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West View of the Beauchamp Tower
George Cruikshank
June 1840
Wood-engraving
11 cm high by 7.5 cm wide, vignetted
Upper half of page 161 in Book II, Ch. VIII of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London. A Historical Romance.
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.]
"Three months ago," said the Ambassador, who stood with folded arms at a little distance from them, "within this very chapel, I told the Duke of Northumberland he would occupy that grave. My words have been fulfilled. And I now tell you, Lord Guilford Dudley, and you Lady Jane, that unless you are reconciled with our holy Church, you will rest beside him."
With these words he quitted the chapel, and the guards closing round the captives, they were compelled to follow. During their short walk, Jane passionately implored her husband not to yield to the persuasions of his enemies. He hung his head and returned no answer, and she inferred from his silence, that he was not disposed to yield to her solicitations. They were now close upon the Beauchamp Tower, when Dudley, pointing to a barred window in the upper story of one of its turrets, observed— "Within that room my father parsed the last few weeks of his existence." [Chapter X. — Of the Conference held between Bishop Gardiner and Lady Jane Grey in the Beauchamp Tower," p. 179]
Located in the middle of the western site and functioning at the time of the story as the main entrance to the precincts of the Tower of London, the Beauchamp Tower is semicircular, projecting 5.5 metres beyond the line of the wall. The middle of its three storeys is on a level with the rampart, upon which it originally opened when King Edward I built it. However, the present-day brickwork dates from the reign of Henry VIII. The spacious middle chamber, which a large widow illuminates, is accessed by a wide, circular staircase from ground-level. On the walls of the Beauchamp a host of prisoners have commemorated their tedious stays in a variety of inscriptions in the chambers, the entrance way, and on the passage up the staircase; the most celebrated of these is the ornate coat of arms which John Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, executed during his incarceration in 1553-54.
Victorian architect Anthony Salvin (1798-1881), who was commissioned in 1851 to restore the Tower of 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. 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.
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Last modified 13 October 2017