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Saint George's Gateway, Edward the Third's Tower, and Round Tower
W. A. Delamotte
1842
Wood-engraving
10.7 x 9.3 cm, vignetted
Initial Delamotte illustration for W. Harrison Ainsworth's Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance, first published in the June 1842 number of Ainsworth's Magazine; volume, p. iii.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Flinging himself at the foot of the beech-tree, the youthful earlindulged his poetical reveries for a short time, and then, rising, retraced his steps, and in a few minutes the whole of the south side of the castle lay before him. The view comprehended the two fortifications recently removed to make way for the York and Lancaster Towers, between which stood a gate approached by a drawbridge; the Earl Marshal's Tower, now styled from the monarch in whose reign it was erected, Edward the Third's Tower; the black rod's lodgings; the Lieutenant's —now Henry theThird's Tower; the line of embattled walls, constituting the lodgings ofthe alms-knights; the tower tenanted by the governor of that body, andstill allotted to the same officer; Henry the Eight's Gateway, and theChancellor of the Garter's Tower— the latter terminating the line of building. A few rosy beams tipped the pinnacles of Saint George's Chapel, seen behind the towers above-mentioned, with fire; but, with this exception, the whole of the mighty fabric looked cold and grey. [Book I. "Anne Boleyn." Chapter I. "Of the Earl of Surrey's solitary ramble in the Home Park; of the vision beheld by him in the Haunted Dell; and of his meeting with Morgan Fenwolf, the Keeper, beneath Herne's Oak," p. 6]
In this novel, Ainsworth exploits thesame winning formula that he used in The Tower of London:real personages, secretive romanticliaisons, overheard conversations,— and antiquarian description of an historical building, reinforced by elegant but sterile wood-engravings vignetted and usually dropped right into the letterpress. The Delamotte illustration effectively setsthe scene, showing the present-day setting, devoid of any drama. The placement of the wood-engraving suggests that we are approaching the dramatic moment in the text from the perspective of the mundane present. The text of the novel then describes a traveller approaching the city and Castle in 1529 through an atmospheric description of Home Park. We move from the present, the fifth year of Queen Victoria's reign, to the twentieth year of the reign of "the right high and puissant king Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the twenty-first of April" (p. 1). The handsome, solitary, fifteen-year-old traveller at whose side we walk turns out to be the Earl of Surrey — and Lady Anne Boleyn's cousin. Her name and those of Cardinal Wolsey and Catherine of Arragon immediately cause the reader to re-frame the opening view of the Round Tower, to people its foreground, as it were, with characters from the Tudor period as Ainsworth's serial begins.
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.
Last modified 1 December 2017