Hypertext link from image loaded via xml

I thought this would be easy but for some reason it's not working.

What I want to accomplish:

Make an image loaded into my textArea via XML a link. I thought I could do something like this:

<a href=' http://www.mysite.com"><img src="myImage.jpg"/></a>

Simple enough you'd think but the image appears but with no hypertext link capabilities. :(

Any thoughts? Wisdom?

Thanks.