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Curfew Tower, from Thames Street
W. A. Delamotte
1842
Wood-engraving
7.2 x 6 cm, framed
Fifth Delamotte illustration for W. Harrison Ainsworth's Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance, first published in the June 1842 number of Ainsworth's Magazine; headpiece for Chapter II; volume, p. 10.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Turning off on the right, the earl and his companion continued to descend the hill until they came in sight of the Garter — a snug little hostel, situated immediately beneath the Curfew Tower. [Chapter III. "Of Bryan Bowntance, the Host of the Garter; Of the Duke of Shoreditch; Of the Bold Words uttered by Mark Fytton, the Butcher, and how he was cast into the Vault of the Curfew Tower," p. 10]
As the costumes of the characters depicted in the illustration suggest, this is the scene that Delamotte sketched "on the spot" in the autumn of 1842. It constitutes the present-day, whereas Ainsworth describes the sleepy town of Windsor as it existed in the reign of Henry VIII. The tranquility of the nineteenth-century street-scene contrasts the violence of the young butcher's arrest and execution merely for speaking his mind, namely that Catherine and not Anne is the rightful queen and legal spouse of the petulant monarch. For refusing to drink the king's health "or that of his minion" (12), Mark Fytton meets a brutal death on a stout pole thrust out from the battlements of the Curfew Tower on the final page of Chapter III, closing the August 1842 instalment.
Left: A later view of the old, round tower, Curfew Tower and other buildings, as proposed to be altered by Wyatville (Book III, Ch. V). Centre: Delanotte's second external study, Eastern View of the Curfew Tower (Book I, Ch. II). Right: Delamotte captures an action scene, Mark Fytton, the Butcher, Hanging from the Curfew Tower (Book I, tailpiece for Ch. III). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
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 4 December 2017