finest of its date in existence, was constructed to the order of
Maximilian expressly for Henry VIII., by Conrad Seusenhofer, one
of the most celebrated armourers of Innsbrück, whose mark it bears
on the helmet. It was sent as a gift in 1514, and was originally
silvered all over, and finely engraved in every part with the legend
of St. George and the badges of Henry VIII. and Katharine of Arragon.
The Tudor cognisances are the rose, portcullis and red dragon; and
Katharine's the pomegranate and sheaf of arrows, with finely-scrolled
arabesque work between. This ornament seems to be engraved and not
etched, as in later times. The most remarkable feature is the steel
skirt called base, of great rarity, and made in imitation of the
folds of the cloth bases so much in vogue at this time. These skirts
were used for fighting on foot, and there is provision for fixing an
additional piece to complete it in front, the absence of which alone
permitted the wearer to sit on horseback, though the difficulty of
getting into the saddle must have been considerable. The skirt is
edged with a finely-modelled border of brass in high relief, with
the initials H. and K. united by true-lover's knots. The suit is
complete in every respect except the gauntlets, and is mentioned in
the Greenwich inventory of 1547, published in the fifty-first volume
of _Archæologia_ by Lord Dillon. It is there described as "a harnesse
given unto the King's Maiestie by Th^e Empero^r Maximilian w^t a Base
of stele and goldesmythes worke." The brass border to the base thus
appears to have been regarded as silver and gilt goldsmiths' work.
The horse armour matching the suit, which was to be used on foot, as
Lord Dillon points out, did not exist at this period, and the figure
was seated on the Burgundian horse armour of repoussé steel of the
time of Henry VII., which still stands next to it in the Tower. The
engraving on the horse armour or bard is designed in the same spirit
as that of the armour itself, but is by an inferior hand. The subjects
are treated in the style of Albert Dürer or Burgkmair, and represent
incidents in the lives of St. George and St. Barbara, and besides the
badges on the armour which are reproduced, the castle and the rose
and pomegranate impaled appear, with the motto DIEV ET MON DROYT many
times repeated round the edge. All these badges and engravings were
illustrated, almost real size, by Meyrick, in the twenty-second volume
of _Archæologia_. The horse armour was silvered and probably parcel
gilt, like the body armour, and was made, it is supposed, by some of
the German armourers brought over and established in Greenwich by Henry
VIII. It is stiff and unwieldy, and does not very efficiently protect
the horse, though its effect is dignified and even magnificent. The
singular construction of the helmet has already been alluded to.
Contemporary with these suits is the fine German late Gothic fluted
armour, known as Maximilian, nearly perfect examples of which are to
be seen in every collection of importance. This was used for tilts,
with the immensely massive outwork of plates to fend off the blows of
the lance and other weapons, and to prevent the left leg from being
crushed against the barrier. Some of the rarer Maximilian suits not
only reproduce the cloth skirts of the civil costume in steel, but also
innumerable puffings and slashings, which were the fashion of the day.
Sometimes the helmets belonging to these suits have the mask-shaped
visors, a specimen of which, also a present to Henry VIII. from
Maximilian, still exists in the Tower. This formed part of a tilting
harness, and is described in the 1547 inventory as "a hedde pece w^t a
Rammes horne silver pcell guilte." In 1660 it was attributed to Will
Sommers, the king's jester, and has subsequently been rendered more
grotesque by paint and a pair of spectacles. A complete helmet of the
same kind is preserved at Warwick Castle, as well as one of the rarer
Italian helmets, with curling woolly hair represented in embossed iron,
but without the visor.
