In later times the collection of wild beasts must have been considerable, and Stow relates in his _Chronicle_ how trials of strength between the animals were exhibited before the royal family. On the 23rd of June 1609 'the King, Queene, and Prince, the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Yorke, with divers great lords and manie others, came to the Tower to see a triall of the lyon's single valour, against a great fierce beare, which had kild a child, that was negligently left in the beare-house. This fierce beare was brought into the open yard, behind the lyon's den, which was the place for fight.' Two mastiffs let into the yard passed the bear and attacked the lion. Then a stallion and six dogs were introduced. The dogs worried the horse till three stout bear-wards drove them off, the bear and lion looking on. The latter was allowed to escape to his den, and other lions were brought out, but none would attack the bear. On the 5th of July this same bear was baited to death. On the 10th April 1610 Prince Henry and attendant nobles went privately to the Tower to see a fight between the great lion and four dogs. The dogs got the better of the lion, and another lion and lioness were brought to see if they would help the first lion, but they would not, and all three were glad to escape to their dens.[102] The few animals that remained in the menagerie in the nineteenth century were removed to the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1834. _The Tower as a Prison._--It is as a State prison that the Tower is most associated in our memories. Here have been confined some of the noblest of English men and women, but besides these there were others who have richly deserved their fate. Some of the prisoners lodged here only for a time, but the majority found it to be merely the threshold of death. The first prisoner was Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, the hated Minister of William Rufus. On that King's death, Henry I., with the advice of his Council, shut the bishop up in one of the topmost chambers of the White Tower. Flambard was not very carefully guarded, and he used the liberal allowance put aside for him in providing drink for his keepers. He received a rope in a flagon from friends outside, and while his gaolers were drunk, he managed to escape by its means on the night of 4th February 1101. Although the rope proved too short, and he was injured by his fall, he reached Normandy safely. Five years after this, the Count of Mortain, who was taken prisoner by Henry I., was imprisoned in the Tower, as we learn from the testimony of Eadmer.