HYDE PARK 
29 
Anthony Dean, a ship-builder, for ^9020, 8s. 2d. This 
business-like gentleman presumably reserved the use of 
the timber for his ships, and let out the pasture. His 
tenant proceeded to make as much as he could, and 
levied a toll on all carriages coming into the Park. On 
some occasions he extorted 2s. 6d. from each coach. In 
1653 John Evelyn in his diary complains on April 11 
that he “went to take the aire in Hide Park, when every 
coach was made to pay a shilling, and every horse six¬ 
pence, by the sordid fellow who had purchas’d it of the 
State, as they were call’d.” Cromwell himself was fond 
of riding in the Park, and crowds thronged him as he 
galloped round the Ring. More than one plot was made 
against the life of Cromwell, and the Park was considered 
a likely place in which to succeed. On one occasion the 
would-be assassin joined the crowd, which pursued the 
Protector during his ride, ready, if at any moment he 
galloped beyond the people, to dash at him with a fatal 
blow. The plotter had carefully filed the Park gate off 
its hinges so as to make good his own escape. It is a 
curious fact that Cromwell more nearly met his death in 
Hyde Park by accident than by design. He was pre¬ 
sented with some fine grey Friesland horses, by the Duke 
of Holstein, and insisted on driving the spirited animals 
himself. They bolted, he was thrown from the box, and 
his pistol went off in his pocket, “ though without any 
hurt to himself”! 
The Ring, where all these performances took place, was 
situated to the north-east of where the Humane Society’s 
house, built in 1834, now stands, near the Serpentine. 
There are a few remains of very large elm trees still to 
be seen, which probably shaded some of the company 
assembled to watch the coaches driving round and round 