All this armour was made for the shocks and pleasurable excitement
of jousts, tilts, and tourneys, which its perfection and strength
deprived of nearly every element of danger. Its weight and closeness
would indeed have made it insupportable on active service. The great
revolution in the equipments for war, commenced by the artillery train
and nearly unarmoured pikeman and estradiot, was now being completed by
the reiter, pistolier and arquebusier. The massed man-at-arms, armed
cap-à-pied, had borne down for the last time all before him with the
lance, and was ceasing to play a decisive or even an important part in
warfare. Armour in campaigning was becoming of little consequence, and
even for the tourney a reaction was setting in against the extravagant
and ponderous precautions devised by Maximilian and his admirer Henry.
The decision of battles now belonged to pike, bill, and musket. The
infantry and light troops, who had hitherto been left to arm themselves
as best they could, began to be dressed in some sort of uniform, with
weapons and armour selected with some care, and used in definite
proportions. It is certainly strange to read that the archers who
did such splendid service at Agincourt were left to pick up any kind
of helmet, bassinet, or cap, whether of leather or wicker bound with
iron, and any description of side-arms, and were mostly without armour,
save the pourpoint, with stockings hanging down or bare feet. Only the
bows, arrows, and stakes were obligatory. In pictures, archers and
the foot generally are represented in every kind of old brigandine,
mail, bits of plate, or "jakkes" of linen, which inventories tell us
were stuffed with horn or mail. It was only when the kings and nobles
thought it worth their while to clothe and equip the foot-soldier that
his costume became distinctive, and even sumptuous in the case of the
bodyguards to Charles VII., Louis XI., or Henry VII. and VIII. A larger
proportion of archers became mounted as the fifteenth century wore on,
Edward IV. invading France with no less than 14,000, besides the foot.
Picked men, and those of the bodyguards of kings and princes, like the
Duke of Burgundy, were sometimes magnificently dressed. The uniform
of the archers of the Duke of Berri in 1465 was a brigandine covered
with black velvet and gilt nails, and a hood ornamented with silver
gilt tassels. At the entry into Rouen, 1460, the archers of the King
of France, the King of Sicily and the Duke of Maine wore plate-armour
under jackets of various colours, with greaves, swords, daggers and
helms rich with silversmiths' work. The leaders of other corps were
in jackets striped red, white and green, covered with embroidery.
English archers are sometimes spoken of as gallantly accoutred. Under
Henry VIII. the bodyguard called the "retinewe of speres" comprised
two mounted archers in uniform to each man-at-arms, as in France.
Every layman with an estate of £1000 and upwards had to furnish thirty
long-bows, thirty sheaves of arrows, and thirty steel caps. In 1548
the uniform of the English archer was a coat of blue cloth guarded
with red, right hose red, the left blue, or both blue with broad red
stripes, and a special cap to be worn over the steel cap or sallad,
to be bought in London for 8d. They were provided with brigandines
or coats of little plates, mawles of lead five feet long, with two
stakes, and a dagger. The distinguishing mark of the various bands
was embroidered on the left sleeve. In 1510 Henry ordered 10,000 bows
from the bowyers of London, and applied for leave to import 40,000
from Venice. In 1513 he took 12,000 archers to France, and in 1518
agreed to furnish 6000 archers to the emperor. In this reign they did
good service, as in repelling the descent of the French at Brighton,
1515, and at Flodden, where the King of Scots was found among the dead
pierced by an arrow. Some bow-staves of yew were recovered from the
wreck of the _Mary Rose_, and are now in the Tower. At Dover Castle
there are a long-bow and a cross-bow, stated to be part of the original
armament.
The cross-bow was rarely favoured by Englishmen, though an imposing
force of 4000 appeared in the united forces of England and Burgundy
in 1411, each attended by two varlets to load, so that the weapons
were always ready to shoot. In 1415, however, Henry V. only took
ninety-eight from England in his whole force of 10,500 men, eighteen
of whom were mounted. In 1465 the so-called mounted archers were very
variously armed in France, with cross-bows, veuglaires, and hand
culverins.
