[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> The Tower of London —> W. H. Ainsworth —> Next]
Interior of the Hall Tower
George Cruikshank
November 1840
Wood-engraving
10.5 cm high by 9.7 cm wide, vignetted
In Book II, Ch. XXXI, of Ainsworth's The Tower of London, centre of p. 340.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
"Ay, for ever!” repeated the lady. And she followed the officer; while Cholmondeley was conveyed by Nightgall and his assistants to the secret entrance of the subterranean dungeons near the Devilin Tower.
Accompanied by his charge, who was guarded by two halberdiers, the officer proceeded along the southern ward, in the direction of the Hall Tower — a vast circular structure, standing on the east of Bloody Tower.
This fabric, (sometimes called the Wakefield Tower from the prisoners confined within it, after the battle of that name in 1460, and more recently the Record Tower, from the use to which it has been put,) is one of the oldest in the fortress, and though not coeval with the White Tower, dates back as far as the reign of William Rufus, by whom it was erected. It contains two large octagonal chambers, — that on the upper story being extremely lofty, with eight deep and high embrazures, surmounted by pointed arches, and separated by thin columns, springing from the groined arches formerly supporting the ceiling, which though unfortunately destroyed, corresponded, no doubt, with the massive and majestic character of the apartment. In this room tradition asserts that
— the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sank in the ground: —
— it being the supposed scene of the murder of Henry the Sixth by the ruthless Gloster. And whatever doubts may be entertained as to the truth of that dark legend, it cannot be denied that the chamber itself seems stamped with the gloomy character of the occurrence. In recent times, it has been devoted to a more peaceful purpose, and is now fitted up with presses containing the most ancient records of the kingdom. The room on the basement floor is of smaller dimensions, and much less lofty. The recesses, however, are equally deep, though not so high, and are headed by semicircular arches. At high tides it is flooded, and a contrivance for the escape of the water has been made in the floor.
Passing through an arched doorway on the east of this structure, where the entrance to the Record Office now stands, the officer conducted his prisoner up a spiral stone staircase, and left her in a small antechamber, while he announced her arrival. The unhappy lady still kept herself closely muffled. But though her features and figure were hidden, it was evident she trembled violently. In another moment, the officer reappeared, and motioning her to follow him, led the way along a narrow passage, at the end of which hangings were drawn aside by two ushers, and she found herself in the presence of the queen.
Mary was seated at a table, near which stood Gardiner and Renard, and at the new-comer's appearance she instantly arose. [Chapter XXXI. — "How Jane surrendered herself a prisoner; and how she besought Queen Mary to spare her husband," pp. 340-41]
Although the King's Hall Tower is associated with the arraignment of Queen Anne Boleyn for treason on 15 May 1536, the Hall Tower was a different structure, attached to the Great Hall and adjacent to the south-east corner of Tower Wharf, immediately above Traitor's Gate. Appropriately, then, Ainsworth situates Jane's interview with Queen Mary, pleading for the life of her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, in the Hall Tower, which Ainsworth describes as "a vast circular structure, standing on the east of Bloody Tower." Since Mary has been going over correspondence in Simon Renard's suite in the Bloody Tower, it is logical that she would be visiting the Record Room in the Hall Tower when Jane arrives to intercede for her husband's life.
Unfortunately, Nightgall and his assistants have conducted her recent escort, Cuthbert Cholmondeley to the subterranean dungeons near the Devilin Tower, where they will undoubtedly torture him, even though he may possess little information, since he is Nightgall's rival for Cicely. Meanwhile, Mary is about to hear her cousin's petition in the Hall, Record, or Wakefield Tower, in fact the second largest tower within the Tower of London complex, built by Henry III between 1220 and 1240. The Wakefield Tower was an addition to the existing buildings in the palace, which the Kingenlargedand made his principal residence, including a state bedroom and audience chamber. With much thicker walls than other towers in the complex, in Tudor times it would have been a strongpoint, and therefore the logical place in which Mary would conduct state business during a period of political instability. The construction of the outer ward and St. Thomas's Tower forty years later reduced its strategic importance. The Wakefield Tower had been abandoned as a royal residence after the death of Edward I in 1307, when his successor moved the king's private chamber to the area of the Lanthorn Tower. Although in the 1840 illustration the room appears to be a rather dusty and cluttered records room, with a table overflowing with manuscripts and seven storage cabinets, the next illustration, in which Cruikshank depicts the same room as it might have looked in 1554, is uncluttered and airy, with the window in the background (reduced in scale in the 1840 wood-engraving) providing atmospheric light.
"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Tower of London. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Richard Bentley, 1840.
Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.
Carver, Stephen. Ainsworth and Friends: Essays on 19th Century Literature & The Gothic. 11 September 2017.
Department of Environment, Great Britain. The Tower of London. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1967, rpt. 1971.
Chesson, Wilfred Hugh. George Cruikshank. The Popular Library of Art. London: Duckworth, 1908.
Golden, Catherine J. "Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805-1882." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell. New York and London: Garland, 1988. Page 14.
Kelly, Patrick. "William Harrison Ainsworth." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 21, "Victorian Novelists Before 1885," ed. Ira Bruce Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. Pp. 3-9.
McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.
Pitkin Pictorials. Prisoners in the Tower. Caterham & Crawley: Garrod and Lofthouse International, 1972.
Sutherland, John. "The Tower of London" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. P. 633.
Steig, Michael. "George Cruikshank and the Grotesque: A Psychodynamic Approach." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 189-212.
Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. Dover Pictorial Archive Series. New York: Dover, 1979.
Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Vann, J. Don. "The Tower of London, thirteen parts in twelve monthly instalments, January-December 1840." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 19-20.
Last modified 29 October 2017