Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, herself a constant visitor to the Park, writing to her future husband a couple of years later, refers to the same scene: “... all the fine equipages that shine in the Ring, never gave me another thought than either pity or contempt for the owners, that could place happiness in attracting the eye of strangers.”

From the days of her early childhood, Lady Mary had been before the eyes of London Society, as well as an admired member. The daughter of the Duke of Kingston, she shone not merely for her ready wit, and in the Courts of George I. and George II., but she introduced inoculation for smallpox in England. Not only did Mary II. in England and Louis XV. of France die of smallpox; but William III. and Caroline Wilhelmina, wife of George II., were fearfully disfigured by its ravages. Even kings were not immune. One has only to read the Correspondence of those days, and the frequent mention of beautiful women and comely men marked with that frightful disease, to realise the strides science has made in conquering this malady. One wonders what would be Lady Mary’s piquant remark could she now see the enormous development of inoculation for other diseases made by science to-day.

As a child she became the toast of the Kit-cat Club, one of the first of these institutions ever formed. The exigencies of the times necessitated gentlemen having some place where those of like politics and tastes could meet; and several Whig noblemen and esquires held their assemblies at a public-house “with the sign of the Cat and Fiddle,” in Shire Lane, which was kept by Christopher Kat. Amongst its members were the most distinguished men of the day, and when politics assumed a less pronounced tone, men of literary and other merits were accepted as members. This club finally moved to Barn Elms, and is known as Ranelagh to-day.

Among the habitués of the Park was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who took a prominent place in the Society of this reign, while another impressive figure was the Duchess of Buckingham. The Duke of Buckingham bought the house that Lord Arlington had built in the Mulberry Gardens, and changed its name to Buckingham House, the year after Anne’s accession. His lady was the illegitimate daughter of James II. and the Countess of Dorchester, and never was a real Royal Princess more exacting as to regal precedence and etiquette. On the anniversary of the execution of her grandfather, Charles I., she used to sit in Buckingham House in state, attired in deep mourning; and from both Anne and George I. she claimed the right of driving through the Royal private enclosures near St. James’s Palace. When her only son died, she demanded from the Duchess of Marlborough the loan of the wonderful coach that had borne the body of the Duke from Marlborough House to St. Paul’s, and, on receiving a curt refusal, ordered one to exceed it in grandeur to be built. Thereupon she made all preparations for her own obsequies, and wrote epitaphs for her son and herself, insisting that their remains should be buried in Westminster Abbey.

It is well to imagine the setting in which these leaders of Society showed themselves in their daily drives. Wild and beautiful, no doubt, was the Hyde Park of Queen Anne, but it was not the luxurious garden that we now know. Let us obliterate for a moment from our mind’s eye the well-kept grounds of our favourite resort, with the waters of the Serpentine sparkling in the sun, and replace them by thickets and brushwood growing on marshy ground, here and there stagnant pools, with the pungent smell that ever pervades any tract of swampy forest-land; while instead of the light iron railing that encloses Hyde Park of to-day, there stood the solid wall which had taken the place of Henry VIII.’s wooden paling.

In 1712, Anne issued further orders “for the better keeping of Hyde Park.” Gatekeepers were always to be on duty, and not to sell intoxicating liquors. No one was to leap or ride over ditches and fences, or to break the latter, and this also applied to the banks of ponds. No person was to ride over the grass on the south side of the gravelled coach road except Henry Wise, who was permitted to cross the part of the Park leading to the door in the Park wall next his plantation. Nobody should cut or lop trees, and the law forbidding hackney coaches was extended to stage coaches, chaises with one horse, carts, waggons, and funerals.

Gardens were becoming the fashion at this time, and Evelyn twice mentions visiting the wonderful nursery gardens belonging to Mr. Wise at Brompton, the site of famous nurseries until quite a recent date.

A great sensation was caused a few years later, in the reign of George I., when some men of good birth one day hired a hackney coach, drawn by six horses in the most terrible state of decay. Scavengers were mounted on the box as footmen; chimney-sweepers acted as postillions and shoeblacks ran behind.

The originators of the “joke” themselves entered the coach, and, making a dash through the gates of Hyde Park, drove their dying steeds furiously to the Ring and took their turn round it before they could be prevented.

Although Queen Anne did not herself encourage people to waste their time in the Parks, her reign saw Society considerably broadened, somewhat to the disgust of the older families. The City merchants on the Sabbath sallied forth with their fine ladies to join the habitual frequenters, and the Church parade of gallants and dames became an important function.

Society spent most of its Sundays there in the season, meeting and chatting just as Society does to-day, and so began the custom of sitting out on sunny Sunday afternoons, as is still the fashion. Church-going was merely an opportunity for show, of bowing to acquaintances who were present at the prayer-meeting, and probably making arrangements for further gossip at a later hour of the day, especially at St. Paul’s. The fashionable service was in the afternoon, after which people again repaired to the Park.

Colley Cibber, in his Apology for my Life, writes:

What would poor old Colley Cibber, who was so surprised at a four o’clock dinner, say to the fashionable hour in London of eight or half past? Everything is later. We get up later, breakfast later, lunch later; have instituted “tea” since those days, and have our dinner when those good folk had their suppers. And what would the theatrical world say to a performance beginning at four o’clock in London, although in many German towns it still starts at six; but then in the little German towns people dine at one o’clock, as they used to do in England formerly. Only in Berlin does Society wear dress clothes, and take the meal after seven o’clock in full feckle.

Knowing the attractions of Hyde Park for a certain section of great folk in the reign of Edward VII., it is amusing to read the Tattler of two hundred years ago speaking of the strange infatuation of walking in the Park in spring. The gossiping writer says that

Later, Addison, remarking on this same custom, points out the mischief-making done by the servants when waiting for their masters and mistresses at the entrance to the Park: “The next place of resort,” he says, “wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the entrance of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the Ring. Hither people bring their lacqueys out of state, and here it is that all they say at their tables, and act in their houses, is communicated to the whole town.”

Whether these comments put an end to servants wasting their time, wagging their tongues, and their general want of law and order while waiting at the Park, is unrecorded, but the rule forbidding them access to Kensington Gardens was still in existence, as quoted in the Introduction: “Working people, servants in livery, and dogs were not allowed in Kensington Gardens. On the occasion of a storm the rule was relaxed, and footmen, for once, were allowed to bring in the umbrellas.”