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the Fields, and from thence to Islington, to our Lady of the 
Oak, to Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath.’ y 
In several succeeding reigns Hyde Park served as a royal 
hunting-ground. Edward the Sixth, while yet a boy, hunted 
there in 1 550 with the French Ambassadors. In 1 578, when John 
Casimir, Duke of Bavaria, paid a visit to Queen Elizabeth, he 
stayed at Somerset House, and amused himself with hunting 
at Hampton Court, and shooting in Hyde Park, where it is 
recorded that in February of that year 44 he killed a barren 
doe with his pece from amongst ccc other deere.” * * * § 
The Queen herself used evidently to witness the sport, if she 
did not actually take part in it, as she did elsewhere,! for in 
the accounts of the Board of Works for the year 1582 is an 
entry of a payment 44 for making of two new standings in Mary- 
bone and Hyde Park for the Queen’s Majesty and the noblemen 
of France to see the hunting.” It is to these, probably, that 
Norden, the topographer, alludes when describing the place 
about this time. He writes : 44 Hyde Park, substantially im- 
payled, with a fayre lodge, and princelye standes therein. It is 
a stately parke, and full of fayre game.”! 
James the First continued to preserve the game here with 
great strictness ; and in October 1619 some deer-stealers were 
executed at Hyde Park Grate, and with them a poor labourer, 
whom they had hired for Is. 4 d. to hold their dogs. § 
In January 1625, a warrant was sent to the keeper of Hyde 
Park to cause three brace of bucks to be taken to Marybone 
Park, to supply the scarcity caused by the great rain there; 
and another warrant to the master of the toils, for the toils to 
be sent to Hyde Park for the purpose. || 
St. James’s Park, which, prior to the time of Henry the Eighth, 
was little better than a marshy field, was in his reign enclosed 
and stocked with deer. 
There were no less than eleven ponds there in James the 
First’s time. These were turned to account by being stocked 
with fish and waterfowl, and the park was then much improved 
and ornamented with walks and fountains. The part of the 
park now called the Enclosure was staked off from the walks by 
Charles the Second for the purpose of protecting the deer and 
other animals of which he was very fond. 
The collection of waterfowl maintained by Charles the Second 
in St. James’s Park must be familiar to all who have read the 
* Lodge’s “ Illustrations of British History,” 1791, vol. ii. p. 205. 
t Letter from Rowland White to Sir Robert Sidney, dated September 12, 
1G00; and Nichols’ “Progresses, &c., of Queen Elizabeth,” vol. iii. p. 90. 
I Norden, “ Survey of Middlesex and Hertfordshire,” 1596, p. 19. 
§ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1619-28, p. 88. 
II Ibid., 1623-25, p. 445. 
