The fashionable crowd about the Parks seemed less at ease, and no doubt there were numerous absentees. Men pursuing their daily duties, the merchant in the City, or the dandy of the day sauntering in the morning, on whom the slightest suspicion of Jacobitism rested, would be accosted by a gruff individual, shown a Privy Council warrant, and dragged off, ruffle, cravat, embroideries, and wig notwithstanding. An ignominious retreat from a gay scene or a busy world. Writing in 1690 to her husband, William III., who was in Holland, Queen Mary says: “I was only last night in Hyde Park, for the first time since you went: it swarmed with those that are now ordered to be clapt up.” Mary, unfortunately, was not able to convey much of her “jolliness” to the Park, where the lighter side of London life loved to assemble. King William suffered from asthma, and a damp riverside Palace at Westminster did not suit him. He was recommended to migrate to Kensington, near the Gravel Pits. This was far remote from the town; but possibly the dryness of the gravel soil settled the choice. Ten years after his reign began, old Whitehall Palace was consumed in flames, and the severance was then complete. The King had bought a house and grounds from the Earl of Nottingham, and there raised the present building of Kensington Palace, wherein Queen Victoria was born. Though still so near, Hyde Park saw little of them, for William was occupied in State affairs, and Queen Mary preferred the quietness of their private gardens. Thus whatever little tone and vigour remained in Society, soon disappeared, and a greater laxity made itself apparent. The Park, as it ceased to be a Royal preserve and properly cared for, became infested with undesirable characters, and Knightsbridge, which, as already mentioned, had always been looked on as a locality frequented by robbers, presented many hiding-places for footpads of the most desperate description. Hyde Park sank into a period of degradation unexampled either before or since. Still it was an age of romance. It is rather amusing to read of the tax on bachelors. It must be remembered that at the beginning of the reign of William and Mary the population of England was only five and a half millions, and the revenue amounted to £1,400,000. No wonder that in 1695 an Act was passed obliging all bachelors and widowers above twenty-five years old to pay a tax of one shilling yearly; a bachelor or widower duke, £12, 10s.; a marquis, £10 a year.