The lions kept in the Tower menagerie were named after the reigning kings, and people believed each king’s life was bound up with his lion’s. When George II fell ill in 1758, Lord Chesterfield wrote that everyone expected him to die because the oldest lion in the Tower, about the king’s age, had just died. George II died on 25 October 1760.
The King and the Tower Lion
25 October · Tower of London, London
Lore and belief
In old times, it was customary to name the lions in the Tower menagerie after the reigning kings, and the fate of the royal beast was thought to be bound up with that of human majesty.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 495. Read the original
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