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Queen Jane interposing between Northumberland and Simon Renard.
George Cruikshank
March 1840
steel-engraving
12.6 cm high by 10.0 cm wide framed, facing p. 75.
Full-page illustration for the tenth chapter of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Renard's manner, indeed, was so extraordinary that it furnished some clue to the nature of his discourse. Casting off the insinuating tone and deferential deportment with which he had commenced, he gradually assumed a look and accent of command, and almost of menace. His figure dilated, and fixing his black flaming eye upon the trembling Queen, he stamped his foot upon the vacant grave on which he was standing, and said, in a voice so loud that it reached the ears of the listeners, "Your Majesty will never wear your crown in safety till Northumberland lies here."
Before any answer could be returned, the door of the chapel was suddenly thrown open, and the Duke presented himself. A momentary change passed over Renard's countenance at this interruption. But he instantly recovered his composure, and folding his arms upon his breast, awaited the result.
Unable to control his indignation, the Duke strode towards them, and flinging his jewelled cap on the ground, drew his sword.
"M. Renard," he exclaimed, "you are a traitor!"
"To whom, my lord?" replied Renard, calmly.
"To me — to the Queen," rejoined the Duke.
"If to be your grace's enemy is to be a traitor, I confess I am one," retorted Renard sternly. "But I am no traitor to her majesty."
"It is false!" exclaimed the Duke, furiously. "You are her worst and most dangerous enemy. And nothing but the sacred spot in which you have sought shelter, prevents me from taking instant vengeance upon you."
Renard smiled disdainfully.
"Your grace threatens safely," he said, in a taunting tone.
"Insolent!" exclaimed the Duke, roused to a pitch of ungovernable fury. "Draw and defend yourself, or I will strike you dead at my feet."
"Put up your sword, my lord," cried Jane, throwing herself between them. "You forget in whose presence you stand."
"No!” exclaimed Northumberland, "I do not forget. I am in the presence of one who owes her authority to me — and who holds it through me. The same power which made you queen, can as readily unmake you."
"Your majesty will now judge who is the traitor," observed Renard, sarcastically.
"I do," she replied. "I command your grace," she continued, authoritatively addressing Northumberland, "to quit the chapel instantly."
"What if I refuse to obey?" rejoined the Duke.
"Your grace will do well not to urge me too far," replied Jane. "Obey me, or take the consequences."
"What are they?" cried the Duke contemptuously.
"Your arrest," said the Earl of Pembroke, laying his hand upon his sword, and advancing. "If his grace will not submit himself to your highness's authority, we will compel him to do so."
"Jane!" said the Duke, suddenly controlling himself — "be warned before it is too late. You are in the hands of those who will destroy you."
"On the contrary," rejoined Renard, "her majesty is in the hands of those who will uphold her, and destroy you?"
"No more of this," interposed the Queen. "If you are, what you profess yourselves, my faithful subjects, you will reconcile your differences."
"Never!" exclaimed the Duke. "Let M. Renard look to himself." [Book One, Chapter X. — "How the Duke of Northumberland Menaced Simon Renard in Saint Peter's Chapel on the Tower-Green; and How Queen Jane Interposed Between Them," p. 75]
The narrative-pictorial sequence rises to a crescendo from the tranquil image of the White Tower which opened the chapter as the two mighty adversaries nearly come to blows, and the young Queen attempts to assert her authority. The confrontation between the powerful magnate and the cunning Spanish ambassador (clearly motivated by a desire to displace Jane with her Catholic sister) occurs after the Protestant service in St. Peter's Chapel, already seen in a Cruikshank wood-engraving in the previous month's instalment. Ominously, Cruikshank has stationed the courageous Queen Jane immediately above the tombstones of Katherine Howard and Anne Boleyn, former queens who met their deaths on the headsman's block in 1541 and 1536 respectively. The juxtaposition reminds the reader that, for all her courage and personal integrity, Jane is shortly about to meet the same fate. Then, too, Cruikshank has strategically positioned John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (sword inappropriately drawn in church), above the grave of Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset executed for treason in 1552, a victim of Dudley's enmity. Although the illustrator attempts to capture something of the high drama, he has made the villainous, slender, dark-clad Simon Renard something of a caricature.
