After this Camp the King held frequent reviews, of which nothing need be
said, nor indeed is there anything military to chronicle with regard to
Hyde Park until May 1, 1787, on which date (_Gent.’s Mag._) “His Majesty
having sent down the sentence of a Court-martial held upon a private of
the Life Guards (for rude and improper behaviour to his officer) to the
Colonels of the four troops, for their consideration, it was returned by
them, and the purport was as follows:
_Sentence._--“That the prisoner Lloyd, private in the first troop of
Horse Guards, shall receive one thousand lashes, and then be publicly
dismissed the troop.
“His Majesty, we understand, but not in pity to the prisoner, whose
demerits deserve a severer punishment, has remitted that part of the
sentence which orders the _thousand lashes_, as corporal punishment was
never inflicted on his own Body Guard; and has ordered him to be
dismissed the troop, with every public mark of infamy.
“May 14. This day Lloyd, the Life Guardsman, convicted by a
Court-martial, as mentioned in a former article, was publicly trumpeted
out of the regiment, on the reviewing ground in Hyde Park. After the
ceremony was over, the populace carried off the man in triumph, in sight
of the whole regiment.”
Reviews by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of
Gloucester were frequent; and, after 1793, were much increased by the
Volunteers, who were then generally enrolled. There had been Volunteers
previously, notably the “Royal London and Middlesex Light Horse
Volunteers,” which ranked as the oldest corps, having been enrolled in
1779, during a violent French scare. Next year, they materially helped
to put down the Lord George Gordon Riots, and were rewarded by the King
and the City of London with standards. Disbanded in 1783, they were
again enrolled in 1794, and reviewed in Hyde Park, with their old
standards proudly flying, in July of that year.
But the grandest review in the Park at this time was on the 4th of June,
1799, the 62nd birthday of George III., when the “Armed Associations”
passed before him. The illustration is taken from a portion of a
contemporary engraving, and the following account is taken from _The
Annual Register_:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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