Parks & Planting: King Charles II

It may have started for the Merry Monarch up an oak tree. Having lost out at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Charles II was forced to hide up in the branches of a Boscopel oak while the bushes below him were beaten by Parliamentary forces. Certainly, he was to be noted for his appreciation of trees when he regained the throne almost a decade later. Founder of London's famed modern public park system, his aboral activities were well appreciated by none other than the great horticulturist John Evelyn. "You are our God of the forest-trees, King of the grove, as having once your Temple, and court too under that Holy Oak which you consecrated with your presence," quoth the diarist in the dedication of his classic volume Sylva (1664). True, Charles may be better known for appreciation of the feminine form, but this is better told elsewhere.

What was to become London's oldest Royal Park, St. James's, started as a hunting preserve for Henry VIII when he purchased the marshy area from Eton College in 1532. Named after a leper hospital dedicated to St. James the Less, when King James I ascended the throne in 1603, Charles Beauclerk records him as having "kept crocodiles there as part of his private zoo, as well as an elephant that drank a gallon of wine a day." James did, however, order the marshy area drained and landscaped. 'A long dark man, above two yards tall,' as Parliamentary posters calling for his capture described him, somehow found time beside royal duties, his extensive scientific interests, tennis, swimming, horse racing, theatre going, a dozen or so mistresses and numerous daily dalliances to direct his grandfather's property be turned into a public park. Charles was much sneered both in his own time and since. "We have a pretty witty king/And whose word no man relies on/He never said a foolish thing/And never did a wise one," wrote John Wilmot, 2^nd Earl of Rochester. "An excellent prince doubtless had he been less addicted to women," according to gardening diarist John Evelyn of a puritan mindset. Nevertheless, along with his above activities, Charles was a proficient horticulturist and arborist. During his enforced sojourn in France he had been impressed by French culture. Not the least was formal garden design as exemplified by French garden designer Andre Mollét. He favoured swathes of meticulously trimmed grass. In St. James's, this was bisected by a canal of no less than 775 by 38 metres. Later this would be turned into a more natural lake as tastes in landscape design changed.

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Charles had the new 23-acre Royal Park opened to the public. It became one of his favourite casual meeting places. There he could mingle with the people, often much to their amazement. Indeed, his younger brother James, Duke of York, protested that doing so was dangerous. "Nonsense," said Charles. "No one is going to assassinate me in order to make you king." He could also entertain in the park his guests and mistresses such as Nell Gwyn. As Charles said, paraphrasing Solomon, "I would have every man live under his own vine and fig tree." Unfortunately, it later became all too well known as a meeting place for impromptu acts of lechery, as satirized by the able pen of the 2^nd Earl of Rochester in his poem, 'A Ramble in St James's Park.' West of London, Windsor Castle had been neglected and vandalized by the Parliamentarians and their followers during the Civil War and its immediate aftermath. The place was wrecked and required rebuilding. Nothing could please the restless Charles more. Under his direction, working with the architect Hug May, it became more of a home and less of a bleak, windowless castle. Improving the exterior, the north terrace was extended around to the east and south and turfed over. Magnificent avenues were laid out, flanked by elms and lindens. Unfortunately, when Dutch elm disease destroyed the former they were replaced by another now threatened trees, horse chestnuts. While his horticultural projects are little acknowledged, they offer a sliver more proof that Charles was far more of a beneficial influence than he has been given credit for. London of his time was a scientific hotbed, one he presided over for more than two decades, explains Don Jordan in his history The King's City (2017). One of Charles's greatest decisions was to establish the Royal Society and his influence on swings in commerce and culture resound down through the ages. Something to think about when taking a stroll through the verdant acres of St. James's Park.