Hyde Park from Domesdaybook to Date Author:John Ashton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Hyde Park in the early Commonwealth—Its sale—Toll on horses and carriages—A. hurling match—Cromwell's accident—Attempts to shoot him in the Park—N... more »otices against trespassers—The Park at the Restoration. It was not until after the martyrdom of the King, and a little before Cromwell found himself strong enough to become Lord Protector of the three Kingdoms, that the Parks, etc., were sold. But on Dec. 31, 1652, was passed "An Act for the Exposing to Sale divers Castles, Houses, Parks, Lands and Hereditaments, Belonging to the late King, Queen, or Prince, Exempted from sale by a former Act:" and among them was " All that Park commonly called Hide Park, in the county of Middlesex, with all Houses, Woods and Perquisits thereunto belonging." At the beginning of the troubles between the King and Parliament, the exclusiveness of the Park grew somewhat lax, and it became a place of fashionable resort; but the sour, puritanical spirit of the times prevailed, and, in 1645, it was ordered " that Hyde Park and Spring Gardens should be kept shut, and no person be allowed to go into any of those places on the Lord's day, fast and thanksgiving days, and hereof those that have the keeping of the said places are to take notice and see this order obeyed, as they will answer the contrary at theiruttermost peril." And, presumably, this order was acted on until 1649, when it was resolved that the London Parks—Whitehall, Hampton Court, the New Park at Richmond, Westminster Palace, Windsor Castle and Park-, and Greenwich House and Park—should be the property of the Commonwealth, and thrown open to the public. But in 1652, it was thought fit to sell Hyde Park, Greenwich House and Park, Windsor Park and Meadows, Cornbury Park, Oxon, Somerset House, and Vauxhall House and Grounds, for...« less