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Lawrence Nightgall Dragging Cicely Down the secret stairs in the Salt Tower
George Cruikshank
July 1840
Steel-engraving
10.1 cm high by 6.8 cm wide, vignetted
Illustration for Book II, Ch. XVI, of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London, facing p. 220.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Peace!" cried Nightgall, "I will do you no harm. Your retreat has been discovered. You must go with me to the tower leading to the Iron Gate."
"I will never go thither of my accord," replied Cicely. "Release me, villain. I will die sooner than become your bride."
"We shall see that," growled the jailer. "Another month's captivity will make you alter your tone. You shall never be set free, unless you consent to be mine."
"Then I shall die a prisoner like your other victims," cried Cicely.
"Who told you I had other victims?" cried Nightgall, moodily.
"No matter who told me. I have heard Cuthbert Cholmondeley, whom I love as much as I hate you, speak of one — Alexia, I think she was named."
"No more of this," cried Nightgall, fiercely, "come along, or —"
"Never!" shrieked Cicely — "I will not go. You will murder me," — And she filled the chamber with her screams.
"Confusion!" cried Nightgall, "we shall be heard. Come along, I say."
In struggling to free herself from him, Cicely fell upon the ground, regardless of this, Nightgall dragged her by main, force through the doorway, and so down the secret staircase. She continued her screams, until her head striking against the stones, she was stunned by the blow, and became insensible. He then raised her in his arms, and descending another short flight of steps, traversed a narrow passage, and came to a dark chamber beneath the Tower leading to the Iron Gate. [Chapter XIV. — "What bifel Cicely in the Salt Tower," pp. 222-23]
Left: The wood-engraving of the mysterious staircase as it looked in 1840, Secret Staircase in the Salt Tower (July 1840). Centre: Chamber in the Salt Tower as it appeared, elegantly decorated, in 1840 (July 1840). Right: The staircase used by the brutal jailor to shift his victim's location in order to avoid detection, Arched Door in the Salt Tower Communicating with Secret Staircase (July 1840). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Suspecting that Cholomedy may have ascertained where he has imprisoned Cicely, Lawrence Nightgall, the sadistic jailor of the Tower of London, drags the hapless Cicely down the secret staircase in the Salt Tower when she proves uncooperative. In the Cruikshank illustration, she has not yet struck her head against the dressed stone of the staircase, but pleads with her jailor, attempting to grab his doublet. The bug-eyed psychopath forcefully restrains her, regarding her with apprehension lest her screams attract the attention of the guards. In the dark plate, Nightgall's lantern selectively illuminates his bunch of phallic keys, Cicely's arms and shoulders, and Nightgall's face, so that the artist clearly wishes the reader to consider Cicely's defensive posture and Nightgall's expression, which does not suggest exasperation as in the text ("Confusion!" cried Nightgall, "we shall be heard. Come along, I say."). Although Cruikshank has bathed the scene in darkness, we can discern both figures, the staircase, and the textured walls.
Ainsworth now concludes the plot from the realm of Gothic romance with a pair of illustrations associated with Nightgall's abduction of Cicely, a plot gambit which he borrowed from Matthew G. Lewis's Abrosio; or, The Monk (1796), with the psychopathic Nightgall replacing the lustful monk, and Cicely the constantly-threatened, virtuous heroine Agnes. Fearing that the young esquire may have detected where he has been holding Cicely prisoner, Nightgall attempts to move her. Her screaming and refusal to leave her place of confinement voluntarily prompt Nightgall to drag her down a secret staircase to a dark chamber beneath the Tower leading to the Iron Gate.
Perhaps the attention that architect Anthony Salvin devoted to the Salt Tower some seventeen years after the novel's publication was the direct result of the importance of the Salt Tower in the plot of Ainsworth novel. The Salt Tower appears first in North View of the Salt Tower, and again in Masque in the Palace Garden of the Tower, Secret Staircase in the Salt Tower, Chamber in the Salt Tower, and Basement Chamber in the Salt Tower, as well as torture scenes probably enacted in the dungeons of the Salt Tower, significantly Elizabeth confronted with Wyat in the Torture-Chamber in Chapter 34 in the final instalment. Ainsworth's firing the public imagination with scenes of torture in his "historical romance" probably led to the government's commissioning Salvin, at the behest of Prince Albert, to undertake a comprehensive restoration of the Tower's mediaeval and Tudor buildings.
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Last modified 18 October 2017