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Queen Jane's flight from the Tower.
George Cruikshank
April 1840
steel-engraving
11.6 cm high by 10 cm wide framed, facing p. 106.
Full-page illustration for the sixteenth chapter of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"Pardon what I have said, dear lady," said Gunnora. "Deadly as is the hatred I bear to the house of Northumberland, for your sweet sake I will forgive his son. Nay more, I will effect his deliverance. This I swear to you. Come with me, and once out of the Tower make what haste you can to Sion House, where your husband shall join you before the morning."
"You promise more than you can accomplish," said Jane.
"That remains to be seen, madam," replied Gunuora: "but were it not that he is your husband, Lord Guilford Dudley should receive no help from me. Once more, will you trust me?"
"I will," replied Jane.
Cholmondeley then seized a torch, and fastening the door of the chamber, on the outside of which a guard was stationed, assisted Jane through the masked door. Preceded by the old woman, who carried a lamp, they threaded a long narrow passage built in the thickness of the wall, and presently arrived at the head of a flight of stairs, which brought them to a long corridor arched and paved with stone. Traversing this, they struck into an avenue on the right, exactly resembling one of those which Cholmondeley had recently explored. Jane expressed her surprise at the vast extent of the passages she was threading, when Gunnora answered — "The whole of the Tower is undermined with secret passages and dungeons, but their existence is known only to few.'"
A few minutes' rapid walking brought them to a stone staircase, which they mounted, traversed another gallery, and finally halted before a low gothic-arched door, which admitted them to the interior of the Bowyer Tower. Requesting Cholmondeley to assist her, Gunnora, with his help, speedily raised a trap-door of stone, and disclosed a flight of steps. While they were thus employed, a strange and unaccountable terror took possession of Jane. As she glanced timidly towards the doorway she had just quitted, she imagined she saw a figure watching her, and in the gloom almost fancied it was the same muffled object she had beheld in St. John's Chapel. A superstitious terror kept her silent. As she looked more narrowly at the figure, she thought it bore an axe upon its shoulder, and she was about to point it out to her companions, when making a gesture of silence it disappeared. By this time the trap-door being raised, Cholmondeley descended the steps with the torch, while Gunnora holding back the flag, begged her to descend. But Jane did not move.
"Do not lose time," cried the old woman, "we may be followed, and retaken."
Still Jane hesitated. She cast another look towards the doorway, and the idea crossed her, that from that very outlet she should be led to execution. A deadly chill pervaded her frame, — and her feet seemed nailed to the ground. Seeing her irresolution, Cicely threw herself on her knees before her, and implored her to make an effort. Jane advanced a step, and then paused. [Book One, Chapter XVI. — "How the Council Deposed Queen Jane; And How She Fled from the Tower," pp. 105-106]
Ainsworth now dramatizes the progress of Spanish ambassador Simon Renard's plot to have Mary Tudor proclaimed Queen while Northumberland and his forces are absent in the field. With Mary securely on the throne of England, Simon will effect his master-plan to restore the Roman Catholic Church, liquidate the realm's leading Protestants, and arrange the marriage of Mary Tudor to King Phillip II of Spain.
On her ninth morning as monarch, Queen Jane is shocked when the Privy Council turns against her publicly. Simon Renard, who seems to be stage-managing the proceedings, proclaims Lady Jane Dudley a usurper as he asserts that Mary is the rightful Queen of England and Ireland. To his proclanation, the perfidious Council cries, "God save Queen Mary!" (p. 102). Only the family and person of the Duke of Northumberland will not participate in a general amnesty. With the defection of the Earl of Pembroke and the capitulation of Suffolk Jane resigns the crown, but the Council now consigns her a prisoner to the Tower. Jane's husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, remonstrates with the implacable Renard, who clearly is serving as Mary's agent. Guards escort Jane to the palace, but Cholmondeley and Jane's husband to incarceration in the Beauchamp Tower, as the Council proceeds to order Northumberland to disband his forces and to submit to arrest by the Earl of Arundel, supported by Gilbert Pot. The populace at Cheapside subsequently respond with great enthusiasm to the council's proclaiming "Mary, Queen of England, France, and ireland, Defender of the Faith" (p. 104), even though that faith is Catholicism. With philosophical bitterness while under house arrest, Lord Guildford Dudley watches general celebrations on Tower Green, as the staff and warders enjoy a celebratory bonfire and various liquors in Queen Mary's name.
About midnight, Jane, attended only by Cicely and Cholmondeley, receives a visitor through a secret doorway: Gunnora Braose. The faithful Catholic gentlewoman who has served as Northumberland's confidential agent in the past now acts on Jane's behalf, advising her to effect her escape through subterranean passages before Mary arrives at the Tower. Jane, who is distressed at the thought of abandoning her husband to his fate, refuses to go until Gunnora promises to attempt his deliverance once Jane is safe outside the walls at Sion House on the Southwark side upriver. Finally she agrees to escape through the masked door and through the secret passage to the Bowyer Tower.
In the present illustration, as the anxious Gunnora holds open the trapdoor, Jane is once again overwhelmed by near-fatal indecision. Believing she is being watched by the ominous figure whom she had seen in the chapel, Jane cannot overcome her irresolution to take the opportunity fate has presented her until Cicely entreats her to put aside her fatalism and make good her escape to the other side of the Thames.
Curiously, Cruikshank has not depicted the dark figure in the shadows, implying that this apparition exists only in Jane's mind. Jane's face is an impassive mask, whereas the anxious Gunnora (wearing a crucifix indicative of her adherence to the old religion) desperately entreats Jane to enter the passageway through the trapdoor. The final illustration is the reflex of this one as Jane and her husband return to the Tower as prisoners rather than rulers, so that Lord Guildford Dudley's determination to cling to power proves their undoing.
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Last modified 28 September 2017