Tyburn.] PENANCE OF QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA. 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 Sce Vol. III., p. 91. 201 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, quantities of human bones were found. I saw mother, Audrey, Lady Townshend, who so long them carted away by Mr. Nicholls, contractor, of "entertained" at her house in Whitehall, was one Adams' Mews. He removed Tyburn toll-house in day rallied by her friends on taking a short lease 1829. From what I have been told by old inhabi- of "a villa at Tyburn." "Oh," replied the witty tants that were born in the neighbourhood, pro-woman, "you see it is a neighbourhood of which bably about 1750, I have every reason to believe I could never tire, for my neighbours are being that the space from the toll-house to Frederick hanged every week; so we are always changing!" Mews was used as a place of execution, and the It was this same lady who, on being asked if it was bodies buried adjacent, for I have seen the remains true that Whitfield had recanted, answered, "No, disinterred when the square and adjoining streets madam; but I know he has canted;" and who were being built." sarcastically remarked of the royal family, who took a fancy to go to all public shows and suppers, that it was "the cheapest family to see, and the dearest to keep, of any that had ever been seen.” Smith, in his "History of St. Marylebone," states that "the gallows were for many years a standing fixture on a small eminence at the corner of the Edgware Road, near the turnpike, on the identical spot where a toll-house was subsequently erected by the Uxbridge Road Trust. Beneath this place are supposed to lie the bones of Bradshaw, Ireton, and other regicides, which were taken from their graves after the Restoration, and buried under the gallows. The gallows itself subsequently consisted of two uprights and a cross-beam, erected on the morning of execution across the Edgware Road, opposite the house at the corner of Upper Bryanston Street and the Edgware Road, wherein the gallows was deposited after being used; this house had curious iron balconies to the windows of the first and second floors, where the sheriffs sat to witness the executions. After the place of execution was changed to Newgate, in 1783, the gallows was bought by a carpenter, and made into stands for beer-butts in the cellars of the 'Carpenters' Arms' public-house, hard by." "Around the gibbet," says Mr. Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," were erected open galleries, like a race-course stand, wherein seats were let to spectators at executions: the key of one of them was kept by Mammy Douglas, the Tyburn pew-opener.' In 1758, when Dr. Henesey was to have been executed for treason, the prices of seats rose to 2s. and 2s. 6d. ; but the doctor being 'most provokingly reprieved,' a riot ensued, and most of the seats were destroyed." The name of "Tyburn," thus mixed up with the saddest portions of our national history, and associated with ideas of villany and crime, very naturally smelt anything but sweet in the nose of the metropolis; and it was not until the city grew in bulk so tremendously that it threatened to burst its swathing bands, that the region around the old gallows, now known as "Tyburnia," came to be built upon, and inhabited by the upper classes of society. It is recorded by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his sketch of Charles Townshend, that his eccentric Mr. G. A. Sala hits the right nail on the head, in his "Gaslight and Daylight,” when he remarks that while the region of the Grosvenors is the place for the "swells of the peerage, those of blue blood and the strawberry-leaves," Tyburnia suits admirably "the nobility of yesterday, your mushroom aristocrats, millionaires, ex-lord mayors, and people of that sort ;" and he also pithily adds, "Tyburn is gone: I am not such an old fogey as to remember that, nor so staunch a conservative as to regret it now that it is gone." "Tyburnia" proper, as we may call the city which sprang up between the Edgware Road and Westbourne Terrace, in the reign of William IV., consists of squares, terraces, and rows of stately mansions, which now rival in elegance her more southern sister, "Belgravia." Oxford and Cambridge Terraces, which run from the Edgware Road to the southern end of Westbourne Terrace, with Oxford and Cambridge Squares to the south of them, will long keep in remembrance the munificence of Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, as the founder of divinity professorships in our two great and ancient universities. The Rev. J. Richardson, referring to the days of the Regency, writes thus in his "Recollections," published in 1856:-"The northern boundary of the old metropolis, then called Oxford Road, terminated abruptly at the entrance of the Park, where now stands the triumphal arch lately removed from Buckingham Palace. The now fashionable district which forms one side of the Bayswater Road, and occupies the angle between that road and Paddington, was, in the eyes of all respectable people, a locality to be avoided. Ragged fields stretched over scores of acres of ground; and the ominous name of Tyburn frightened, not, indeed, those whom it ought to have deterred, but those who either assumed a character for decency, or really possessed one. In fact, this part was a blank in the improvements of London Tyburnia.] THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 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 V see Vol. IV., p. 82. 203 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. "And the Bishop's lands, too, what of them? I'll warrant you'll not find better acres anywhere than those which once belonged to his lordship."-Boz. Rustic Appearance of Paddington at the Commencement of this Century-Intellectual Condition of the Inhabitants-Gradual Increase of the Population-The Manor of Paddington-The Feast of Abbot Walter, of Westminster-The Prior of St. Bartholomew's and his Brethren -Dr. Sheldon's Claim of the Manor-The Old Parish Church-Hogarth's Marriage-Building of the New Parish Church--A Curious Custom -Poorness of the Living-The Burial-ground-Noted Persons buried here-Life of Haydon, the Painter-Dr. Geddes-The New Church of St. James-Holy Trinity Church-All Saints' Church-The House of the Notorious Richard Brothers-Old Public-houses-Old Paddington Green-The Vestry Hall-The Residences of Thomas Uwins, R.A., and Wyatt, the Sculptor-Eminent Residents-The Princess Charlotte and her Governess-Paddington House-" Jack-in-the-Green "-Westbourne Place-Westbourne Green-Desborough Place-Westbourne Farm, the Residence of Mrs. Siddons-The Lock Hospital and Asylum-St. Mary's Hospital-Paddington Provident Dispensary-The DudleyStuart Home-"The Boatman's Chapel "-Queen's Park-Old Almshouses-Grand Junction Canal--The Western Water-Works-Imperial Gas Company-Kensal Green Cemetery-Eminent Persons buried here-Great Western Railway Terminus. PADDINGTON, or Padynton, as the name of the place is often spelled in old documents, down to the end of the last century was a pleasant little rural spot, scarcely a mile to the north-west of the Tyburn turnpike, upon the Harrow Road. Indeed, it would seem to have preserved its rustic character even to a later date; for it is amusing to read without a smile the grave expressions in which Priscilla Wakefield describes, in 1814, a visit to this then remote and rustic village-a journey which now occupies about three minutes by the Underground Railway :-" From Kensington we journeyed northward to Paddington, a village situated on the Edgware Road, about a mile from London. In our way thither we passed the Lying-in Hospital at Bayswater, patronised by the queen." The place is described by Lambert, in his "History and Survey of London and its Environs," at the commencement of the present century, as “a village situated upon the Edgware Road, about a mile from London "-a description which, perhaps, was not wholly untrue even at the accession of Queen Victoria; in fact, until its selection as the terminus of the Great Western Railway caused it to be fairly absorbed into the great metropolis. The parish, being so rural, and so very thinly |