Lions first born in England. 19 
popularity; and Shakspeare’s lines on Edward the Black 
Prince— 
“ In war was never lion raged more fierce, 
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild, 
Than was that young and princely gentleman,” 
may serve for a description of the men whom England in 
all times has delighted to honour. 
Lions were kept in the Tower for the purpose of afford¬ 
ing entertainment to the court by their combats. As they 
were expensive both to obtain and to keep, lion-baiting 
was a sport chiefly reserved for royalty. John Stow, in his 
record of the reign of James I., considers the birth of a 
young lion an event of sufficient importance to enter with 
great gravity in his Chronicle (p. 844): “ Sunday, lift 
of August [1604], a lionesse named Elizabeth, in the Tower 
of London, brought forth a lyons whelpe, which lyons 
whelpe lived not longer than the next day.” The next 
year he tells of a similar arrival, and gives as a reason for 
chronicling it that this was the first time that young 
lions had been born in Great Britain. 
Topsell (p. 475) quotes from Crantzius a notable story 
of a lion in England, who by evident tokens was able to 
distinguish betwixt the king, nobles, and vulgar sort of 
people. Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, in a work, written 
about the year 1647, and reprinted by the Spalding Club 
in 1844, entitled, A Short Abridgement of Britane’s Bis- 
temper , tells a story which, if it could only be believed, 
would confirm the theory that there was a close connexion 
between kings and lions :—• 
“ It is constantly related by all, nor could I ever find it contra¬ 
dicted by any, that some little time after the kinges death [Charles I.] 
there ware sevin or eight gentlemen that went to the Towre to sie the 
lyons. . . . They were brought by the keiper near to their caiges, that 
they might looke in throw the barrs and sie them; when upon a 
sudden the Old Harie , a lyone called so after Henrie the Eight, 
because he had brought him their, began to blow, to snort, and to 
brissell his haire, and then to roare with such a terible and furious 
