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View of the Castle, from the Great Park
W. A. Delamotte
1842
Wood-engraving
16.3 cm by 10.2 cm, vignetted
Twenty-sixth Delamotte illustration for W. Harrison Ainsworth's Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance, from the November 1842 number of Ainsworth's Magazine; Book the First, "Anne Boleyn," Chapter VIII, p. 61.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
At a little distance from the stand an extensive covert was fenced round with stout poles, to which nets were attached so as to form a haye or preserve, where the game intended for the royal sport was confined; and though many of the animals thus brought together were of hostile natures, they were all so terrified, and seemingly so conscious of the danger impending over them, that they did not molest each other. The foxes and martins, of which there were abundance, slunk into the brushwood with the hares and rabbits, but left their prey untouched. The harts made violent efforts to break forth, and, entangling their horns in the nets, were with difficulty extricated and driven back; while the timid does, not daring to follow them, stood warily watching the result of the struggle. [Book the First, "Anne Boleyn," Chapter VIII. "Of Tristram Lyndwood, the old Forester, and his Grand-daughter Mabel; Of the Peril in which the Lady Anne Boleyn was placed during the chase; — And by whom she was rescued," p. 61]
The view that Delamotte offers at the beginning of the eighth chapter involving the chase is of the scene as it appeared in the summer of 1842. However, the wooden fence suggests the enclosure or "haye" that the royal foresters have erected to provide the king and his courtiers with suitable targets. Thus, the ornate headpiece prepares the reader for Ainsworth's introduction of Morgan Fenwolf and Mabel Lyndwood — and the epic Johannotsteel-engraving in which a stag attacks Anne Boleyn, The Royal Chase in Windsor Forrest in Chapter VIII. The strategy of showing the present-day counterpart of the Tudor scene which Ainsworth describes seems almost intended to encourage literary tourism and amateur antiquarianism.Unfortunately,all too often Ainsworth is absorbed in the picturesque backdrop rather than the development of the novel's characters, who, of course, are generally absent from Delamotte's wood-engravings of Victorian Windsor, the notable exceptions being Haunted Beech-tree, near Norfolk Farm (Book I, Ch. V) and The Wild Huntsman (Book I, Ch. V).
Above: Tony Johannot's stylish realisation of the scene in which Morgan Fenwolf brings down the rampaging stag which menaces Anne Boleyn, The Royal Chase in Windsor Forest. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Tony Johannot. With designs on wood by W. Alfred Delamotte. London: Routledge, 1880. Based on the Henry Colburn edition of 1844.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 30, "The 'Hoc' Goes Down." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 2: 1835-1878. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1991; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1996. Pp. 153-186.
Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Last modified 15 December 2017