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Passage Illustrated: The Melancholic Lover, The Earl of Surrey

As soon as [Surrey] was sufficiently recovered to venture forth, he mounted to the summit of the Round Tower, in the hope that a walk round its breezy battlements might conduce to his restoration to health. The day was bright and beautiful, and a gentle wind was stirring; and as Surrey felt the breath of heaven upon his cheek, and gazed upon the glorious. prospect before him, he wondered that his imprisonment had not driven him mad. Everything around him, indeed, was calculated to make the sense of captivity painful. The broad and beautiful meads, stretching out beneath him, seemed to invite a ramble over them; the silver river courted a plunge into its waves, the woods an hour's retirement into their shady recesses, The bells of Eton College rang out merrily, but their sound saddened rather than elated him. The road between Eton and Windsor, then marked by straggling cottages with gardens between them, with here and there a dwelling of a better kind, was thronged with herds of cattle and their drivers, for a fair was held that day in the town of Windsor, to which they were hastening. Then there were country maidens and youthful hinds in their holiday apparel, trooping towards the bridge. Booths were erected, near which, in the Brocas meads, the rustic sports of wrestling, running, and casting the bar were going forward, while numbers of boats shot to and fro upon the river, and strains of music proceeded from a large gilt barge moored to its banks. Nearer, and in the broad green plain lying beneath the north terrace, were a company of archers shooting at the butts. But these sights, instead of affording pleasure to Surrey, only sharpened the anguish of his feelings by the contrast they offered to his present position.

To distract his thoughts, he quitted the near view, and let his eye run along the edge of the horizon, until it rested upon a small speck, which he knew to be the lofty spire of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. If, as he supposed, the Fair Geraldine was in attendance upon Anne Boleyn, at the palace at Bridewell, she must be under the shadow of this very spire; and the supposition, whether correct or not, produced such quick and stifling emotions, that the tears rushed to his eyes.

Ashamed of his weakness, he turned to the other side of the tower, and bent his gaze upon the woody heights of the great park. These recalled Herne the Hunter; and burning with resentment at the tricks practised upon him by the demon, he determined that the first use he w​ould make of his liberty should be to seek out, and, if possible, effect the capture of this mysterious being. Some of the strange encounters between Herne and the king had been related to him by the officer on guard at the Norman Tower but these only served as stimulants to the adventure. After a couple of hours thus passed on the keep, he descended refreshed and invigorated. The next day he was there again, and the day after that; when, feeling that his restoration was well nigh complete, he requested permission to pass the following evening in the dry moat of the donjon. And this was readily accorded him. [Book V, "Mabel Lyndwood," Chapter I, "How the Earl of Surrey and the Fair Geraldine met in King James’s Bower in the Moat — And how they were surprised by the Duke of Richmond,"​ pp. 246-247]

Comment

Since the wood-engraving appears well into the novel, in both serial and volume form after the non-fiction antiquarian section on the history of Windsor Castle, Delamotte in all likelihood made the sketch for it in the summer of 1842, but probably had no inkling as to how Ainsworth would use it nine months later. Thus, it is not technically an "illustration" since it is unlikely that Delamotte had read what would turn out to be the accompanying text when he visited the castle. However, the present-day drawing of the dry moat accords well with the opening of Book the Fifth, for which it serves as the headpiece, even though it has little to do with the book's principal character, Mabel Lyndwood, the old forester's granddaughter and Cardinal Wolsey's illegitimate daughter who becomes the apex of a romantic triangle with Sir Thomas Wyat and Herne the Hunter.

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 1 January 2017