them in all their pride being spectators." How far this "deep pit" can be regarded as really the last resting-place of Cromwell's body may be inferred from what we have already written on the subject, in our account of Red Lion Square, Holborn.*

In the "New View of London," published in 1708, no mention is made of either Oxford or Uxbridge Road, but the thoroughfare is entered as Tyburn Road. It is thus described as lying "between St. Giles' Pound, east, and the lane leading to the Gallows, west, 350 yards in length." The writer adds:-"This street has its name as being the next street to Tyburn, the place for execution of all such malefactors, generally speaking, as have committed acts worthy of death within the City and Liberties of London and County of Middlesex. I have known, he continues, "nineteen executed at one sessions, though these are held about eight times a year; but this is near twenty years ago." He then congratulates the nation on the decrease in the number of executions of late, which he ascribes to improvements in the law, and to the efforts of societies for the reformation of manners; and ends by telling a story of a man who revived, after being cut down off the gallows, in 1705.

Tyburn, it need scarcely be added, figures constantly in the caricatures of Hogarth. Thus, in his "Industry and Idleness," "Tom Idle" goes to Tyburn in a cart with a coffin in it, whilst the other apprentice, Francis Goodchild, drives to the Mansion House, as Lord Mayor of London, with footmen and sword-bearer, the King and the Court looking on from a balcony in St. Paul's Churchyard, and smiling approval. In Hogarth's print of Tyburn Tree, the hangman is represented coolly smoking his pipe, as he reclines by the gibbet, in full view of the hills of Hampstead and Highgate. "Could Tom Idle's ghost have made its appearance in 1847," asks Thackeray, in his "Humourists," ," "what changes would have been remarked by that astonished escaped criminal! Over that road which the hangman used to travel constantly, and the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages every day; over yonder road, by which Dick Turpin fled to Windsor, and Squire Western journeyed into town, when he came to take up his quarters at the Hercules Pillars on the outskirts of London, what a rush of civilisation and order flows now! What armies of gentlemen with umbrellas march to banks, and chambers, and countinghouses! What regiments of nursery-maids and pretty infantry; what peaceful processions of

See Vol. IV., p. 546.

policemen; what light broughams and what gay carriages; what swarms of busy apprentices and artificers, riding on omnibus-roofs, pass daily and hourly! Tom Idle's times are quite changed; many of the institutions are gone into disuse which were admired in his day. There's more pity and kindness, and a better chance for poor Tom's successors now than at that simpler period, when Fielding hanged him and Hogarth drew him."

Tyburn also figures in one of Hogarth's pictures of "Marriage à la Mode," where Counsellor Silvertongue pays the last penalty of the law for sending a certain noble earl out of the world before his time. In Hogarth's hands, no doubt, Tyburn was usefully employed, both

"To point a moral and adorn a tale."

But Tyburn has witnessed other scenes besides those of which we have spoken above. The story of Queen Henrietta Maria doing penance here is thus told by Mr. S. W. Gardiner, in his "History of England under the Duke of Buckingham and Charles I.: "-"It was after a long day spent in attendance on the devotions of her Church at the Chapel at St. James's that the young queen of Charles I. strolled out, with her ladies, to breathe the fresh evening air in St. James's Park. Byand-by she found her way into Hyde Park, and by accident or design directed her steps towards Tyburn. In her position it was quite natural that she should bethink herself of those who had suffered there as martyrs for the faith which she had come to England to support. What wonder if her heart beat more quickly, and if some prayer for strength to bear her weary lot rose to her lips? A week or two probably passed away before the tale reached Charles, exaggerated in its passage through the mouths of men. .. The Queen of England, he was told, had been conducted on a pilgrimage to offer prayer to dead traitors, who had suffered the just reward of their crimes. The cup of his displeasure was now full; . . . those who had brought her to this should no longer remain in England. On July 31 the king and queen dined together at Whitehall. After dinner he conducted her to his private apartments, locked the door on her attendants, and told her that her servants must go." Meanwhile, Conway was taking measures for the removal of her ladies to Somerset House. "As soon as the young queen perceived what was being done she flew to the window and dashed to pieces the glass, that her voice might be heard by those who were bidding her adieu for the last time; and Charles, it is said, dragged her back into the room, with her hands

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bleeding from the energy with which she clung to the bars." As we have already stated, in our account of Somerset House,* no time was lost in sending off the queen's French attendants to their native country.