If so formidable a body as the English archers could be left to their
own devices as to accoutrements in the first half of the century, the
rest of the foot, armed with long weapons called staves, bills, and
halbards, must have presented the appearance of a mere rabble. The
French foot, armed with partisans, halbards, or javelins, bore the
suggestive name of "brigans," and were much despised, but at Montlhéry
in 1465 the greater part of the slaughter was by the "rascally
Burgundian foot," with their pikes and other weapons tipped with iron.
The Swiss victory at Morat in 1476 undoubtedly led the French, and
later the English, to introduce a disciplined infantry armed with the
pike as a serious element into the army. In 1480 the French took the
extreme course of disbanding the whole body of archers, substituting
Swiss pikemen, and causing a prodigious number of pikes, halbards, and
daggers to be made by the cutlers. Thus in 1482 the army of Picardy
is composed of no more than 1400 men-at-arms, 6000 Swiss, and 8000
pikes. The proportions in England, ten years later, may be gauged by
the Earl of Surrey's contingent of five men-at-arms, each with cushet
and page, twelve demi-lances, twenty archers mounted, forty-six on
foot, and thirteen bills. The archers remained an important force with
us till long after Henry VIII., but it is only in his reign that the
billmen and halbardiers occupy a definite position in the country's
armed forces. These were armed with bill, sword, shield, sallad, and
corselet. The costume of the foot and even the yeomen of the guard,
1000 strong under Henry VIII., changed with the civil dress, but always
included the royal badge and crown. Henry proceeded to the siege of
Boulogne in the midst of his pikemen with fifty mounted archers on
the right and fifty mounted gunners on the left. Their costumes are
seen in the Hampton Court pictures. In 1598 it was scarlet profusely
spangled. Under Philip and Mary they were an even more important force,
and under Elizabeth the backbone of the army was its pikemen, billmen,
and harquebusiers, now armed, as in France, with Milanese corselets and
morions. The bill was six feet long, of native production, the head at
least twelve inches long, and bound with iron like the halbard, which
was shorter, to at least the middle of the staff. The black bills were
also shorter and from Germany, but the best halbards were Milanese. The
partisan with us seems to have been more a weapon of parade, various
in form, with or without wings, and richly decorated with engraving,
painting, and gilding. The pike was eighteen to twenty-two feet long,
with a tassel to prevent the water running down. The "Staves" in the
Tower under Henry VIII. included 20,100 morris pikes, some highly
decorated, and 2000 javelins, mostly richly mounted, as if for the
Court guards. The army taken to France in 1513 comprised, according
to the Venetian ambassador, 6000 halbardiers and 12,000 men with
holy-water sprinklers, a weapon never seen before, six feet long,
surmounted by a ball with six steel spikes. The name was a quaint joke,
like the Flemish Godendag or the Swiss Wasistdas and Morgenstern.
Besides these there were tridents, pole-axes, collen cleves,
boar-spears, rawcons, partisans, and other forms of staff weapons in
smaller quantities.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--Profile of the helmet belonging to the French
suit (Fig. 32). In the guard-chamber of Windsor Castle.]
An English army sometimes comprised light cavalry even in the earliest
times, perhaps none more singular than a miserably-accoutred force of
mounted Irish armed with target, short javelin, and great outlandish
knives, but without using saddles, in the reign of Henry V. The army
of Henry VIII. in 1513 comprised 9000 to 10,000 heavy barbed cavalry
and 8000 light horse, and 2000 mounted archers. His "Retinewe of
speres" comprised a page, a cushet with javelin or demi-lance, and two
archers, all mounted, to each man-at-arms. An English force of about
400 demi-lances serving Henri II. in 1552 "for their pleasure," were in
short petticoats, red bonnets, body with brassarts of plate, and high
leather boots above the knee, mounted on swift little horses and armed
with a lance like a demi-pike.
