Messed Up Things That Happened At The Tower Of London

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

It wasn't just humans who were interred at the Tower. There was also an early version of the modern zoo, only without very big cages or overall interest in animal welfare. So really, it was more like Seaworld than a modern zoo.

It's believed that King John, who incidentally was Edward I's grandfather, who incidentally was Edward IVs great-great-great-etc.-grandfather, was the first to keep lions at the Tower of London, for probably no other reason than because he was the king and a king can have a pet lion if he wants to. According to Regency History, it wasn't until John's son Henry III mounted the throne that it was decided that a few lions weren't impressive enough, and there needed to be other cool stuff there, too, like polar bears and elephants.

Unfortunately this was before Animal Planet, so no one charged with the care of the animals had any idea what to feed them or how to properly look after them. They lived in horribly small cages and often died premature deaths, which really did nothing but make the kings go, "Dang, we lost another lion, better have someone go catch another one."

The menagerie persisted into the 19th century, and by that time it included tigers, leopards, a hyena, and a raccoon because whoever was in charge evidently did not know that raccoons are not the nice kind of exotic. They're just terrifyingly large rats with fangs.

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