It is more probable that the act on the part of her Majesty was a voluntary one; for, although pious and devout, the queen was not at all a person to be led blindly at the will of any confessor. However, in the illustrated edition of Pennant's "London," in the British Museum, there is to be seen a copy of a rare German print, purporting to be a representation of the scene. At a short distance off is the confessor's carriage, drawn by six horses; in the coach is seated the confessor himself, and a page, with a lighted candle or torch, is standing at the door. The fact is certainly recorded in a cotemporary document published in the first series of "Original Letters," edited by Sir Henry Ellis; but as the language used is of the most rabid and foul-mouthed kind-the confessor being styled "Luciferian," and the details of the affair styled "ridiculous," "absurd," "beggarly"-we may reasonably entertain a doubt whether it was not a "mare's-nest." In all probability the story was concocted by some Titus Oates of the day. The letter in question, which purports to be "from Mr. Pory to Mr. Joseph Mead," contains the following expressions :-"No longer agone then upon St. James his day last, those hypocritical dogges made the pore Queen to walke a foot (some add bare. foot) from her house at St. James to the gallowes at Tyborne, thereby to honour the Saint of the day in visiting that holy place. where so many martyrs (forsooth) had shed their bloud in defense of the Catholique cause. Yea, they have made her to go barefoot, to spin, to eat her meat out of tryne (wooden) dishes, to waite at the table and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances. It was, certainly, 'high time' that this French train should be dismissed; and packed off they were ('contumaciously refusing to go') in coaches, carts, and barges, to Gravesend."

If it be true that old George III. took such an interest in the welfare of those condemned to die upon the gallows as he is represented to have done in an anecdote which was at one time freely circulated, his time must have been pretty well occupied by devotional exercises. The anecdote in question, albeit highly honourable to his sense of public duty, is mentioned on the authority of Stevenson, the American envoy in London. Some extraordinary occurrence having called a French

* See Vol. III., p. 91.

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statesman to the palace as late as two o'clock in the morning, he found the king in his cabinet, examining the case of a prisoner condemned to execution. The envoy afterwards ascertained that the king keeps a register, recording the name of every person capitally condemned, the decision, and its reasons. Frequently, in the still hours of the night, he performs the task of investigating those cases, and adds to the record the circumstances which had influenced his decision. The envoy probably did not know that the great and good George III. had pursued nearly the same practice fifty years before, weighed the evidence with the deepest anxiety, and generally shut himself up in his cabinet at Windsor (it was presumed in prayer) during the hour appointed for the execution in London.

The exact spot on which the fatal Tyburn Tree was erected has been often discussed by antiquaries. It would appear, however, to be identified with the site of the house in the south-east corner of Connaught Square, formerly numbered 49; for in the lease granted by the Bishop of London, to whom the property belongs, this fact is particularly mentioned. A writer in The Antiquary, in October, 1873, says, with reference to this subject :-"I was born within 100 yards of the exact spot on which the gallows stood, and my uncle took up the stones on which the uprights were placed. The following is his statement to me, and the circumstance of his telling it-In 1810, when Connaught Place was being built, he was employed on the works, and for many years lived at the corner of Bryanston Street and the Edgware Road, nearly opposite Connaught Mews. My father, a master carpenter, worked for several years in Connaught Place, and on one occasion he employed his brother, I think in the year 1834; at all events, we had just left No. 6, the residence of Sir Charles Coote. It was at this time I said to my uncle, 'Now you are here, tell me where the gallows stood;' to which he replied, 'Opposite here, where the staves are.' I thereupon crossed over, and drove a brass-headed nail into the exact spot he indicated. On reaching home, I told my mother of the occurrence, and asked if it were correct. She said it was so, for she remembered the posts standing when she was a child. This might be about the year 1800; and, as she was born in Bryanston Street, I believe she stated what she knew to be a fact. I well remember Connaught Square being built, and I also recollect a low house standing at the corner of the Uxbridge Road, close to No. 1, Connaught Place (Arklow House), and that, on the removal of this house,

