A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



desired to try a fine new team of six grey horses which the Earl of 

 Oldenburg had lately sent him. Cromwell drove with success for some 

 time, but using the whip too freely, he lost control of the team, which 

 plunging threw him off the box on to the pole, ' dragging him by the 

 foot for some time so that a pistol went off in his pocket to the amaze- 

 ment of men.' As a result of this accident, he was let blood and con- 

 fined to his house for several days. 70 



The Protector's life was subsequently again endangered in Hyde 

 Park from a very different cause. During the trial of Miles Sindercombe 

 for shooting at Cromwell at Shepherd's Bush in February, 1656, it was 

 deposed by one of his accomplices that 



They [the conspirators] went out several times for the purpose of shooting him, and 

 having received notice from one of the Troope of his Highness's Lifeguards that he 

 would be in the Park on a certain day, they went thither heavily armed, and that 

 the hinges of the Park gate were filed in in order to facilitate their escape. . . . That 

 when his Highness rode into the Park he alighted and speaking to Cecill asked whose 

 horse that was he rode upon, Sindercombe being then outside the Park ; that Cecill 

 was then ready to have done it, but doubted the fleetness of his horse, he having a 

 cold. 71 



Another incident of a very different kind that happened in the 

 park during the Commonwealth is recorded by Evelyn, after a very terse 

 fashion, as occurring on 20 May, 1658. He says : ' I went to a coach 

 race in Hyde Park, and collationed in Spring Garden.' 7S 



In April, 1660, some six weeks before the recall of Charles II, 

 towards which General Monk was so assiduously scheming, a great 

 review of the trained bands and their auxiliaries was held in Hyde 

 Park, when a force of about 20,000 men marched past a ' spacious 

 fabric ' in the centre of the Park, wherein the lord mayor, the court 

 of aldermen, and the Commissioners for the Militia were seated in 

 state. 73 On May-day the park was crowded with a gay throng in antici- 

 pation of the coming return of the monarchy, and on 29 May occurred 

 the triumphant entry of the long-banished king. Ere the year closed 

 Charles II held a review in Hyde Park of 20,000 of the re-modelled 

 trained bands and of 800 cavalry. 7 * 



The references to the gaiety of Hyde Park during the reign of 

 Charles II, particularly on May-day, by the diarists Evelyn and Pepys 

 are far too numerous for citation. 



It must not, however, be supposed that the fashionable folk of the 

 time were in the habit of taking the air throughout the whole or any 

 considerable part of the park. There was an inner circle in the centre 

 of its northern half known as the ' Ring,' round which it was the custom 

 to ride and drive. Sometimes this circle was known as the 'Tour,' a 

 term cited by Pepys. The origin of this Ring is unknown, but it has 

 been conjectured that it was a remnant of the gardens attached to the 

 old Banqueting House. 7 ' 



"> Carlyle, Cromwell, iv, 22-3. " Mercuritu PoRtieus, 15-21 Jan. 1657. 



n Diary, i, 327. n Mereuriiu Political, 19-26 Apr. 1660. 



" Stow, Survey (Strype's ed.), iii, 571. " Larwood, Story of the Lond, Parks, 58-9. 



236 



