SEEING THE LIONS
By. PHYLLIS D. HICKS , AHUNDRED years ago, in November, 1834, the last remnants of the Royal Menagerie, which had first been established in the Tower of London six centuries before, were transferred to the -newly-formed Zoological Society's gardens in Regent's Park. The change was beneficial, but it meant an alteration in the life of London, for " the lions in the Tower " were so famous that they had become a proverb.
Henry I, when he made his park at Woodstock, " placed therein," says Stow, " besides great store of Deere, divers straunge beastes to be kept and nourished, such as were brought to him from farre countries." Nevertheless, it was not until Henry III's reign that the Royal Menagerie in the Tower was founded. In 1235, the King's sister, Isabella, became the wife of the Emperor Frederick II, who sent Henry, as a present, three leopards, in allusion to " his regal! shield of armes." Seventeen years later a bear from Norway was added, and seems to have marked the beginning of a considerable tax upon the sheriffs and people of London, who were constantly having to pay for the upkeep of the menagerie. In the case of the bear they were ordered to pay fourpence a day for his maintenance, and to provide a muzzle and iron chain to secure him when out of the water, and a strong cord to hold him " when fishing in the Thames." Two years afterwards, in 1255, St. Louis sent King Henry an elephant, which was landed at Sandwich, to the great astonishment of the people, who crowded to see him. The sheriffs were commanded to " cause a house to be built for him in the Tower forty feet long by twenty feet wide." Indeed, 1255 seems to have been a zoological arms mirabilis, for " during that same time," Matthew Paris records, " the sea cast up in the districts belonging to the diocese of Norwich an immense sea-monster . . . larger than a whale, but not considered to be of the whale kind : its carcase enriched the whole adjacent country."
In Edward II's reign the royal lion was costing the sheriffs sixpence a day, or, alternatively, a quarter of mutton and three-halfpence for the keeper. By 1842 the menagerie had increased to " one lion, one lionesse, one leopard and two cattes lionS," and was sufficiently important to justify the appointment of a special keeper— Robert, the son of John Bowre. The office became one of considerable dignity, although it must hasie received a set-back in 1436, when "there deyde alle' the lyons that weren in the Tour of London, the whiche was nought sen in no mannys tyre before out of myride."
In spite of such disasters, however, the office was worth E36 14s. 6d. a year under Elizabeth, and, was a coveted appointment. Edward Alleyn, and Philip Henslowe sought it without success in her reign, but they were more fortunate under James, and in 1604 they became joint masters: Soon after his accession James paid a formal visit, with the Queen; the Prince and four or five lords, to the Lions' Tower, and there witnessed a brutal exhi- bition of baiting " the lustiest lion " by three mastiff dogs in turn. The first two- dogs, although they bit the lion until he " roared so extreamely that the earth shook withal," were so much mauled that they died within a few days ; but the third dog recovered and " the young Prince commanded his servant Edward Allen to bring the dog to him to Saint James, where the Prince charged the seyd Allen to keepe him, and make much of him, saying, hee that had fought with the King of Beastes, should never after fight with any inferiour creature." • Alleyn remained as master until his death • in - 16:26, so that he must have been responsible for many exhibiticns of baiting, for it was a sport in which King James delighted. In 1609 the lion was matched against a " great fierce Beare, who had killed a child that was negligently left in the beare-house." The poiiularity of the sport is shown by the faCt that the King afterwards ordered that £20 should be given to the mother of the child out of the money which people gave to see the bear killed.
The lions were allowed to continue during the Common- wealth, for in 1654 John Evelyri wrote, " I saw a tame lion play familiarly with a lathb ; he was a huge beast, and I thrust my hand into his mouth and found his tongue rough like a cat's." Under Charles II the menagerie fully maintained its popularity among the sights of London. In 1662, Mr. Pepys had to entertain a man named Stankes, who was so completely blasé that even a visit to the lions did not appeal to him, " though he was carried in a coach." " I never could have thought," Pepys writes in disgust, " there had been upon this earth a man so little curious in the world as he is."
During Queen Elizabeth's, last illness, the royal lion, who bore her name, pined away and died.' Curiously enough, a similar coincidence Occurred in Charles II's reign, although " the -Charles " • •and •"-the Catherine " had only been brought froth " Tunis in Birliary" in 1682. The lion in this case died two days before, his Majesty. From these two events seems to have sprung the tradition to which Addison refers in-:The Frei-holder " Our first visit was to the lions. My friend -(tho Tory Who had s; great deal of talk -With their keeper, enquired 'very much after their health.' and whether none of them had fallen sick upon the taking Of Perth 'and the' flight of ' the' Pretender And hearing they were never better in their. I found he was extremely startled, for he had learned' from his cradle that the lions in the Tower were the btiSt judges of the' -title of our British kings and always sympathized with our sovereigns:" Nevertheless, even if the King.did not 'use the lion's instinct to support his claim to the throne, 'he found the 31enagerie a very useful source of income. This was so much the case that, in 1697, William III had to _enforce his monopoly by a decree.. His profits were evidently being reduced because " several persons do expose to publick view several wild beasts, against his Majesty's prerogative royal and a prohibition given and published to the contrary."
During the eighteenth century the Menagerie still had its great days, as in 1781, when the Duke of Lorraine (afterwards the husband of Maria Theresa) played with " a young he lyon," and " took him up in his arms, strok'd, kiss'd and pull'd him by the whiskers, and say-'d be was a great cureosity to him." Nevertheless, the century definitely marked the decline of the collection. Von Uffenbach, when visiting London in 1710, was evidently 'disappointed both in the number and the size of the beasts. The decline may have been partly due to the inadequate allowance made to the keeper, for, in 1719, John Martin, who filled that office, alleged that " the keeper for a hundred years had had eighteen-pence a day for the office and twelve-pence a day for each lion, lioness and leopard ; that there are now nine lions and leopards besides other creatures, and he has not had a penny allowed him for their charge, whereby he is much im- poverished." The petition was, however, rejected, on the ground that Martin had accepted the office without consideration of any fees and allowances.
Early in the nineteenth century a valiant attempt was made by the keeper, Mr. Cops, to improve the Tower collection. In 1822 it numbered only a grizzly bear, an elephant and a few birds, but seven years later the number and variety of the animals had greatly increased. Damp- ness and lack of space, however, made the Tower unfit for a menagerie, although the author of a book on London published in .1827 declares that the animas were " kept remarkably clean and healthy in capacious dens." The same writer shows that the charge for admission had been steadily rising. In 1730 it was 8d. ; in 1756, 6d. ; but by 1827 a shilling was charged, for which the " be- holders are informed of the names, genealogies, &c., of the different animals."
The idea of moving the animals to Regent's Park and of forming a really important collection for scientific study seems to have come from France.. There the Royal Menagerie had been kept at Versailles, where Buffon and Daubenton studied, but by 1798 only five animals remained. The collection was revived in Paris by St. Pierre, and the experiment was imitated in England. The old lion house was completely removed in 1853, and we now buy our tickets of admission to the Tower and refresh ourselves with tea on the site of the building where " Elizabeth," " Charles," ." Catherine " and " George " once shook the earth with their roaring.
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