Hyde Park and the adjoining lands, denuded of their few human inhabitants, must rapidly have returned to the condition of primeval forest. The streams feeding the numerous marshes doubtless attracted numbers of wild fowl, and hawking was a popular sport. It was practised on foot with a long hawking pole. King Henry loved the sport, which required even more energy than following the falcon’s course on horseback. He was addicted, in spite of his size, to taking immense leaps on his pole, and there is a quaint record of an accident on one of these occasions when following the hawk over swampy ground. His pole broke, and, failing to clear a muddy brook, the king fell headlong into the oozy slush, where he would have been suffocated but for the aid of his attendants. What an amusing spectacle this pompous monarch must have made, mud-besmeared, being hauled out of the mire by his servants. More cheerful things than hunting and death appear in the days of Henry VIII. Sometimes romance steps in. May Day games begun in early Plantagenet times were a national festival. One can only hope that May Day in the sixteenth century was warmer than it is in the twentieth, for light muslin frocks with bare arms, and flower head-dresses, to say nothing of dancing-shoes, would be somewhat cold on modern English May Days, when we sit huddled over fires in Mayfair. These May Day festivals were more like the _Carnivals des Fleurs_ now annually held in the south of France. Cars almost smothered in flowers were drawn by white horses. According to an account of May Day in 1517, the Royal party had gone to Greenwich Palace to join the festivities. The entertainment finished with the first recorded English horse-race. The King raced his brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, who—respecting his head—wisely allowed his opponent to win: their steeds were not thoroughbreds, oh dear, no! they were Flemish dray-horses. Queen Katharine was much chagrined that she lost £2 over her wager, as she had backed the Duke of Suffolk. Bluff King Hal and his beautiful spouse Anne Boleyn passed many hours in Hyde Park. There, they disported themselves in the sunshine, and enjoyed freedom from public show and conventionality. There, they played at boy and girl, forgot affairs of State, and enjoyed themselves as heartily, romping along the sylvan glades, as Napoleon I. and the beautiful Josephine on the sands at Biarritz. Anne Boleyn appears to have been a somewhat extravagant lady, for, in spite of all the gorgeous presents he showered upon her, the King paid her debts, and in 1531 still had to redeem the jewels which she had pawned. Her betting propensities were enormous, and gambling parties were her chief joy; but, after lavishing wealth upon her, Henry tired of her as he did of others. These few words give some idea of the gorgeousness of the time, from which we can picture the scenes in Hyde Park: