It would be wearisome to chronicle every review, except grand ones such as the following, which is thus described in the St. James’s Chronicle, June 25-28, 1763. “On the morning of the 27th inst. at half-past eight, his Majesty, the Duke of York, and Prince William Henry, attended by Earl Delawar, and escorted by the first troop of Horse Guards, mounted their horses at the Queen’s Palace,[46] and proceeded up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park. They were received at their entry into St. James’s Park by Lord Ligonier, the Marquis of Granby, Earl Talbot and Earl Harcourt, with their attendants and their led horses. At the gate of the Green Park they were received by Lord Orford, Ranger of the Parks, on Horseback; and, on their entry into Hyde Park, his Majesty received a Royal Salute from the Artillery. The manner of the three Regiments of Foot Guards going through their new method of exercise, need not be repeated; it is sufficient to observe that never men went through their discipline with greater exactness, which reflected the highest honour on their Officers, and filled the numerous spectators with admiration.

Besides the illustrious personages above mentioned, his Majesty’s two younger Brothers, and a great number of the First Persons of Distinction of both Sexes, and near One Hundred Thousand other People, were present. It is remarkable that Elliot’s Light Horse, the Matrosses,[47] who managed the artillery with such inimitable skill, and those of the Guards, who served abroad in Germany, wore in their Caps and Hats Sprigs of Laurel and Oak, emblematical of the Immortality and never-dying Fame of their late glorious Achievements.”

On July 25 following, the King again reviewed Elliot’s Light Horse in the Park, and the same newspaper (July 23-26) records the following accidents. “Colonel Elliot, in putting up his sword into the Scabbard, by the prancing of his Horse wounded himself in the Thigh, but not so dangerously but that he went through the whole Exercise of his Regiment, with great Composure and Exactness. A large arm of a Tree broke down, by which accident a Sergeant in the Guards had his Skull fractured, and several others were terribly bruised.”

George III. held many reviews in Hyde Park, especially during the early days of the American War of Independence, and the Park was a veritable Champ de Mars for military exercises. In 1778, an earthen rampart, twenty feet high and three feet wide at its base, was erected as butts for musket practice. It began at Cumberland Gate, and ran westwards towards Bayswater. Being near the high road, it was very dangerous, although at that time the other side of the road was all fields.

On June 2nd, 1780, broke out the fanatical riots generally known as the “Lord George Gordon Riots,” with which we have nothing to do, other than to chronicle the fact that the troops in and near London being considered insufficient to cope with the rioters, others were summoned from different parts of the country. Lodging must be found for these on their arrival, and we read in The London Chronicle, June 6-8, 1780, that “Orders are given from the War Office for a Camp to be formed in Hyde Park, and the several regiments that are to compose the same are now on their march; and, yesterday, the Hampshire Militia pitched their tents there for that purpose.” Also, later on in the same paper (p. 552), “Seven battalions of militia marched into Hyde-Park yesterday afternoon, where they immediately encamped. A large detachment of the Hampshire militia are doing duty at the President Lord Bathurst’s house in Piccadilly. The Park Gates are all shut, and no person suffered to pass through on any account whatever.”

The Morning Chronicle of June 10 says: “Thursday (June 8), six regiments of Militia were encamped in Hyde Park; they are to be joined by several other regiments, which will make their number 10,000 men”: and the same journal, June 13, tells us that, “The Grand Camp in Hyde Park consists of the nine following regiments: the Queen’s, the Royal Irish, the Twenty-second, Cambridge, South Hants, North Hants, Oxford, Northumberland, One of York.” On the 14th June, the King, Prince of Wales, and “the Bishop of Osnaburgh” (Duke of York) visited the Camp—and so he did on several other occasions. But the riots came to an end, and

the news of the taking of Charlestown drove everything else out of people’s heads, so that we do not hear much more of this Camp; but Paul Sandby painted a series of views of the Camp, and exhibited them at the next Royal Academy. He also engraved them. “The Great Encampment in Hyde Park.” “The Encampment in Hyde Park—The Filbert Merchant.” “Ditto—Marshall Sax’s Tent.” “Ditto—The Soldier’s Toilet” (which is here reproduced), and several others. In “The Soldier’s Toilet” we get rather more than a peep into the domestic life of the Camp, and in the background we see St. George’s Row, and the chapel attached to the burial ground in the Bayswater Road, now rebuilt. After the scare was over, and martial law in London was abolished, the Camp was much visited; but when it had fulfilled its needs it had to come to an end, and on the 10th of August the Camp broke up, after having earned golden opinions from the Londoners.

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:—

“June 4th. Being his Majesty’s birthday, the several associations of the metropolis and its neighbourhood, consisting of sixty-five well-equipped corps, and amounting to upwards of 8000 effective men,[48] assembled in Hyde Park, where they were reviewed by the King. The Temple Association, commanded by Captain Graham, was the first that entered the Park; it arrived at seven o’clock, during a heavy shower of rain, which continued incessantly from the time it left the Temple Gardens. Several other corps followed soon after; and, at half past eight, the whole were on the ground. The necessary dispositions, agreeable to the official regulations, were then made; and, about ten minutes past nine, his Majesty appeared, attended by the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York, Kent, Cumberland and Gloucester, a number of general officers, and a formidable detachment of the Life Guards.

“The line being formed, a cannon was fired, to announce the approach of the King; on which all the corps immediately shouldered in perfect order, and the artillery then fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns. A second gun was fired on his Majesty’s arrival in front of the line, and each corps immediately presented arms, with drums beating and music playing. A third cannon was fired as the signal for shouldering, which was promptly obeyed. His Majesty having passed along the line, and returned by a central point in front, a fourth cannon was fired as a signal to load; and, upon the fifth gun being fired, the different corps began to fire volleys, in succession, from right to left. The same loading and firing were repeated upon the sixth and seventh cannons being fired; in all fifty-nine rounds.

“On the eighth cannon being fired, three cheers were given, and the music played, “God save the King.” The corps then passed his Majesty in grand divisions, in a most excellent manner, under the direction of General Dundas, who headed them on horseback; after which, they filed off to the stations respectively allotted for them. The whole of the evolutions pointed out to them in the general orders having been performed, and another royal salute of twenty-one guns fired, his Majesty, after expressing the highest satisfaction at the martial appearance and excellent conduct of this loyal and patriotic army, departed from the ground at a quarter before one, amidst the joyous shouts and affectionate greetings of the people, who assembled, on this occasion, to the amount of upwards of 100,000, including all the beauty and fashion of the metropolis.

“The sight was truly grand and highly gratifying; and notwithstanding the evolutions were considerably impeded by the high wind and some rain, the whole were performed in a manner that reflects much credit upon every corps present, whose conduct fully entitles them to the very handsome compliment of his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, paid them by order of his Majesty, in the Gazette of that evening. The ground was kept clear by the London and Westminster, and Southwark Volunteer corps of cavalry, who preserved the lines from being infringed by the immense multitude who crowded the Park.”

Another review in the Park on 15th May, 1800, did not pass off so quietly. The Grenadier battalion of the Guards were being exercised, when a gentleman named Ongley, a clerk in the Navy Office, was shot by a musket ball during the volley firing, whilst standing but twenty-three feet from the King. The wound was not dangerous—through the fleshy part of the thigh—and it was immediately dressed; and very little might have been heard of it, had not the King, that same night, been shot at in Drury Lane Theatre. The cartouch-boxes of the soldiers were examined, but none but blank cartridges were found. So little, indeed, was thought of it, that the King, who said it was an accident, stopped on the ground for half an hour afterwards, and four more volleys were fired by the same company before he left.

The next birthday review of Volunteers (4th June, 1800) was not a happy one. It was a larger affair than that of the previous year, some 12,000 men being under arms; but they had to stand in soaking rain for eight hours, as did the majority of the spectators. The following is from the pen of an eye-witness:—

“So early as four o’clock, the drums beat to arms in every quarter, and various other music summoned the reviewers and the reviewed to the field. Even then the clouds were surcharged with rain, which soon began to fall; but no unfavourableness of the weather could damp the ardour of even the most delicate of the fair. So early as six o’clock, all the avenues were crowded with elegantly dressed women escorted by their beaux; and the assemblage was so great, that, when the King entered the Park, it was thought advisable to shut several of the gates, to avoid too much pressure.

“The circumstance of the weather, which, from the personal inconvenience it produced, might be considered the most inauspicious of the day, proved, in fact, the most favourable for a display of beauty, for variety of scene, and number of incidents. From the constant rain, and the constant motion, the whole Park could be compared only to a new-ploughed field. The gates being locked, there was no possibility of retreating, and there was no shelter but an old tree or an umbrella. In this situation you might behold an elegant woman, with a neat yellow slipper, delicate ankle, and white silk stockings, stepping up to her garter in the mire, with as little dissatisfaction as she would into her coach—there, another, making the first faux pas, perhaps, she ever did, and seated, reluctantly, on the moistened clay.

“Here is a whole group assembled under the hospitable roof of an umbrella, whilst the exterior circle, for the advantage of having one shoulder dry, is content to receive its dripping contents on the other. The antiquated virgin laments the hour in which, more fearful of a speckle than a wetting, she preferred the dwarfish parasol to the capacious umbrella. The lover regrets there is no shady bower to which he might lead his mistress, ‘nothing loath.’ Happy she, who, following fast, finds in the crowd a pretence for closer pressure. Alas, there were but few grottos, a few caverns—how many Didos—how many Æneas’s? Such was the state of the spectators. That of the troops was still worse—to lay exposed to a pelting rain; their

arms had changed their mirror-like[49] brilliancy to a dirty brown; their new clothes lost all their gloss, the smoke of a whole campaign could not have more discoloured them. Where the ground was hard, they slipped; where soft, they sunk up to the knee. The water ran out at their cuffs as from a spout, and, filling their half boots, a squash at every step proclaimed that the Austrian buckets could contain no more.”