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Jane imploring Mary to spare her Husband's life
George Cruikshank
November 1840
Steel-engraving
12.6 cm high by 10.6 cm wide, framed
In Book II, Ch. XXXI, of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London, facing p. 341.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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The interview about to be related took place in the large octangular chamber previously described. It was sumptuously furnished: the walls were hung with arras from the looms of Flanders, and the deep recesses occupied with couches, or sideboards loaded with costly cups and vessels.
Hastily advancing towards the queen, the lady prostrated herself at her feet, and, throwing aside her disguise, revealed the features of Jane. She extended her hands supplicatingly towards Mary, and fixed her streaming eyes upon her, but was for some moments unable to speak.
"I am come to submit myself to your highness's mercy," she said, as soon as she could find utterance.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Mary, scornfully. "You shall receive justice, but no mercy."
"I neither deserve, nor desire it," replied Jane. "I have deeply, but not wilfully — Heaven is my witness!—offended your majesty, and I will willingly pay the penalty of my fault."
"What would you with me?"demanded Mary. "I have acceded to this interview in consideration of your voluntary submission. But be brief. I have important business before me, and my heart is steeled to tears and supplications."
"Say not so, gracious madam,” rejoined Jane. “A woman’s heart can never be closed to the pleadings of the unfortunate of her own sex, still less the heart of one so compassionate as your highness. I do not sue for myself."
"For whom, then?” demanded the queen.
"For my husband,” replied Jane.
"I am about to sign his death-warrant,"replied Mary, in a freezing tone.
"I will not attempt to exculpate him, madam," returned Jane, restraining her emotion by a powerful effort, "for his offence cannot be extenuated. Nay, I deplore his rashness as much as your highness can condemn it. But I am well assured that vindictiveness is no part of your royal nature — that you disdain to crush a fallen foe — and that, when the purposes of justice are answered, no sentiments but those of clemency will sway your bosom. I myself, contrary to my own wishes, have been the pretext for the late insurrection, it is right I should suffer, because while my life remains, your highness may not feel secure. But my husband has no claims, pretended or otherwise, to the throne, and when I am removed, all fear of him will be at an end. Let what I have done speak my sincerity. I could have escaped to France, if I had chosen. But I did not choose to accept safety on such terms. Well knowing with whom I had to deal — knowing also that my life is of more importance than my husband’s, I have come to offer myself for him. If your highness has any pity for me, extend it to him, and heap his faults on my head." [Chapter XXXI. — "How Jane surrendered herself a prisoner; and how she besought Queen Mary to spare her husband," pp. 341-342]
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 wood-engraving the room appears to be a rather dusty and cluttered records room, with a table overflowing with manuscripts and seven storage cabinets, in the present steel-engraving, in which Cruikshank depicts the same room as it might have looked in 1554, the chamber is uncluttered and airy, with the window in the background (reduced in scale in the 1840 wood-engraving) providing atmospheric light. Gossipping to one another in the background, right, Mary's religious and secular advisors, Bishop Gardiner and Simon Renard, are observing the unfolding scene with rapt attention, aware that the proud Mary may rashly act against her own best interests — and theirs.
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Last modified 30 October 2017