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Guy Fawkes and Catesby landing the Powder
George Cruikshank
October 1840
Steel-engraving
11.2 cm high by 9.4 cm wide vignetted, facing the opening of Book the Second, p. 147 in the volume, p. 321 in volume 8 of Bentley's Miscellany
Tenth monthly engraving for William Harrison Ainsworth's Guy Fawkes, ninth number.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Serialised in Bentley's Miscellany, vols. 7-10, in twenty-three monthly parts.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Running swiftly in towards a sort of wharf, protected by a roofed building, Catesby leapt ashore, and tied the skiff to a ring in the steps. He then desired Fawkes to hand out the powder as quickly as he could. The order was promptly obeyed, and in a few minutes several barrels were on the strand. [Book the Second, "The Discovery," Chapter I, "The Landing of the Powder," p. 156]
Six days after leaving Ordsall Hall the party of plotters descends Highgate Hill to enter London by the North Gate at sunset. Catesby takes the red sky as a portent of the explosion of the Houses of Parliament, a sight which Fawkes, embracing martyrdom, gloomily predicts he will not live to see: "I will abide the result in the vault. If I perish, it will be a glorious death" (148). An undercover government agent attempts to arrest Garnet as a fugitive "Romish priest" on the high-street in St. Giles Cripplegate, but Fawkes decisively intervenes, knocking the agent unconscious with the butt of his pistol in order to effect their escape. The group crosses the Thames at London Bridge, passing such landmarks as Traitor's Gate, the Tower of London, and the Globe Theatre. They stop at an obscure house in Lambeth, where they have already arranged for the secret storage of the gunpowder. "It was a small, mean-looking habitation, standing at a short distance from the river-side, on the skirts of Lambeth Marsh, and its secluded situation and miserable appearance seldom induced any one to visit it." The clandestine spot, psychologically as well as physically appropriate to the group's activities, would have made an interesting subject for illustration, but would not have advanced the plot in the narrative-pictorial series as effectively as Guy Fawkes and Catesby landing the Powder. From the thick stone vault beneath the Lambeth house Catesby and Fawkes determine to transport the gunpowder across the river under cover of night-time fog to a dwelling adjoining the Parliament House that they recently leased.
Guy Fawkes and Catesby landing the Powder (facing page 321) leads off the October instalment in Bentley's for Book the Second, Chapter I, "The Landing of the Powder" (scene illustrated: bottom p. 330, at the end of that chapter). Although the monthly illustration usually concerns an incident at the close of the instalment, at the serial curtain, here it does not. Even if the landing of the kegs of gunpowder in the metropolis marks an important stage in the advancement of the Gunpowder Plot early in Book the Second, "The Discovery," Ainsworth devotes little space to it, focussing instead on the passenger in Fawkes's skiff. In the fog at mid-stream, Fawkes and Catesby have collided with another skiff, precipitating those on board into the Thames. Fawkes rescues the two swimmers — a common waterman and his noble passenger, none other than the Earl of Salisbury, returning to Whitehall "on secret state business" (152). In sotto voce conversation, Fawkes refuses Catesby's suggestion that they shoot him or throw him in the water; rather, argues Fawkes, he must perish with the others in the explosion. Stealing his papers which concern a papist plot, Catesby and Fawkes land the Earl safely at the site of Westminster Bridge (not opened until November 1750, but quite familiar to Ainsworth's readers).
Cruikshank fails to distinguish Fawkes from Catesby, so that with similar hats, cloaks, and beards the two are interchangeable. However, in this dark plate, with its skudding clouds and partially obscured moon, Cruikshank has created one of the most atmospheric backdrops in the series. Since Ainsworth indicates that Catesby leaps ashore and ties the skiff to a ring, and that Fawkes hands out the small barrels, the reader concludes that the man in the boat, gesturing upward, is Fawkes. Cruikshank has placed a mediaeval turret in the background, slightly downriver, on the Surrey side; perhaps he is intending that this represent the south tower of London Bridge (known as "Traitor's Gate"). Ainsworth and Cruikshank's readers would have remembered the south tower of old London Bridge, although it was demolished in 1831 following the opening of New London Bridge.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Guy Fawkes, or The Gunpowder Treason: An Historical Romance. With 22 illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: Cunningham & Mortimer, 1841 (first edition). Rpt., London: George Routledge & Sons, n. d. [See the text and images of the novel posted in May 2013 at Project Gutenberg Australia's website: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1302021h.html .]
Vann, J. Don. "Guy Fawkes in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1840-Noevember 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 20.
Last modified 20 August 2018