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Passage Illustrated: Guy Fawkes as a Deus-ex-Machina

On gaining a retired spot beneath the trees, Catesby, without giving his antagonist time to divest himself of the heavy horseman's cloak with which he was encumbered, and scarcely to draw his sword, assaulted him. The combat was furious on both sides, but it was evident that the young merchant was no match for his adversary. He maintained his ground, however, for some time with great resolution; but, being hotly pressed, in retreating to avoid a thrust, his foot caught in the long grass, and he fell. Catesby would have passed his sword through his body, if it had not been turned aside by another weapon. It was that of Guy Fawkes, who, followed by Martin Heydocke, had staggered towards the scene of strife, reaching it just in time to save the life of Humphrey Chetham.

"Heaven be praised! I am not too late!" he exclaimed. "Put up your blade, Catesby; or, turn it against me." [Book I, "The Plot," Chapter XVII, "The Rencounter," pp. 130-31]

Commentary

This illustration, which appears opposite the second page of Chapter XVII, "The Rencounter," contributes to the suspense as the volume reader continues with the thread of the story involving the duplicitous Catesby and his rivalry with the young nobleman Humphrey Chetham. Having just escaped from the pursuivant's soldiers in the nearby churchyard, Catesby miraculously survives the swift-flowing river by holding fast to Garnet. He then carries the nearly insensible priest back to the Hall, where he encounters Chetham on the first floor. Believing that the young merchant has betrayed him, Catesby challenges Chetham to defend himself outside the confines of the Hall. Thus, Cruikshank describes the continuation of the quarrel in "a retired spot beneath the trees" (130), but with the fifteenth-century mansion clearly visible in the background. The chapter suddenly concludes with Fawkes's timely intervention, just as Catesby is about to deliver a mortal thrust after Chetham has tripped and fallen. The moment which Cruikshank described as the very conclusion of the eighth serial instalment bleeds over to the opening of the curtain for the next number, when Catesby, confronted by the redoubtable ex-soldier, suddenly backs down:

Uttering an exclamation of rage, Catesby turned fiercely upon Fawkes, and for a moment appeared disposed to accept his invitation to continue the combat with him. But as he regarded the other's haggard features, and perceived in them the traces of his recent struggle with death—as he saw he was scarcely able to wield the blade he opposed against him—his wrath changed to compassion, and he sheathed his sword. By this time, Humphrey Chetham had sprung to his feet, and picking up his fallen weapon, stood on his defence. But finding that Catesby meditated no further hostilities, he returned it to the scabbard. [Chapter XVIII, "The Explanation," page 131]

The illustration, positioned at what was the head of the ninth instalment in the periodical version, does double duty, recalling events at the close of the August instalment and giving the starting point for the action in that for September. The Tudor tower and façade of Ordsall Hall, the ancestral mansion of Sir William Radcliffe, recall the previous month's action, involving Sir William's untimely death and his estate's passing to his daughter, Viviana. However, the effectiveness of this placement in the July 1841 volume does not match the apparent lack of concern for meaningful placement of the illustration in the original magazine publication.

In the original serial in Bentley's Miscellany, the dynamic illustration appears just before page 105, opposite the opening of Chapter XVI, "Book the First, "The Collegiate Church at Manchester," which leads off the monthly issue for August. The free-standing, unpaged steel-engraving illustrates a moment fifteen pages later in Chapter XVII, at the conclusion of the August instalment. The serial reader, accordingly, would have had to wait a full month to find out whether Catesby takes up Fawkes's challenge (page 217) and another plate appears, Viviana Radcliffe imploring Guy Fawkes to abandon the Conspiracy, facing p. 217, but introducing Chapter XVIII, "The Explanation." Thus, the juxtaposition of illustration and text far more effectively supports the reader's making sense of the text in the volume than in the monthly serial because the Cruikshank illustration refers to both the end of Chapter XVI and the beginning of Chapter XVIII.

The volume reader initially finds the illustration far more intelligible than his serial counterpart. The elaborately dressed Catesby (left) has been about to stab the defenceless Chetham, struggling on the ground, his hat and sword lying in the foreground. Fawkes's Spanish cloak seems to shield the youth as Fawkes checks Catesby's blow. In terms of blocking out large areas in the picture, Cruikshank has made the oak, just left of centre and leaning towards the right, a contrast to the line of Fawkes's cloak, moving the eye diagonally upward from Chetham to Fawkes's head, behind which Cruikshank has placed the tower of Ordsall Hall, in reality a moated Tudor mansion with no such tower, in order to render Fawkes's the dominating figure in the composition. To the right, another conspirator rushes forward, rapier drawn, alarmed at the very vocal quarrel that has just erupted in the Hall itself — the next chapter reveals that this must be Martin Heydocke, so that Cruikshank must have been aware of the contents of both instalments before he executed the illustration. However, since the well-dressed young man approaching, rapier drawn, looks nothing much like the old Radcliffe family retainer, the illustrator may have derived his knowledge of the next month's instalment from a conversation with the novelist rather than a careful reading of the instalment in proof or manuscript.

This is the only illustration in which Cruikshank describes the exterior of Ordsall Hall, located in an area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, a mansion with which W. H. Ainsworth would have been familiar since boyhood. Although the oldest surviving parts of the present hall date from the fifteenth century, as Cruikshank's illustration implies, the Hall is over seven hundred years old. The most important period in the history of Ordsall Hall was as the seat of the Radclyffe family, who lived in the house for over three hundred years. In 1662 the surviving Raclyffe sold the mansion, which from 1972 has served as the Old Salford County Museum.

References

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Guy Fawkes, or The Gunpowder Treason: An Historical Romance. With 22 illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: Cunningham & Mortimer, 1841 (first edition). Rpt., London: George Routledge & Sons, n. d. [See the text and images of the novel posted in May 2013 at Project Gutenberg Australia's website: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1302021h.html .]

Vann, J. Don. "Guy Fawkes in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1840-Noevember 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 20.

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Last modified 17 August 2018