The infantry, though not yet a permanent standing force, except in
the case of the Royal bodyguards, was now a recognised arm into which
men enlisted as a professional career for the term of their lives or
until disabled. To handle the pike or arquebus efficiently required
long training, and veterans were always accepted before recruits. It
was their steadiness and power of manoeuvring in action that lessened
the value of heavy cavalry, and consequently contributed, more than
any other circumstance, to the rapid disuse of the cap-à-pied suit of
armour in the field, so noticeable in the next chapter.
V
_The Age of Enriched Armour_
Armour began from about the accession of Edward VI. to cease to be
a military necessity, and those engaged in practical warfare were
more ready to dispense with its doubtful protection than to encumber
themselves with its certain disadvantages. Excuses were found for
appearing in the field without armour, or with an imperfect equipment,
and punishments were inflicted in the vain attempt to stem the tide of
change. Those who served on foot had naturally the strongest objection
to bearing its weight, since when opposed to firearms it ceased to
have any practical utility. A battle-scene at Hampton Court, the
battle of Forty by Snayers, furnishes the strongest justification for
its disuse among men-at-arms. It represents a number of mounted men
in complete armour, who discharge horse-pistols point blank at each
other's breastplates, the individual struck falling in every case dead
or wounded from his horse. The wheel-lock pistol, the arm of the German
Reiters, who wore black armour, mail sleeves, and a visored morion,
was in the field in 1512. From this time, therefore, armour was worn
rather for display than service, and the purchaser came to value its
defensive qualities far less than the magnificence of its decoration.
Nor was ostentation in arms confined to the noble or knight alone.
Brantôme says that among the pikemen and musketeers of Strozzi, De
Brissac, and the Duc de Guise, thousands of gilt and engraved morions
and corselets were to be seen on parade days, and the armour worn by
the picked force of Spaniards and Italians sent by Philip of Spain to
occupy the Netherlands was a splendid sight. The great and wealthy
have seldom cared to stint in matters of personal adornment, and
in days when there were fewer ways in which a taste for extravagant
expenditure could be combined with a high appreciation of art, fortunes
were spent upon the coverings of the body. Nothing more sumptuous in
applied art exists, in regard either to design or execution, than the
work lavished on the armour produced for the French, Spanish, and
other monarchs in the second half of the sixteenth and beginning of
the seventeenth centuries. Among this the most exquisitely beautiful
is the damascened work, scattered over Europe, persistently though
erroneously attributed to Cellini, of which, perhaps, one of the
finest examples is the target at Windsor. It is no exaggeration to say
that neither chiselling, embossing, nor damascening on metal has ever
rivalled or even approached that bestowed at this time upon royal arms
and armour. The chief seats of production were in Germany and Italy,
at Milan above all, then Innsbrück, Augsburg, Nuremberg; and in a less
degree Florence, Brescia and Venice. It is singular that few fine
suits can be attributed to France, and fewer still either to Spain,
the Netherlands, or England. The youth of Edward, the fact that female
sovereigns succeeded, and finally, the timidity and horror of war felt
by James, account for none of the known chef-d'oeuvre suits being made
for English wearers. Such extraordinary and magnificent armour was meet
for none but the high-spirited and rival princes of Europe, and no king
distinguished for valour occupied the throne of England during the
period when enriched armour reached its culminating point of grandeur.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Part of a suit made for Sir Christopher
Hatton._
From the Spitzer collection, and now in the possession of Mr. Charles
Davis. This is No. 15 in the Armourers' Album in the South Kensington
Museum, reproduced in our Plate III.]
There are, however, a certain number of richly engraved and gilt
suits which have been in the possession of English families from time
immemorial, and the fortunate acquisition for the South Kensington
Museum Art Library of an Armourers' Album of the time of Elizabeth, has
enabled many of the original wearers of them to be identified. This
MS., as Lord Dillon relates, was in the possession, in 1790, of the
Duchess of Portland, daughter of Harley, Earl of Oxford, who permitted
Pennant to engrave from it a suit of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
for his account of London; while Strutt was allowed to reproduce that
of George, Earl of Cumberland, for his work on dresses and costumes.
