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Passage Anticipated: A highly contemporary view of a room in Windsor Castle

In this reign, in all probability, the Norman Tower, which now forms a gateway between the middle and the upper ward, was erected. This tower, at present allotted to the house keeper of the castle, Lady Mary Fox, was used as a prison-lodging during the civil wars of Charles the First's time; and many noble and gallant captives have left mementoes of their loyalty and ill fate upon its walls.​ [Book the Third, "The History of the Castle," Chapter I,​ "Comprising the First Two Epochs of Windsor Castle," pp. 139-140]

Commentary: The role of Lady Mary Fox (1798-1864)

According to J. Don Vann (1985), in the serial publication, what is now Book Three appeared after book the Fourth and immediately before Book the Fifth. In other words, the reader of the magazine serial would have encountered Delamotte's image of Henry the Third's Tower after the scene in which Henry's groom relegates Wolsey to this rather modest accommodation.

Although the wood-engraving appears well into the novel, in the non-fiction antiquarian section on the history of Windsor Castle, Delamotte in all likelihood made the sketch upon which it is based in the summer of 1842. Thus, it is not technically an "illustration" since it is unlikely that Delamotte had read what would turn out to be the accompanying text when he visited the castle. Moreover, nothing in the plot occurs within this very Victorian parlour.

Although Ainsworth offers no information as to the identity of Lady Mary Fox or his reason for describing her drawing-room, as the illegitimate daughter of the former monarch and a highly knowledgeable resident of Windsor Castle, she was likely the source of much of the background information about nineteenth-century alterations to the castle. Lady Mary Fox (née, FitzClarence; 19 December 1798 — 13 July 1864) was an illegitimate daughter of King William IV and his mistress, Dorothea Jordan. Since she became a professional writer, Lady Mary may have been more than a source of information about Windsor. A letter to Delamotte from Ainsworth suggests that she was involved in the project:

I shall be glad to see you to a family dinner at half-past three o'clock to-morrow — Sunday. Bring your sketch-books with you . . . . Remind Mr. Costello, when you see him, to get the order from Lady Mary Fox for her apartments at Windsor. You had better go down to Hampton Court and sketch Will Sommers, and some of the other figures in the old pictures of Henry the Eighth's time, carefully. [Ellis, pp. 57–58]

As the wife of officer Charles Richard Fox she moved to Canada in September 1829, when her husband resumed active army service. For most of her later life, Lady Mary was housekeeper at Windsor Castle under her cousin, Queen Victoria, having been granted granted the rank of a marquess's daughter by her father the year after his accession to the throne, on 24 May 1831. She died childless on 13 July 1864. The genealogical chart in the picture is presumably reflective of research that Lady Mary did on her family. She must have had frequent contact with Queen Victoria since the young Queen spent the greater part of each at Windsor, which frequently served as the setting for the state visits by foreign monarchs and dignitaries.

Other Views and Related Material on Windsor Castle

• Windsor Castle from the Long Walk, Victorian additions and alterations by Sir Jeffry Wyattville
• Early twentieth-century view of the castle from the river
• The Frogmore Mausoleum, adjacent to the Long Walk
• Statue of Queen Victoria at the foot of Castle Hill, Windsor

References

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.

Ellis, S. M. William Harrison Ainsworth and His Friends. Vol II. London: Garland Publishing, 1979.

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.

Vann, J. Don. "Windsor Castle in Ainsworth's Magazine, June 1842-June 1843." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 23.

"Windsor Fact Sheet." Royal Collection Trust. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/Windsor_Castle_Fact_Sheet.pdf

Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.

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Last modified 27 December 2017