Although Cruikshank depicts him in the tradition of the Gothic melodramas and novels of Matthew G. Lewis and Anne Radcliffe, he was a very real historical player in the high-stakes game of sixteenth-century international politics. A master of espionage, Renard apparently has acquired some information that he is now using to manipulate Jane. His having been born in Burgundy in 1513 explains Renard's occasionally lapsing into French, despite the fact that he represents Spain at the English Court. Formally Sieur of Bermont and Lieutenant of Aumont or Amont, served as an advisor to Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II of Spain, who were also counts of Burgundy. Renard became ambassador of Spain in France and England, and as ambassador to England acquired an extraordinary degree of influence over Mary I of England, and until her marriage to Philip, which he had promoted, was popularly regarded as the power behind Mary's throne. Ainsworth and Cruikshank seize upon his machiavellian modus operandi and dark features in describing the enmity between the devious Frenchman and the fair-haired Saxon nobles in the scene. English nobles crowd about to support the queen-maker, Northumberland (left) after Lady Hastings, Queen Jane's chief lady-in-waiting, seeing Renard attempt to control the Queen, has summoned her father, the imperious Duke.
The scene poses questions that compel the reader to return to the text. What is the information that Renard is holding over the Queen? Why does she dare to cross the powerful noble who has placed her on the throne? Why is Renard so self-confident and aloof in confronting so dangerous an adversary? How will Jane survive the obvious entity between these two? The room which serves as the set for the dramatic confrontation, St. Peter's Chapel, was formerly peaceful, devoid of figures, but full of light. Now menacing shadows fill the background (left) and deep shadow frames the light forehead of the Spanish ambassador in chiaroscuro. Cruikshank has made Jane another pillar, analogous to the five higher-order Gothic pillars that support the roof, accentuating her vertical by the long tassels depending from her slender waist. He uses her gesture to draw the eye from the affronted Northumberland, subtly drawing back, to the Duke's velvet cap at Renard's feet, and thereby provides visual coherence.
Above: The present-day tranquility of Cruikshank's earlier wood-engraving contrasts the high drama of the historical canvas featuring Jane, Northumberland, and Renard: Interior of St. Peter's Chapel (February 1840). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The animated figures complement Ainsworth's antiquarian discussion of the significance of the physical situation of the confrontation, a royal chapel containing the remains of those who were crushed in the power-struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cromwell, Norfolk, Essex, Monmouth, as well as the three leaders of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745:
"What! you a rigid Catholic, M. Renard." observed Pembroke, "about to attend Protestant worship? Hopes may be entertained of your conversion."
"Stronger hopes may be entertained that I shall restore the ancient worship," muttered Renard, as he entered the chapel, and took his place unobserved by the Queen behind one of the columns of the aisle, while she advanced to the altar.
Erected in the reign of Edward the First, the little chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula (the parochial church — for the Tower, it is almost needless to say, is a parish in itself), is the second structure occupying the same site and dedicated to the same saint. The earlier fabric was much more spacious, and contained two chancels, with stalls for the king and queen, as appears from the following order for its repair issued in the reign of Henry the Third, and recorded by Stow: — The king to the keepers of the Tower work, sendeth greeting: We command you to brush or plaster with lime well and decently the chancel of St. Mary in the church of St. Peter within the bailiwick of our Tower of London, and the chancel of St. Peter in the same church; and from the entrance of the chancel of St. Peter to the space of four feet beyond the stalls made for our own and our queen’s use in the same church; and the same stalls to be painted. And the little Mary with her shrine and the images of St. Peter, St. Nicholas, and Katherine, and the beam beyond the altar of St. Peter, and the little cross with its images to be coloured anew, and to be refreshed with good colours. And that ye cause to be made a certain image of St. Christopher holding and carrying Jesus where it may best and most conveniently be done, and painted in the foresaid church. And that ye cause two fair tables to be made and painted of the best colours concerning the stories of the blessed Nicholas and Katherine, before the altars of the said saints in the same church. And that ye cause to be made two fair cherubims with a cheerful and joyful countenance standing on the right and left of the great cross in the said church. And moreover, one marble font with marble pillars well and handsomely wrought."
Thus much respecting the ancient edifice. The more recent chapel is a small, unpretending stone structure, and consists of a nave and an aisle at the north, separated by pointed arches, supported by clustered stone pillars of great beauty. Its chief interest is derived from the many illustrious and ill-fated dead crowded within its narrow walls. [Book One, Chapter X. — "How the Duke of Northumberland Menaced Simon Renard in Saint Peter's Chapel on the Tower-Green; and How Queen Jane Interposed Between Them," pp. 72-73]
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Last modified 29 September 2017