"The Marriage," Sir John Gilbert's fifth illustration for W. Harrison Ainsworth's "Rookwood. A Romance" (1878)

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The Marriage

Sir John Gilbert, R. A.

1878, 1882

Wood-engraving

5 ⅞ by 5 ⅛ inches (15 by 13 cm), vignetted

Facing page 217 in W. H. Ainsworth's Rookwood: A Romance

In one volume, with illustrations by Sir John Gilbert. London: George Routledge and Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill; New York: 416 Broome Street.

Cari. I will not die; I must not. I am contracted
To a young gentleman.

Executioner. Here's your wedding-ring.

—Duchess of Malfi. [Chapter XI, "The Bridal."]

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Passage Illustrated

"And the bride?" asked Barbara.

"Is ready," replied the priest. "Madam, delay not longer. Daughter, your hand."

Eleanor gave her hand. It was clammy and cold. Supported by her mother, she moved slowly towards the altar, which was but a few steps from where they stood. She offered no resistance, but did not raise her head. Luke was by her side. Then for the first time did the enormity of the cruel, dishonourable act he was about to commit, strike him with its full force. He saw it in its darkest colours. It was one of those terrible moments when the headlong wheel of passion stands suddenly still.

"There is yet time," groaned he. "Oh! let me not damn myself perpetually! Let me save her; save Sybil; save myself."

They were at the altar — that wild wedding train. High over head the torch was raised. The red light flashed on bridegroom and on bride, giving to the pale features of each an almost livid look; it fell upon the gaunt aspect of the sexton, and lit up the smile of triumphant malice that played upon his face; it fell upon the fantastical habiliments of Barbara, and upon the haughty but perturbed physiognomy of Mrs. Mowbray; it fell upon the salient points of the Gothic arches; upon one moulded pillar; upon the marble image of the virgin Thecla; and on the scarcely less marble countenance of Sybil who stood behind the altar, silent, statue-like, immovable. The effect of light and shade on other parts of the scene, upon the wild drapery, and harsh lineaments of many of the group, was also eminently striking. — Book III, "The Gipsy," Chapter 11, "The Bridal," p. 217.

Commentary

Other sensational scenes abound in the novel. There is, for example, Luke's wedding, which also takes place in a subterranean vault [like the opening scene in the family crypt]: St. Cyprian's cell, beneath a gypsy hideout, the ruined Davenham Priory. His bride, Eleanor Mowbray, is dazed from the effects of a love potion; Luke has abandoned his gypsy sweetheart, Sybil Lovel, in order to marry her. As the wedding party approaches the altar, the light of the single torch falls on "the ghastly corpse of a female, with streaming hair, at the altar's feet." It is, of course, the body of Luke's mother. This uninvited gueast is removed, and the ceremony proceeds, but not until the gypsies present have sung a wild wedding chorus and the light is inexplicably extinguished. Sybil's grandmother predicts the death of Luke's young wife; but, when light is restored, the bride, with Luke's mother's ring on her finger, is revealed to be Sybil herself. — George Worth, Ch. 4, "The Violent World of Harrison Ainsworth — II. The Gothic Strain," p. 217 [1878 edition].

The arched vault, the pillars, the torchlight, the deep shadows, and the wild figures, formed a picture worthy of Rembrandt or Salvator. — Book III, "The Gipsy," Chapter 11, "The Bridal," p. 213 [1878 edition].

Flashing, smokey torchlight (centre), the shifting shadows darkening behind the head of the groom, and, in the accompanying text the passionate exclamations and eruptions of choral music ("Wedding Chorus of Gipsies") all suggest the electrified Gothic atmosphere of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) (minus the exotic foreign settings of those earlier Gothic novels), and the lurid melodrama of the nineteenth-century theatre. Strictly speaking, such scenes as Luke's wedding emphasize the "romantic" rather than "realistic" nature of Ainsworth's fiction; we are far cry here from the social relevance and contemporary setting of Dickens's The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, dating from the same decade, but much more modern in the issues it addresses as a "novel" rather than a "romance." Perhaps, then, George Cruikshank's slightly whimsical treatment of his subject in The Bridal is more consonant with Ainsworth's outlandish text than that of John Gilbert's present illustration, whose general layout and disposition of figures suggest that the later illustrator had studied Cruikshank's work.

The moment flagged by a previous Cruikshank copper engraving, Sybil and Barbara Lovel (for which there is no equivalent in Gilbert's program), prepares the reader for some sort of disruption in the marriage ceremony, as Barbara Lovel has already predicted that Eleanor Mowbray may marry Luke, but cannot remain his wife. In the Gilbert illustration of the wedding ceremony, Luke should seem conflicted rather than stoically solemn about abandoning Sybil, his childhood sweetheart, for the Mowbray heiress — or true love versus ambition for rank and privilege.

Given a place of prominence in both the Gilbert illustration and George Cruikshank's The Bridal, leaning against a Gothic pillar in the right-hand margin in vest, jacket, breeches, and striped hose (exactly as in the opening illustration), is the curmudgeonly sexton, Peter Bradley, Luke's grandfather. He is supposed to be smiling (rather than scowling, arms crossed judgmentally, as in both illustrations) because his plan to see that Luke will inherit the Rookwood estates is about to come to fruition as Luke marries his cousin, Eleanor Mowbray, whose mother is a Rookwood. In fact, "Peter Bradley" (as the old man shortly reveals) is the pseudonym for "Alan Rookwood" (Mrs. Mowbray's uncle, in fact), who is aware (as even Eleanor's mother is not, apparently) that after Sir Piers' death the estate must pass to Eleanor and, by extension, her husband. The whole situation is complicated by a curse on the first bride of a Rookwood, who must die (as Luke's mother did) to make way for a second wife.

Aware of this malignant fate, Barbara Lovel had planned to murder Eleanor so that her granddaughter, Sybil, will become to second Lady Luke Rookwood. The girl thwarts both Alan Rookwood's and Barbara Lovel's ambitions by substituting herself for Elanor at the last moment so that, in the dark, Father Checkley (left in both illustrations) has married her to Luke. The bride whom both Cruikshank and Gilbert depict is Eleanor and not Sybil since the moment realised is prior to the lights being extinguished. Conspicuously absent, then, from both illustrations is the figure of the "alternate" bride, Sybil, or Handassah, the Gypsy girl who will shortly hold the unconscious Eleanor. The most important object in the subterranean chamber, the altar, is not shown, probably because the viewer in each case regards the scene from approximately where the altar would be standing.

Related Materials

Bibliography

"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 12 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Rookwood. A Romance. With 8 illustrations by Sir John Gilbert. London: George Routledge, 1878, 1882.

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Rookwood. A Romance. With 12 illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge, 1882.

Carver, Stephen. Ainsworth and Friends: Essays on 19th Century Literature & The Gothic. Accessed 1 November 2016. https://ainsworthandfriends.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/william-harrison-ainsworth-the-life-and-adventures-of-the-lancashire-novelist/

Dickens, Charles. Pilgrim ed. of the Letters of Charles Dickens, Vol. 5 (1847-1849). Ed. Graham Storey and Katherine Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.

Golden, Catherine J. "Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805-1882." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell. New York and London: Garland, 1988. Page 14.

Kelly, Patrick. "William Harrison Ainsworth." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 21, "Victorian Novelists Before 1885," ed. Ira Bruce Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. Pp. 3-9.

Muir, Percy. "Two Colossi — Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank." Victorian Illustrated Books. London: B. T. Batsford, 1971. Pp. 25-58.

Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1978.

Sutherland, John. "Rookwood" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. Pp. 544-545.

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

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Created 20 February 2017

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