The book undoubtedly once formed part of the great Harleian Library,
but was lost until seen in Paris some years ago by Baron de Cosson. It
was sold at the Spitzer sale, acquired by M. Stein, and offered to the
Kensington Museum, by whom it was wisely purchased.
The drawings are in pen and ink and water-colours and represent
twenty-nine full suits, besides the extra pieces for tilting. Some
of them are inscribed "Made by me Jacobe," the name of the master
armourer at Greenwich during part of Elizabeth's reign, and mentioned
by Sir Henry Lee, the Master of the Armoury, in a letter to the
Lord Treasurer, dated 12th October 1590, published by Lord Dillon
in the fifty-first volume of _Archæologia_. Wendelin Böheim, the
curator of the Imperial collections of armour at Vienna, has recently
identified this Jacobe with Jacob Topf, one of three brothers, natives
of Innsbrück or its vicinity, and who suddenly appears as court
armourer in 1575. This post he seems to have retained and worked at
Schloss Ambras till his death in 1597. Suits made by him during this
period for the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and Archduke Charles of
Styria certainly bear some resemblance to those in the Album. Böheim
infers from the Italian influence seen in his work, especially in
the ornament, that Topf must have proceeded from the atelier of Jörg
Seusenhofer to Milan or Brescia, about the year 1558, and taken up his
abode in England between 1562 and 1575.
To support the identification of the Jacobe of the Album with Jacob
Topf of Innsbrück, it is necessary either that all the suits should
have been produced before 1575, or that those made at a later time
should be regarded as by some other hand. The first two, for Rutland
and Bedford, who died respectively in 1563 and 1564, are relatively
plain, and have M.R. over them, and the rest E.R., which can only, it
would appear, have reference to the initials of the reigning queens.
All the figures are practically drawn from one model, though sometimes
reversed, and are in an easy and graceful pose. Two of the richest,
namely the second suit for Sir Henry Lee, the Master Armourer, No. 19,
and the first suit of Sir Christopher Hatton, No. 15 of the Album,
are here reproduced in facsimile, though reduced in scale (Plates II.
and III.). One holds a mace and the other a truncheon in one hand,
with the butt resting upon the hip, while the other arm is bent and
the extended palm rests upon the thigh. They wear the close helmet or
armet of Italian fashion, with a high comb and a large sharply-pointed
visor. The gorgets are laminated, the pauldrons large and massive,
the breastplates long-waisted, known as the peascod shape, ending in
a point, with a ridge down the centre called the tapul; the tassets
are short and laminated. Only the front of the thigh is protected by
laminated cuissarts, and the rest of the leg by close-fitting knee-caps
and greaves. The sollerets are complete and take the shape of the foot.
The swords appear to be simply cross-hilted and worn in scabbards. Both
the suits reproduced are richly engraved with vertical bands of gilt
arabesqued ornament in the Italian fashion: Sir Christopher Hatton's
being on a russet ground with a gold corded pattern connecting the
bands; and Sir Henry Lee's on a white ground with a knotted reticulated
pattern between. The minor details are considerably varied in the
other suits, two of which have been reproduced by Lord Dillon, and
two by Böheim in the publications already referred to. The complete
list comprises the names of many of the leading nobles and captains of
Elizabeth's reign, only two in it being foreigners.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--_Armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
1566-1588. In the Tower._]
The ornament is sufficiently distinct to admit of the suits being
identified where they still exist. Thus the Earl of Pembroke's suit
is still at Wilton, in perfect preservation; the suit of George, Earl
of Cumberland, is in the possession of Lord Hothfield at Appleby
Castle. The grand-guard of this suit, with volant attached, forms
the subject of Plate IV., in which the original russet and gilding
is somewhat restored. The ornament on the bands is an interlacing
strap upon a foliated arabesque ground, with a figure of Mercury near
the top, and two E's at intervals addorsed and crowned, coupled by a
true-lover's knot. Between are large roses and fleurs-de-lis united by
knots. The helmet of Sir Henry Lee's second suit, Plate II., is now
in the Tower, having been identified by Lord Dillon, while a locking
gauntlet belonging to it is in the Hall of the Armourers' Company. This
gauntlet, called the "forbidden gauntlet," was in form of a closed
right hand, the fingers fastened by a hook and staple, leaving an
aperture for the passage of the weapon which, if a lance, or sword with
cross-guard and pommel, could not be dislodged. In the Tower are also
the vamplate of Sir Christopher Hatton's second suit, and the complete
armour of the Earl of Worcester, with both the headpieces. A helmet
of Lord Sussex's suit is in the Tower, and two gauntlets belonging to
it were in the Spitzer sale. Lord Bucarte's suit is in the Wallace
collection at Hertford House, and another fine suit is in Armourers'
Hall.
