Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849 · Chapter 12The Lions in the Tower
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
Mr. Editor,—Some one of your readers may be interested in knowing that there was a royal menagerie in the Tower of London in the reign of Edward III. In the Issue Roll of the forty-fourth year of his reign, 1370, there are five entries of payments made to "William de Garderobe, keeper of the king's lions and leopards" there, at the rate of 6d. a day for his wages, and 6d. a day for each beast.—pp. 25. 216. 298. 388. 429.
The number of "beasts" varied from four to seven. Two young lions are specially mentioned; and a "lion lately sent by the Lord the Prince from Gascony to England to the Lord the King."
Φ
[Our correspondent's NOTE is an addition to what Bayley has given us on this subject; who tells us, however, that as early as 1252, Henry III. sent to the Tower a white bear, which had been brought to him as a present from Norway, when the Sheriffs of London were commanded to pay four pence every day for its maintenance.]