i8o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
to be no epoch in his life that is unaccounted for, during which 
time he could have been in England. 1 No exact year has ever 
been assigned for Le Notre’s stay in England, though some have 
thought that the “ French Gardeners ” who were “ supervised ” 
in 1661 included him. In various works on London or on gar¬ 
dening published more than a hundred years later, it is simply 
recorded that Le Notre laid out St. James’s Park and the other 
places which are attributed to him, but none of them give 
any contemporary authority for the statement. One writer 
even makes it appear that he paid two visits, one in the reign 
of Charles II., the other while William III. was on the throne. 
There is a colossal MS. Biography in the British Museum 
by Joseph Gulston, who died in 1786, of “ Foreigners who 
have visited England,” 2 and it gives a short notice of the life 
of Le Notre, in which it states “ he was in England in the 
reign of King William. The gardens at Cashiobury, in Hert¬ 
fordshire, the seat of the Earl of Essex, were planted and laid 
out by Le Notre in the reign of Charles II. . . . He planted 
St. James and Greenwich Park, no great monuments of his 
invention.” 
With regard to Cassiobury, it is known that Lord Essex’s 
gardener was Rose, who was sent by him to study at Versailles, 
and that he was succeeded by Moses Cook, who is said, 
together with the Earl, to have laid out the grounds. 3 That 
he was in England in the time of William III. is most unlikely, 
as appears from MSS. letters which will be quoted, dated 
1698. Le Notre was born in 1613, and died in September, 
1700, and was buried in Paris, and that he should have under¬ 
taken a fatiguing journey at such an advanced age is most 
improbable. If the visit ever took place, therefore, it was 
in all probability in the reign of Charles II. If he was actually 
directing the works in St. James’s Park, it must have been early 
1 I am assured this is the case by M. Edouard Andre. He writes : 
“ Je suis de plus en plus persuade que le Notre ne se rendit pas en 
Angleterre aucun document n’ayant pu me permettre de fixer Tepoque 
a laquelle ce voyage aurait pu avoir lieu.” 
2 MS. Biographical Dictionary of Foreigners who have Resided in 
or Visited England from the Earliest Times down to the Year 1777, by 
Joseph Gulston {oh. 1786). 
3 See p. 165. 
