I have a couple of scenes in A MARRIAGE OF LIONS that feature animals from King Henry III’s menagerie at the Tower of London – the polar bear and the elephant.
The original royal menagerie was kept at the Palace of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, where King Henry I had a lion, a camel and a porcupine.  By the reign of his great grandson King John, the menagerie had moved to the Tower of London.   In 1235,  John’s son Henry III was given three lions by Emperor Frederick II, presumably as a symbol of the three lions of England.  In the 1250’s King Hakon of Norway, presented Henry with a polar bear for his collection, which was taken to the Thames on a regular basis to swim and fish on a long harness, presumably observed by the fascinated locals.   However, the bear and the big cats were trumped (literally!) by the arrival of an African elephant in 1255.

Henry was presented with the elephant as a gift by his brother in law King Louis during a prolonged state visit Henry made to France in 1255.  Each king had striven to outdo the other in terms of largesse and magnificence, but Louis’s gift was the piece de resistance.  Chronicler Matthew Paris drew the elephant and his handler, Henry de Flor from life, and even given the cartoonish quality of medieval drawings, the elephant would seem to have been of the large-eared African variety.  Joanna and William de Valence, protagonists in A MARRIAGE OF LIONS, were accompanying the royal party and would have seen the elephant when it was presented to Henry.

Matthew Paris’s drawing of the elephant with its keeper Henry de Flors

The next problem was shipping the beast across the Channel and the special arrangements to ship this magnificent gift cost the sheriff of Kent £6. 17s and 5d.  Once across the sea it had to be housed and a special enclosure was built for it at the Tower of London, which cost the sheriff of London more than £22.   The animal’s upkeep for 9 months, including the keeper’s wages came to £24. 14s. 3 1/2d.  A  fairly considerable sum given that a knight could live on £15 a year.

The elephant, sadly, was not destined for a long life and was dead by 1257.  Henry had it buried in the Tower baily, but changed his mind and in 1258 requested that it be dug up and its bones given to the sacristan of Westminster Abbey.  ‘for doing what the King has instructed him.’  What happened to the bones of the poor creature after that, no one knows, nor do we have any idea of what the king’s instructions were.  From my modern perspective I feel terribly sorry for the creature, but the medieval mindset would have seen the elephant as a curiosity and a wonder of nature and taken little thought for how it should be kept.