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Title-page for Gibbings' edition (uncaptioned)
Frank Brangwyn
1901
Wood-engraving
13.8 cm high by 8.9 cm wide, framed
Illustration for Book II, Chapter XXIX. — "The Siege of the Tower," in William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
. . . Dudley gave the signal of assault. Dashing down the sides of the moat, his men launched their rafts on the water, and pushed them across with long poles. The noise they made betrayed them to the sentinels. The alarm was instantly given, and a tremendous fire opened upon them from the batteries and casemate of the Brass Mount, as well as from the eastern and western line of ramparts.
The Brass Mount has already been described as the largest bastion of the Tower, standing at the north-east angle of the fortress, and its walls were, and still are, of such immense thickness, and it was so well fortified, that it was regarded as impregnable. Notwithstanding this impression, it formed the main object of the present attack. Amid a slaughterous fire from the besieged, Dudley embarked with Cholmondeloy, who carried his standard, in a small skiff, and waving his sword above his head, pointed to the Brass Mount, and urged his men to the assault. They wanted no encouragement; but in some degree protected by the showers of arrows discharged by the archers stationed on the sides of the moat, and the constant fire of the arquebussiers, succeeded in placing two ladders against that part of the eastern ramparts immediately adjoining the bastion.
These were instantly covered with men, who mounted sword in hand, but were attacked and hurled backwards by the besieged. Another ladder was soon planted against the Brass Mount, while two more were reared against the northern ramparts opposite the postern gate, which had been stormed and taken by Wyat’s party, several of whom were descending the banks of the moat, and firing upon the fortress, assisted by three culverins placed in a temporary battery composed of large baskets filled with sand.
All this had not been executed without severe loss on the part of the insurgents. Several of the rafts were swamped, and their occupants, embarrassed by the weight of their arms, drowned. One of the ladders planted against the northern battlements was hurled backwards with its living load; and such was the vigour and determination of the besieged, that none of the assailants could set a foot on the ramparts.
Considerable execution, however, was done by the showers of arrows from archers, as well as by the discharges of the arquebussiers. But success did not, as yet, declare itself for either side. Constantly repulsed, the insurgents still resolutely returned to the charge; and though numbers fell from the ladders, others were instantly found to take their place.
Seeing how matters stood, and aware that some desperate effort must be made, Dudley, who had hitherto watched the progress of the fight from the moat, exposing himself to the full fire of the batteries, resolved to ascend the ladder placed against the Brass Mount. Cholmondeley agreed to follow him; and amid the cheers of the assailants and the unrelaxing fire of the besieged, the boat was run in to the side of the bastion. [Chapter XXIX. — "The Siege of the Tower"]
The late Victorian illustrator does not foreground the story's romantic lead, Cuthbert Cholmondeley, or the principal historical figure in the first volume, Lady Jane Grey, but shows the perspective of the common rebels, the sailors aboard the ships supporting Wyat's and Dudley's attacks on the Byward Tower, and throws the principal actors and the Tower of London itself well into the background. Ironically, the siege occurs in the second volume, whereas the ornamental title-page introduces the first volume, in which Ainsworth deals with the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey rather than with the vicissitudes and excesses of Mary's reign and the course of Wyat's rebellion. The latter parts of the historical fiction occur in the next 1901 volume, which contains the remaining twenty-nine chapters and another four Cruikshank steel-engravings transformed into turn-of-the-century photogravure plates.
The Gibbings (London) and Lippincott (Philadelphia) pocket-edition contains none of Cruikshank's wood-engravings and only four photogravures from the 1840 edition: Jane Grey and Lord Gilbert Dudley brought back to the Tower through Traitors' Gate (frontispiece), The Stone Kitchen, Simon Renard and Winwike the warder on the roof of the White Tower, and Mauger Sharpening his Axe. Thus, the 1901 title-page does not prepare the reader for illustrations that he or she will encounter later in the volume; rather, the title-page synthesizes three of Cruikshank's best historical illustrations of scenes from the next volume: Attack upon the Brass Mount, Attack upon St. Thomas's Tower, and Sir Thomas Wyat attacking the Byward Tower. Ironically, the common people, foregrounded in the 1901 wood-engraving, rarely appear in the pages of Ainsworth's historical romance, which has a strongly aristocratic bias.
Above: George Cruikshank's realistic steel-engraving of the Kentish rebels' besieging the Tower of London, Attack upon the Brass Mount with Cholmondeley and Dudley in the foreground (Tenth instalment, October 1840). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above: George Cruikshank's realistic steel-engraving of the Kentish uprising: "Terrific Scene on the River," with ships attacking the Tower of London from the Thames, Attack on St. Thomas's Tower by the Duke of Suffolk (Tenth instalment, October 1840). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above: George Cruikshank's realistic battle scene in which rebels and royalists are waging a vigorous, hand-to-hand combat at the causeway leading to the Middle Tower, Sir Thomas Wyat attacking the Byward Tower (Tenth instalment, October 1840). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Tower of London. A Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Richard Bentley, 1840.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Tower of London. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Frank Brangwyn. The Novels of William Harrison Ainsworth, vol. 3. The Windsor Edition. London: Gibbings; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott; Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hanson; July 1901. Vol. 3 [containing all of Book I, and Book II, Chapters 1 through 13].
Last modified 5 November 2017