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Guy Fawkes preventing Sir William Radcliffe from joining the Conspiracy
George Cruikshank
June 1840
Steel-engraving
13.3 cm high by 9.6 cm wide vignetted, facing p. 95
Sixth monthly engraving for William Harrison Ainsworth's Guy Fawkes, seventh 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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"And now, my son," he said, "since you have determined to enrol your name in the list of those sworn to deliver their church from oppression, take this primer in your hand, and kneel down before the altar, while I administer the oath which is to unite you to us."
Garnet then advanced towards the altar, and Sir William was about to prostrate himself upon a cushion beside it, when the door was suddenly thrown open, and Guy Fawkes strode into the chapel.
"Hold!" he exclaimed, grasping Radcliffe's right arm, and fixing his dark glance upon him; "you shall not take that oath."
"What mean you?" cried Garnet, who, as well as the knight, was paralyzed with astonishment at this intrusion. "Sir William Radcliffe is about to join us."
"I know it," replied Fawkes; "but it may not be. He has no heart in the business, and will lend it no efficient assistance. We are better without him, than with him."
As he spoke, he took the primer from the knight's hand, and laid it upon the altar. [Book I, "The Plot," Chapter XIII, "The Conspirators," p. 95]
After this arresting opening, Book the First, ‘The Plot,’ remains in the North, with much of the action taking place around Ordsall Hall, the ancestral seat of the Radcliffes, one of many old Catholic families in Lancashire who live in constant fear of the Protestant authorities. Sir William Radcliffe broadly supports the conspirators, and his daughter is torn between the love of the innocent Humphrey Chetham (a union divided by faith) and a deep, clearly physical attraction to Guy Fawkes. [Carver]
Thus, the reader might question Fawkes's motivation here, as his apparently noble gesture of not wishing to implicate the Radcliffe family in the plot may stem from his wishing to preserve the life and fortunes of his beloved, Viviana, should the Plot fail — as it is almost certain to do, given the ominous warnings of the reanimated Elizabeth Orton and the spirit of St. Winifred. In the illustration in a Catholic chapel, Rome's agent, the Jesuit Henry Garnett (left), indignantly responds to Fawkes's interrupting his swearing in of Sir William (right). The composition thus dramatizes Fawkes's conflicting loyalties, for he is torn between guiding the anti-government enterprise (represented by Garnett in his priestly garb) and protecting the father of his beloved, a Jacobean nobleman dressed in clothing fashionable in the late sixteenth century. The vacant cushion before the altar and the open primer in Ratcliffe's hand signify Garnett's abortive attempt to incorporate a Catholic aristocrat into cast of markedly unaristocratic plotters.
Laying his hand upon the altar, fifty-year-old Henry Garnet has a decidedly foreign look — whether it be Italian or Spanish is debatable, although in fact he was a native-born Englishman who joined the Jesuit order in 1582. As Fawkes attempts to take the "primer" of Catholic dogma (pointedly not a Bible) from Sir William, Cruikshank draws the viewer's attention to Fawkes's weaponry at hip level: a sword hilt and two pistols stuck in his belt — these contrast the weaponless Sir William, whose purse betokens what he will lose if implicated in the plot. Fawkes may have taken his hat off in the chapel, but he does not defer to Garnett's authority. In fact, Garnet was opposed to the plot, of which he learned only in July 1605: without telling anyone about Catesby's assassination plans, he wrote to his superiors, urging them to prohibit English Catholics from using force against their government. No matter: for Ainsworth he represents devious foreign machinations, in contrast to the conscience-driven Catholics of England as represented by Fawkes and Ratcliffe.
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 .]
Carver, Stephen. "Ainsworth’s Guy Fawkes: Tragic Hero, Catholic Martyr". Online version available from Harrison Ainsworth and Friends. Web. 5 November 2016.
Vann, J. Don. "Guy Fawkes in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1840-November 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 20.
Last modified 28 August 2018