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Passage Introduced

"They rode at a furious pace for five or six miles over the great park, the keepers wondering where their unearthly leader was taking them, and almost fancying they were hurrying to perdition, when they descended a hillside leading to the marsh, and halted before a huge beech-tree, where Herne dismounted and pronounced certain mystic words, accompanying them with strange gestures.

"Presently, he became silent and motionless. A flash of fire then burst from the roots of the tree, and the forester Urswick stood before him. But his aspect was more terrible and commanding than it had seemed heretofore to the keepers. [Book the Fourth, "Cardinal Wolsey," Chapter VI, "The Legend of Herne the Hunter," pp. 208-209]

Commentary: Antiquarian Interest

The views that Delamotte offers of the Home Park and Windsor Forest as these appeared in the summer of 1842 are only occasionally complemented by the larger-scale steel-engravings. The inset wood-engravings complement both the chase scenes early in the novel and the appearances of Herne the Hunter later. The strategy of showing the present-day counterpart of the Tudor scene which Ainsworth describes seems almost intended to encourage literary tourism and amateur antiquarianism.​Unfortunately,​all too often Ainsworth is absorbed in the picturesque backdrop rather than the development of the novel's characters, who, of course, are generally absent from Delamotte's wood-engravings of Victorian Windsor, the notable exceptions being Haunted Beech-tree, near Norfolk Farm (Book I, Ch. V) and The Wild Huntsman (Book I, Ch. V). The change in perspective, from omniscient in the text to objective in the wood-engravings, enforces a suspension of disbelief as Ainsworth utilizes actual settings that bridge past and present.

Johannot's Complementary Action from Book I, Chapter VIII

Above: Tony Johannot's ​stylish realisation of the scene in which Morgan Fenwolf brings down the rampaging stag which menaces Anne Boleyn, The Royal Chase in Windsor Forest. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Other Views by Delamotte of The Great Park, Windsor Castle

Left: The first perspective of the park, View of the Castle, from the Great Park (Book I, Ch. VIII). Centre: Another 1842 sketch of the same area, Scathed Oak-tree in the Home Park (Book IV, Ch. VI). Right: Delamotte's map in aerial perspective, Windsor Great Park, 1529 (Book III, Ch. IV). [Click on images to enlarge them.]

Other Views and Related Material on Windsor Castle

• Windsor Castle from the Long Walk, Victorian additions and alterations by Sir Jeffry Wyattville
• Early twentieth-century view of the castle from the river
• The Frogmore Mausoleum, adjacent to the Long Walk
• Statue of Queen Victoria at the foot of Castle Hill, Windsor

References

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Tony Johannot. With designs on wood by W. Alfred Delamotte. London: Routledge, 1880. Based on the Henry Colburn edition of 1844.

Patten, Robert L. Chapter 30, "The 'Hoc' Goes Down." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 2: 1835-1878. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1991; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1996. Pp. 153-186.

Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.

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Last modified 11 February 2018