[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> The Tower of London —> W. H. Ainsworth —> Next]
Northumberland's Inscription in the Beauchamp Tower
George Cruikshank
May 1840
Wood-engraving
9 cm high by 9.2 cm wide
Book II, Ch. VII, of Ainsworth's The Tower of London, p. 158.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
The last night of his existence was passed by the Duke of Northumberland in a most miserable manner. Alternately buoyed up by hope, and depressed by fear, he could neither calm his agitation, nor decide upon any line of conduct. Allowed, as a matter of indulgence, to remain within the large room, he occupied himself in putting the finishing touches to a carving on the wall, which he had commenced on his first imprisonment, and had wrought at at intervals. This curious sculpture may still be seen on the right hand of the fireplace of the mess-room in the Beauchamp Tower, and contains his cognizance, a bear and lion supporting a ragged staff surrounded by a border of roses, acorns and flowers intermingled with foliage.
The Duke of Northumberland was employed upon the third line of the quatrain below his name, which remains unfinished to the present day, when he was interrupted by the entrance of a priest, sent to him by Gardiner. The holy man found him in no very favourable frame of mind, but succeeded after some time in awakening him to a due sense of his awful situation. The Duke then made a full confession of his guilt, and received his shrift. At daybreak, the priest departed, with a promise to attend him to the place of execution. [Chapter VII. — "How the Duke of Northumberland was beheaded on Tower Hill," p. 157-58]
Still discernible among the inscriptions by political prisoners held in the Beauchamp Tower, Northumberland's ornate device involves heraldic beasts (a bear and a lion) surmounting his actual name, "John Dudle" (i. e, Dudley). The beasts connotate strength and courage respectively. The ragged staff is the symbol of the Earls of Warwick. The double-tailed lion rampant is the crest of the Dudley family. The verse further explicates the devices:
Yow that these beasts do wel behold and se, May deeme withe ease wherefore here made they be With borders eke within [there may be found] . . . . 4 brothers names who list to serche the grovnd.
The Beauchamp, a spacious tower of three storeys and adjacent to the Lord Lieutenant's Lodgings, was well suited to the incarceration of aristocratic prisoners, many of whom whiled away their imprisonments by making inscriptions to decorate the walls. Built between 1275 and 1281 in the reign of King Edward I, the Tower bears the name of its first noteworthyinmate, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whom King Richard II attainted in 1397.The younger John Dudley, the son of the Duke of Northumberland, inscribed the family's coat of arms as a memorial to his father, himself, and his four brothers. The flowers incised into the wall represent these members of the Dudley family. Carnations or gillyflowers suggest Lord Guilford Dudley, husband of Lady Jane Grey. The roses stand for Ambrose, oak leaves for Robert, from robur, Latin for "oak,"and honeysuckle (Lonicera henryi) for Henry. Although Queen Mary I condemned all four as traitors in 1553, after Lord GuildfordDudley's execution, she relented, and pardoned the remaining brothers.Ainsworth has altered the traditional author of theinscription, making the senior John Dudley rather than the son the low-relief sculptor.
Architect Anthony Salvin (1798-1881), who was commissionedin 1851 to restore the Towerof London, worked in the then-popular pseudo-medieval style to provide the paying public with an interesting antiquarian experience. In the case of the Beauchamp Tower, his restoration included recreating the surmounting battlements, cleaning the facade, and providing Gothic-arched doors and windows. Moreover, he attempted to restore to legibility as many inscriptions as possible. Early in his architectural career, Salvin had established himself as something of an expert on Tudor architecture, having worked on castle and church restoration; he also designed entirely new churches and houses in the Tudor style. Although he failed in his bid to rebuild the Palace of Westminster in the Tudor idiom, for his restoration work at the Tower of London, he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1862.
"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Tower of London. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Richard Bentley, 1840.
Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.
Carver, Stephen. Ainsworth and Friends: Essays on 19th Century Literature & The Gothic. 11 September 2017.
Department of Environment, Great Britain. The Tower of London. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1967, rpt. 1971.
Chesson, Wilfred Hugh. George Cruikshank. The Popular Library of Art. London: Duckworth, 1908.
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.
McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.
Pitkin Pictorials. Prisoners in the Tower. Caterham & Crawley: Garrod and Lofthouse International, 1972.
Sutherland, John. "The Tower of London" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. P. 633.
Steig, Michael. "George Cruikshank and the Grotesque: A Psychodynamic Approach." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 189-212.
Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. Dover Pictorial Archive Series. New York: Dover, 1979.
Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Vann, J. Don. "The Tower of London, thirteen parts in twelve monthly instalments, January-December 1840." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 19-20.
Last modified 9 October 2017