When we reach the reign of Henry I. we have tidings of our first prisoner, Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham. He was immured for illegally raising funds for the upkeep of this very fortress, but had no desire to remain long an inmate within the walls he had been so anxious, aforetime, to preserve. A rope was conveyed to him in a wine-cask. With the wine he “fuddled his keepers”; with the rope he proceeded to lower himself down the outer wall of the White Tower, and, not at all alarmed at finding the rope too short and his arrival on the ground somewhat sudden, he was able to mount on horseback, ride to a seaport, and embark for Normandy. Subsequently he returned to Durham, where he completed the Cathedral and built Norham Castle, in which Scott lays the opening scene of _Marmion_. The Tower now became a royal palace and remained the dwelling-place of the Kings of England, or, at times, the stronghold to which they would retire when danger threatened, until the days of Charles II. At this early period of its history, too, it was found that a collection of wild beasts would lend some zest to life within its walls. This royal menagerie was located on the ground where the ticket-office and refreshment-rooms now stand, and was removed in 1834. It is said that the term “going to see the lions” of a place arose from the fashionable habit of visiting the Tower lions, and the lane off Great Tower Street, just beyond Allhallows Barking, was at one time not Beer but _Bear_ Lane, and evidently led down to the pits in which the bears were expected to provide amusement for Court circles. Stephen kept Whitsuntide in the Tower in 1140, and in that year the Tower was in the charge of Geoffrey de Mandeville, who had accompanied the Conqueror to England, but in 1153 it was held for the Crown by Richard de Lucy, Chief Justiciary of England, in trust for Henry of Anjou, and to him it reverted on Stephen’s death. It was a popular superstition at this time that the red appearance of the mortar used in binding the Tower walls was caused by the blood of beasts having been mixed with it in the making; but the ruddy tint was really the result of an admixture of pulverised Roman bricks with the lime. When Richard I. went off to the Crusades the Tower was left in the keeping of his Chancellor, Longchamp; and King John, on usurping the throne, laid siege to the fortress, which Longchamp surrendered to him. In 1215 the Tower was again besieged, this time by the barons and the citizens of London, but though the stronghold had but a poor garrison it held out successfully. In 1216 the rebellious nobles handed over the custody of the Tower to the Dauphin, Louis, but he appears to have considered the task too irksome, and “speedily returned to his own land.”