FORESTRY 



HYDE PARK 



Hyde Park, which was cultivated ground known as the manor of 

 Eia at the time of the Domesday Survey, was in the hands of subjects 

 from the days of the Conqueror to those of Henry VIII. The latter 

 king in 1532 effected an exchange of lands with the abbot and convent 

 of Westminster, whereby the monks secured the early dissolved priory 

 lands of Poughley, Berkshire, in exchange for about 100 acres in 

 Westminster which were formed into St. James's Park. In 1536 

 Henry VIII gave the abbey the lands of the priory of Hurley, Berkshire, 

 in exchange for the manors of Eyebury, Eabury or Ebury (which 

 included the part afterwards known as Hyde Park), Neyte, and Tod- 

 dington. There is no doubt that the king wanted these manors, so 

 closely adjacent to his palace of Westminster, for hunting purposes. 

 The manor of Hyde was speedily inclosed and made a park, with 

 sufficiently high fences to restrain the deer with which it was stocked.* 1 



The transference to the king of the ' sayte, sayle, circuyte, and 

 procyncte of the manor of Hyde ' is recited at length in an Act passed 

 for the purpose of assuring to the crown this manor and the other adja- 

 cent property of the abbey of Westminster. 49 Hyde Park was then of 

 much greater extent, for it included the portion taken to add to Kensing- 

 ton Gardens, as well as a good deal of land now built over at Hyde Park 

 Corner; it comprised about 620 acres instead of the 361 acres of the 

 present day. Special keepers were speedily assigned to it ; payments 

 made to two keepers of c Hide Park,' named Edward Free and George 

 Roper, occur in the King's Accounts of I544. 43 The two keepers 

 occupied separate lodges, the one on the site of Apsley House, and the 

 other in the centre of the park in a building long known as the Old 

 Lodge, which was pulled down when the Serpentine was formed. 44 



The park was used as a hunting-ground in the reigns of Edward VI, 

 Mary, Elizabeth, and James I. In June, 1550, the boy king here enter- 

 tained a special embassy from France, who had crossed the seas to obtain 

 the ratification of the treaty ceding Boulogne for 400,000 crowns. A 

 letter from the lords of the council to the English ambassador at Paris 

 says,' Upon Tuesday the king's Majesty had them on hunting in Hyde Park, 

 and that night they supped with his Highness in the Privy Chamber.' 45 



Queen Elizabeth was also ready to entertain her guests, after like 

 fashion, with sport in Hyde Park. The Talbot Papers, in a letter from 

 Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury in February, 1578, record the 

 entertainment offered to Count Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine : 



My Lord of Leicester also hath given him dyvers other thynges, as geldynges, 

 hawks and hounds, crosse-bowes, &c. ... for he delyghteth greatly in huntynge and 

 can chouse his wynter deere very well. He kylled a barren doe with his pece this 

 other daye in Hyde Parke from amongst ccc other deere. 46 



41 Ashton, Hyde Park, from Domes Jay to Date (i%<)6),i-%. " Stat. of Realm, 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 49. 

 tt L. and P. Hen. VIII, xix (i), 368. " Larwood, The Story of the Land. Parks, i, 9. 



44 Tytler, Edto. VI and. Mary, i, 288. * Lodge, lllui. of Brit. Hilt, ii, 205. 



231 