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for years after other suburbs had been built upon; and it was not until comparatively a recent date that the tea-gardens, and other similar low haunts of debauchery, gave way to the elegant and stately buildings with which it is now covered." It is impossible not to recognise these places of amusement in the portrait which Charles Dickens gives us, in his "Sketches by Boz," of the typical London tea-gardens, with their snug boxes and alcoves; the men and women, boys and girls, sweethearts and married folk, babies in arms and children in chaises, the pipes and the shrimps, the cigars and the periwinkles, the tea and tobacco, are each and all described with a skill almost equal to that of a photographer. To the particular "Sketch" entitled "London Recreations" we must refer our readers for all further details. As we have shown in the preceding chapter, the last of the tea-gardens-covering what is now Lancaster Gate-did not disappear until about 1855.

At Connaught House, Connaught Place, close by the Edgware Road, the unfortunate Caroline, Princess of Wales, took up her residence when banished from the Palace; and hither came the Princess Charlotte in a hackney-coach, when she quarrelled with her father and left Warwick House, as we have stated in our account of that place.* The young princess, as she advanced towards womanhood, became more and more intractable and wilful. In the end, the Regent and his Ministers thought the best step would be to find her a husband; and the youthful Prince of Orange was suggested as the most eligible. He was by birth a Protestant; he had been educated at Oxford, and had served in Spain with credit; but the self-willed young lady refused him-in a word, "turned up her nose" at him. Every opportunity was given to him to make himself agreeable to the future heiress of the English throne; but either his capacities and acquirements were of a low order, or the princess had proposed to herself quite another standard of excellence as her beau ideal. She simply said "she did not like Oranges in any shape;" and though her royal papa stormed, and bishops reasoned with her, her resolution remained. unshaken. The public admired her pluck and firmness, and her refusal to be sold into matrimony like a common chattel. She was a princess, but she was also a true-hearted woman, and she felt that she must really love the man whom she should

• See Vol. IV., p. 82.

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wed, if she would escape the unhappiness which had darkened the married life of her parents. The fortunate individual who pleased her taste was not long in appearing; and her marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was solemnised, ere long, with her father's consent, and with the hearty good wishes of the people. The Prince himself, then a humble cadet of a petty German house, was travelling in England; he met the Princess Charlotte at one of the many mansions of the aristocracy, and he soon obtained an interest in her affections, and also the consent of the Prince Regent, who was probably glad enough to get his intractable daughter off his hands at any price. Leopold at that time was one of the noblestlooking young princes in Europe. Tall and princely in his bearing, and fascinating in his manners, a brave soldier, and an accomplished courtier, he was worthy to win such a prize. They were married on May 2nd, 1816. Alas! within a little more than a year the great bell of St. Paul's was tolled to announce to a sorrowing people the death of the princess in giving birth to a dead infant!

The sale of the effects of the Princess of Wales, at Connaught House, took place in October, 1814. The name of the mansion was at a later date changed to Arklow House; the latter, like the former, being one of the titles inherent in the royal family. The late Duke of Sussex was also Baron of Arklow. Sir Augustus D'Este, son of the Duke of Sussex, lived here for some time subsequently. It is now the town residence of Mr. A. Beresford-Hope.

At No. 13 in Hyde Park Square, lived that specimen of a fine old English gentleman, Mr. T. Assheton-Smith, whose name is so well known among Masters of Hounds. A glass apartment on the roof of this house, after his death, was magnified, by the fears of the servant-girls in the neighbourhood, into the abode of a ghost; and the ghost-or, at all events, the alarm-was only suppressed by editors "writing it down" in the London newspapers.

In concluding this chapter, we may remark that the whole neighbourhood is of too recent a growth to have many historical reminiscences. Haydon, the painter, it is true, lived for some time in Burwood Place, close by Connaught Square, and there he died by his own hand in 1846. We shall have more to say about him when we come to Paddington.