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Jane's first night in the Tower
George Cruikshank
1840
Steel-engraving
11.8 cm high by 9.8 cm wide, framed, facing p. 32.
Fourth steel-engraving for William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London. A Historical Romance. London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1840.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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On that night Lord Guilford Dudley was summoned to a secret council by his father, the Duke of Northumberland, and as he had not returned at midnight, the Lady Hastings, who was in attendance upon the Queen, proposed that, to while away the time, they should pay a visit to St. John's Chapel in the White Tower, of the extreme beauty of which they had all heard, though none of them had seen it. Jane assented to the proposal, and accompanied by her sister, the Lady Herbert, and the planner of the expedition, Lady Hastings, she set forth. Two ushers led the way through the long galleries and passages which had to be traversed before they reached the White Tower; but on arriving at the room adjoining the council-chamber which had so lately been thronged with armed men, but which was now utterly deserted, Jane inquired from her attendants the way to the chapel, and on ascertaining it, commanded her little train to await her return there, as she had determined on entering the sacred structure alone. In vain her sisters remonstrated with her — in vain the ushers suggested that there might be danger in trusting herself in such a place at such an hour without protection — she remained firm — but promised to return in a few minutes, after which they could explore the chapel together.
Taking a lamp from one of the attendants, and pursuing the course pointed out to her, she threaded a narrow passage, similar to that she had traversed with the Duke in the morning, and speedily entered upon the gallery above the chapel. As she passed through the opening in the wall leading to this gallery, she fancied she beheld the retreating figure of a man, muffled in a cloak, and she paused for a moment, half-inclined to turn back. Ashamed, however, of her irresolution, and satisfied that it was a mere trick of the imagination, she walked on. Descending a short spiral wooden staircase, she found herself within one of the aisles of the chapel, and passing between its columns, entered the body of the fane. For some time, she was lost in admiration of this beautiful structure, which, in its style of architecture — the purest Norman — is without an equal. She counted its twelve massive and circular stone pillars, noted their various ornaments and mouldings, and admired their grandeur and simplicity. Returning to the northern aisle, she glanced at its vaulted roof, and was enraptured at the beautiful effect produced by the interweaving arches.
While she was thus occupied, she again fancied she beheld the same muffled figure she had before seen, glide behind one of the pillars. Seriously alarmed, she was now about to retrace her steps, when her eye rested upon an object lying at a little distance from her, on the ground. Prompted by an undefinable feeling of curiosity, she hastened towards it, and holding forward the light, a shudder ran through her frame, as she perceived at her feet, an axe! It was the peculiarly-formed implement used by the headsman, and the edge was turned towards her.
At this moment, her lamp was extinguished. [Chapter IV, — "Of the Mysterious Occurrence That Happened to Queen Jane in Saint John's Chapel in the White Tower," p. 31-32]
The final sentence, which reflects the moment immediately after Jane's discovery of the headsman's axe, constitutes a classical example of an effective serial conclusion or curtain in that it establishes the necessary suspense at the close of the January 1840 instalment. Readers would have to return to their local booksellers' for the February instalment to learn the meaning of the axe and the identity of the enshrouded figure watching Jane from behind the pillar, and to discover what happened after Jane's candle went out. This ninth illustration was actually the seventh and final illustration included in the January 1840 number with Book One, Chapters 1 through 4, since Cruikshank did not add the frontispiece and title-page until the final instalment. Because most serialised fiction of the period, such as Oliver Twist, would have had just two engravings per instalment, readers of Ainsworth's latest historical novel must have felt that they were getting good value for their monthly shillings, even though the plates are not of a consistently high standard.
Cruikshank provides a far less dramatic view of Interior of Saint John's Chapel in the White Tower in the sixth chapter of Book the Second, "By what means the Duke of Northumberland was reconciled to the Church of Rome," p. 152. The qualities of Gothic Romance that dominate this illustration of Jane in St. John's Chapel are the threat that the figure behind the column apparently poses a young woman and the air of mystery that permeates the scene. The key to the identity of the observer is the headsman's axe, placed in Jane's way in order to terrify her with a tangible piece of foreshadowing.
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Last modified 9 October 2017