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Gateway to the Bloody Tower
George Cruikshank
September 1840
Wood-engraving
8.7 cm high by 9.4 cm wide, vignetted
Book II, Ch. XXI, of Ainsworth's The Tower of London, p. 257.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Issuing from the structure, [Jane] found a large band of halberdiers drawn out to escort her. One stern figure arrested her attention, and recalled the mysterious terrors she had formerly experienced. This was Nightgall, who by Renard's influence had been raised to the post of gentleman-jailor. He carried the fatal axe, — its handle supported by a leathern pouch passed over his shoulders. The edge was turned from her, as was the custom on proceeding to trial. A shudder passed over her frame as her eye fell on the implement of death, connected as it was with her former alarms; but she gave no further sign of trepidation, and took the place assigned her by the officers. The train was then put in motion, and proceeded at a slow pace past the White Tower, down the descent leading to the Bloody Tower. Nightgall marched a few paces before her, and Jane, though she strove to reason herself out of her fears, could not repress a certain misgiving at his propinquity.
The gateway of the Bloody Tower, through which the advanced guard was now passing, is perhaps one of the most striking remnants of ancient architecture to be met with in the fortress. Its dark and gloomy archway, bristling with the iron teeth of the portcullis, and resembling some huge ravenous monster, with jaws wide-opened to devour its prey, well accords with its ill-omened name, derived, as before stated, from the structure above it being the supposed scene of the murder of the youthful princes.
Erected in the reign of Edward the Third, this gateway is upwards of thirty feet in length, and fifteen in width. It has a vaulted roof, supported by groined arches, and embellished with moulded tracery of great beauty. At the period of this chronicle, it was defended at either extremity by a massive oak portal, strengthened by plates of iron and broad-headed nails, and a huge portcullis. Of these defences those at the south are still left. On the eastern side, concealed by the leaf of the gate when opened, is an arched doorway, communicating with a flight of spiral stone steps leading to the chambers above, in which is a machine for working the portcullis. [Chapter XXI. — "How Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey were arraigned and attainted of High Treason; and How Queen Mary pardoned them," page 263]
By the time that Cruikshank and Ainsworth were undertaking monthly perambulations of the Tower of London, the old associations with the murder of Richard III's nephews in the Bloody Tower were still current, thanks in part to nineteenth-century productions of The Tragedy of Richard the Third as part of William Macready's Shakespeare Revival. These associations come into play in Ainsworth's novel a number of times; here, the writer and illustrator, showing readers an image of the Bloody Tower as it looked in 1840, expect that Jane's journey from the Brick Tower through the arch of the Bloody Tower on November third is an indication that she, too, as a royal claimant will meet her fate there, although Mary offers her a pardon if she will be reconciled with the church of Rome. As a staunch Protestant, Jane naturally rejects her cousin's offer, which Mary has made through her chaplain, Feckenham. Accordingly, the party proceeds to Jane's trial at London's Guildhall. There, at the close of the chapter, Mary offers a startling reprieve unattached to any recanting on Jane's part as Ainsworth closes the first chapter of the September number. Normally, these architectural studies would have been the products of their monthly inspections of specific areas in the Tower of London:
Their working relationship quickly assumed a routine: they would meet at the Tower during the first few days of the month, explore its halls, corridors, dungeons, tower, parapets, concealed passageways, torture chambers, gardens, moats, and gates, listen to the legends of betrayals and hauntings that the warders loved to recount, settle on the principal scenes and incidents for the ensuing chapter, and then separate. Ainsworth would thereafter spend his mornings at Kensal Green consulting old histories and drafting his letterpress, while Cruikshank would return for more on-site sketches before immuring himself in the studio in order to convert the sketches into drawings for the wood-engravers and tracings of the steels, which he would forward to Ainsworth with last-minute instructions about details of the depicted action. [Patten, 138]
In this instance, however, Cruikshank's pencil sketches of a key locale replaced entirely Ainsworth's inspecting the Bloody Tower himself to acquire direct knowledge of his intended setting, as he was out of town when he wrote this chapter:
"Pray, when you are at the Tower, sketch the Gateway of the Bloody Tower from the south; the chamber where the Princes were murdered; the basement chamber, at the right of the Gateway of the Bloody Tower, near the Record Tower, and interior of the Record Tower." ["Ainsworth to Cruikshank," 2 August 1840, cited by Patten on page 139]
The Bloody Tower remains infamous on account of the mysterious disappearances of the two young Princes, Edward V and his brother, Richard Duke of York. When the thirteen-year-old Edward V's uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester, had himself declared Lord Protector in 1483, he had Edward and Richard confined to the Tower of London. When the Duke of Gloucester proclaimed himself King Richard III, the two Yorkist princes as legitimate claimants were something of an inconvenience. The boys were last seen alive in June 1483, when, historians and the general public alike have assumed that their devious uncle had them despatched late in the summer of 1483. The controversy over the cause of their fates has not subsided. The revisionist historians, taking issue with Sir Thomas More, contend that Tudor propaganda has cast Richard as a villain, and that his successor, Henry VII, or possibly the Duke of Buckingham, had equal cause to remove the two boys, as they stood as much in their path to the throne. Bones thought to belong to those of the princes were discovered in 1674 when a staircase leading to the White Tower was demolished. The bones were later removed to the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey at the command of Charles II, although recent studies have suggested that the skeletons' ages do not match those of the young princes incarcerated in the Bloody Tower, which tradition holds is still haunted by the ghosts of the two.
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Last modified 11November 2017