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Gog extricating Xit from the Bear in the Lions' Tower
George Cruikshank
August 1840
Steel-engraving
11.9 cm high by 10.2 cm wide, framed
Illustration for Book II, Ch. XIX, of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London, facing p. 250.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Seeing that Max paid no attention to him, Xit drew nearer, and stamping his foot furiously on the ground several times, made a lunge at him, screaming — "Sa-ha! sa-ha! sirrah, — to the combat! — to the combat."
Still, Max did not notice him, but kept his small red eyes fixed on the gallery, expecting that something would be thrown to him. Enraged at this contemptuous treatment of his defiance, Xit snatched up his cap, flung it in the bear's face, and finding even this insult prove ineffectual, began to prick him with the point of his sword, crying, "Rouse thee, craven beast! Defend thy life, or I will slay thee forthwith."
Thus provoked, Max at length condescended to regard his opponent. He uttered a fierce growl, but would not perhaps have retaliated, if Xit had not persevered in his annoyances. Gesticulating and vociferating fiercely, the dwarf made a number of rapid passes, some of which took effect in his antagonist's hide. All at once, Max made a spring so suddenly, that Xit could not avoid it, struck down the sword, and catching the dwarf in his arms, hugged him to his bosom. All Xit's courage vanished in a breath. He screamed loudly for help, and kicked and struggled to free himself from the terrible grasp in which he was caught. But Max was not disposed to let him off so cheaply, and the poor dwarf's terror was excessive when he beheld those formidable jaws, and that terrible array of teeth ready to tear him in pieces. It had been all over with him, if Gog, who stood at a little distance, and narrowly watched the fray, thinking he had suffered enough, had not run to his assistance.
Grasping the bear's throat with his right hand, the giant forced back his head so as to prevent him from using his teeth, while planting his knee against the animal’s side, he tore asunder its gripe with the other hand. Hairun, who was likewise flying to the rescue, seeing how matters stood, halted, and burst into a loud laugh. The next moment, Gog gave Max a buffet on the ears that laid him sprawling on his back, and Xit escaped from his clutches. As soon as the bear regained his legs, he uttered a low angry growl, and scrambled off to his cage. For a few seconds, Xit looked completely crest-fallen. By degrees, however, he recovered his confidence, and bowing to the gallery, said, — "I can scarcely with propriety lay claim to the victory, as if it had been for my friend Gog —"
"Nay, thou art welcome to my share of it," interrupted the giant.[ChapterXIX. — "How Queen Mary visited the Lions' Tower; How Magog gave his Dame a Lesson; And How Xit conquered a Monkey, and was bested by a Bear," p. 249-250]
By the time that Cruikshank and Ainsworth were undertaking monthly perambulations of the Tower of London, the old bastion formerly housing the Royal Menagerie was devoid of life, as the present illustration showing empty enclosures indicates. Twelve years later, during the general renovation of the Tower of London, after the death of King George IV, the government decided to sweep away the unused menagerie cages and had the remaining animals relocated to the Regent's Park Zoo in North London. Perhaps Ainsworth's story of the dwarf Xit's encounter with a chestnut-stealing ape and the bear, Max, has its origin in contemporary accounts of a lion biting a soldier and a monkey biting a sailor, Ensign Seymour. A particularly famous inhabitant of the zoo was Old Martin, a grizzly bear which the Hudson's Bay Company presented to George III in 1811. The old barbican that housed the menagerie, however, remained until 1852 (much as Cruikshank had depicted it in 1840) because Copps, the last keeper, had been granted the use of the Lion Tower for life.
As Ainsworth makes clear in this chapter, he was aware that the tower had both a stone causeway and a drawbridge, and that the whole of the Lions' Tower was once surrounded by a secondary moat. Thus, in the sixteenth century the Tower adequately contained the dangerous animals housed in the menagerie, as Ainsworth mentions in his description of the layout: "A high embattled wall of the same form as the inner structure faced on the west a small moat, now filled up, which flowed round these outworks from the base of the Middle Tower to a fortification, now also removed, called, from its situation, the Lions' Gate, where it joined the moat" (243).
Cruikshank shows Mary and her party observing the action from the security of a tower above the cages, exactly as Ainsworth describes the vantage point: "Opposite the dens stood a wide semicircular gallery, defended by a low stone parapet, and approached by a flight of steps from the back. It was appropriated exclusively to the royal use" (243). The steel-engraving shows the dwarf, Xit, in the grip of the brown bear, Max, who had been "presented to Henry the Eighth by the Emperor Maximilian, and known by the name of the imperial donor" (244). Xit's diminutive poignardlies on the ground, along with Xit's cap, where he dropped the weapon when attacked. The gigantic warder, Gog (right), and Hairun, the bearward (left), have come to his rescue. Queen Mary, Simon Renard, and the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Henry Bedingfeld, and several courtiers are watching the rescue beneath them, and at least four lions in cages in the background are likewise spectators. Mary has yet to present the purse of gold to her Lord Lieutenant for the bearward, and Nightgall has yet to apprehend Xit "For conspiring against the queen," in other words, for assisting Courtenay in his recent escape.
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Last modified 20 October 2017