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that,
if the dog would pluck the bear by the throat, the bear would claw him again by the scalp … thus with plucking and tugging, scratching and biting, by plain tooth and nail on one side and the other, such expense of blood and leather was there between them as a month’s licking will not recover … It was a sport very pleasant of these beasts: to see the bear with his pink eyes leering after his enemy’s approach, the nimbleness and watch of the dog to take his advantage, and the force and experience of the bear again to avoid the assaults. If he were bitten in one place how he would pinch in another to get free; that if he were taken once, then what shift with biting, with clawing, with roaring, tossing and tumbling he would work to wind himself from them; and when he was loose, to shake his ears twice or thrice with the blood and saliva about his face was a matter of goodly relief. 41
    Blind bears are whipped into a fury to entertain the crowds; they lash out and seize the whips, and cuff anyone who comes within range. However, some learn how to loosen their tethers and run amok about the crowd; Sackerson is by no means the only one to escape. In October 1565 at the abandoned church of the Austin Friars in Oxford, a twenty-four-year-old man is set upon by a runaway bear and killed. At Birling, Kent, in August 1563 a widow is mauled in Lord Bergavenny’s house by his bear, it ‘biting and tearing her head, body and legs’. In 1570, near Hereford, a bear breaks loose, enters a house and kills a woman in her bed. 42
    Bear baiting is enjoyed in every part of the country and by all classes of people, men and women, young and old. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night , Sir Andrew Aguecheek states that he regrets spending so much time fencing, dancing and bear baiting. In April 1559 the queen entertains the French ambassador with bear-baiting displays – and he is so taken with them that the very next day he goes to Paris Garden to see more animals tormented. Throughout her reign many visiting dignitaries are treated to a display of bear baiting: it seems to be one of the queen’s personal delights. Robert Dudley provides displays for the queen at Kenilworth in 1575, and in 1599 she even attends the Paris Garden to watch the bloodshed. 43 (You may be surprised to learn that although she never goes to Southwark to visit the Globe Theatre, she does go to see the bear baiting.) Only the Puritans refuse to accept that it is suitable family entertainment, although most of them despise the baiting because it takes place on a Sunday, not because they feel sorry for the animal. A lone voice speaking against the cruelty is that of Philip Stubbes, who asks, ‘what Christian heart can take pleasureto see one poor beast rend, tear and kill another, and all for his foolish pleasure?’
    There is also great enthusiasm for baiting bulls. Several mastiffs are released into the ring to challenge and bite a tethered animal. The bull lashes out with its horns and sends the dogs flying. Men with sticks break the dogs’ fall so that they can continue to fight. Eventually the large number of dogs set upon the bull will wear him down, but the fight continues until the surviving dogs have killed the bull or he is so badly injured that he is taken away to be slaughtered. What might surprise you is that it is actually against the law not to bait a bull. Every town has its ‘bull-ring’ where the baiting takes place. Anyone slaughtering a bull without baiting it first is liable to be fined: the statutory penalty for selling meat from an animal killed without baiting it first is 3s 4d per bull. 44
    The most distressing spectacle of this sort regularly to be seen in England is often the finale of a day of bull baiting. A monkey is placed in the saddle of an old horse and led into the ring. Half a dozen young dogs are then sent into the ring to attack the horse. In the words of Alessandro Magno, ‘it is a fine sight to see the horse run, kicking