[These notes were made in 1984. I read this in an undated, late-19th century "edition de luxe" published in London by Howell & Co.:] The subtitle calls this "an historical romance," and, as always with Ainsworth, one is acutely aware of the factual documentation lying just beneath the surface. Despite that, I think Ainsworth has probably romanticized Fawkes out of all existence by making him the most admirable of the conspirators, and giving him a secret marriage to a very noble young woman with the highly romantic name of Viviana Radcliffe. One of Ainsworth's most irritating quirks - one he indulges far more than his mentor, Scott - is to introduce a place -an old house, say - and then give us an update on its condition "now" - i.e. mid-nineteenth century. Bad enough for contemporary readers - for us it adds another layer of necessary historical sympathy! There is, on the other hand, a curious satisfaction, not to my knowledge properly analyzed in any of the critical literature, in the very solidity of Ainsworth's history. The illusion (if such it is) of actually learning something is quite astonishing. In this book, in fact, I learned altogether more than I wanted to know about early Stuart devices of torture and methods of execution. There was, on the romance side, Ainsworth's usual mixing in of the supernatural, this time in the person of Doctor Dee, and the speaking corpse and crystal ball which foretell Fawkes' fate. Ainsworth has quite cleverly sidestepped the lack of suspense in the too-well-known story of the gunpowder plot, and substitutes a concern (Viviana's) with whether Fawkes will properly repent his crime. Hence also the appearance of St. Winifred. But whether by accident of design, this is certainly the bloodthirstiest of the novels so far, beginning and ending with executions; a clear forefather of the Penny Dreadfuls.
