"Hyde Park, May 1, 1654.--This day there was a hurling of a great ball by fifty Cornish gentlemen of the one side, and fifty on the other; one party played in red caps and the other in white. There was present, his highness the lord protector, many of his privy council, and divers eminent gentlemen, to whose view was presented great agility of body, and most neat and exquisite wrestling, at every meeting of one with another, which was ordered with such dexterity, that it was to show more the strength, vigor, and nimbleness of their bodies, than to endanger their persons. The ball they played withal was silver, and was designed for that party which did win the goal." Coach-racing was another amusement of the period, perhaps something of an imitation of the old chariot races; races on foot were also run. The author of a book entitled, "A Character of England, as it was lately presented to a Nobleman of France," published in 1659, further describes Hyde Park in the manner following: "I did frequently in the spring accompany my lord N---- into a field near the town, which they call Hide Park; the place not unpleasant, and which they use as our course, but with nothing of that order, equipage, and splendor, being such an assembly of wretched jades and hackney coaches, as, next a regiment of carmen, there is nothing approaches the resemblance. The park was, it seems, used by the late king and nobility for the freshness of the air and the goodly prospect; but it is that which now (besides all other exercises) they pay for here, in England, though it be free in all the world besides, every coach and horse which enters buying his mouthful, and permission of the publican who has purchased it, for which the entrance is guarded with porters and long staves."