“After most hertie Comendacons It may like yoᵘ to understande/ that the same tyme the Marshall of Saint Andrewes was here, I was willed by the Counsaill to se a Banketting howse and sondry standinges wᵗʰ all the furniture requisite therunto prepared at hyde and Maryboon parkes/ wᶜʰ were doon accordingly/ And the Surveioʳ wᵗʰ the Comptrolleʳ of the Kinges Maᵗᵉˢ workes to furnishe me wᵗʰ men and all other necessaryes for the same/ at wᶜʰ time the Surveior Laurence brodshawe (noiated [nominated] by the Lord Winchester) was then appointed to se the Solucons of the premisses/ wherunto he Receyved (as I understande) by a warrant from the said Lordes) the Summe of twoo hundreth Markes/ in the bestowing wherof I was not pryvey/ nor yet to the making of their bookes/ but by a Docket of a grosse Summe/ wᶜʰ doth not agree wᵗʰ the particulars taken to the Clercke of the Tentes and Revelles (as by him I understande) by the summe of nyne poundes and more by what meanes I knowe not/ for that I have not seen/ nor can gett their booke of particulars to peruse/ wherby having perfytt notice of all thinges doon to Hyde Parke I might conferre the bookes together/ and subscrybe the same/ that the poore artificers were discharged wᶜʰ verely I thought had been fully paide or thir tyme/ for that the Surveioʳ was fully appointed thereunto/ and I but only to se the same doon and furnished accordinglye. And whereas they looke (as I conjecture) I shuld put my handes to their doinges (wherunto I can not be made pryyve) I thinke it for diverse respectes not convenyent/ of one thinge I assure yoᵘ/ I never receyved one peny for the same hytherto/ and yet was it chargeable besydes my paynes unto me/ Sʳ if any things be in these partes/ wherein I may do yoᵘ pleasʳ I shall want of my good will, then yoᵘ therfor. Thus most hertely fare yoᵘ wel. Scrybelyd in hast From Bleachingly the xxvjᵗʰ of October 1551. “Yoʳ assueryd to hys power “TH. CAWERDEN.” But of Edward VI.’s short reign there is really little to be said. CHAPTER III VAGARIES OF MONARCHS Queen Mary has not come down to us in a social light. The very idea of her as a Society personage seems grotesque. “Bloody Mary” she was in her own time, and as such she will probably always be known. She rarely went far afield, and her only association with Hyde Park seems to have been the unusual number of people she hanged at Tyburn. The park was still far remote from the town. Streets did not creep up to its precincts until quite a century and a half later. When Sir Thomas Wyatt marched with his rebels upon London, his ordnance was planted at Hyde Park Corner, and his men occupied the fields where now stand Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood to the south.