existing Ranger, John 