The first Sir Christopher Hatton suit, Plate III., has also recently
reached this country, fortunately in almost perfect condition. It was
disposed of in the Spitzer sale, and was purchased by Mr. Davies of
New Bond Street. It will be a misfortune if this historic piece is not
added to the national collection. Fig. 30 represents the upper part of
this suit, taken from a photograph, with the high neck-guards attached
to the pauldrons. The original front-plate seems to be lost, but the
extra breastplate for tilting and some other extra pieces are preserved.
If Boheim is correct in his identification of Jacobe with Jacob Topf,
and in his dates, the armour in the Album must be by different hands.
Thus Topf, arriving in 1562, could hardly have made the first two
suits marked M.R., the owners of which died, as we have mentioned,
in 1563 and 1564 respectively. The mail defence for the instep and
the relatively broad toes are features of an earlier time, which the
letters M.R. identify as that of Mary, and show that the very broad
stirrup of Henry VIII. was still in use. Neither could he, being
settled in Innsbrück or at Ambras in 1575, have made the suits for Sir
Henry Lee, as Master of the Armoury; nor that for Sir Thomas Bromley,
as Lord Chancellor, though the latter suit may have been for Sir
Nicholas Bacon, the previous Lord Chancellor. The chief difficulty
is the date of Sir Henry Lee's appointment, which Lord Dillon in his
able treatise, in the _Archæological Journal_ for June 1895, gives as
1580, and the fact that the solitary mention of Jacobe in any document
is by Sir Henry Lee himself, and is dated October 1590, in which he
speaks of him as "the M^r workman of Grenewhyche," and in a way that
could not well have reference to one who had quitted the post fifteen
years before. These difficulties may, however, it is possible, yet be
reconciled.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--_A superb suit of French armour in perfect
preservation. Early seventeenth century. In the Guard-chamber of
Windsor Castle._]
Among the fine suits in the Tower is the equestrian armour of Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Fig. 31), not however one of the suits in
the Album. It is, like the Jacobe suits, banded in the Italian fashion,
with a similar kind of design upon the bands, and between them a broad
impressed diaper of crossed ragged staves and leaves filled with fine
arabesques. Among the enrichments can also be seen the George of the
Garter, the bear and ragged staff, the initials R.D., and the
collar of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, conferred upon this
favourite of Queen Elizabeth in 1566. In the illustration of this suit,
Fig. 31, the bear and ragged staff is plainly visible on the horse's
chamfron, from which issues a twisted spike. The armet is combed, but
differs in form from the Jacobe type, and the visor is pierced on one
side with round holes. In other respects the fashion of the armour
is very similar to that of his enemy, Sir Christopher Hatton. The
grand-guard and pass-guard or elbow-guard are preserved with it. The
former is illustrated, Plate V., with its original gilding restored,
the military cleaning and scouring to which it has been subjected for
so many years, not wisely but too well, having obliterated every trace
of the original splendour of colour. A portrait of the Earl in this
very suit exists, however, to show what it was. He died, it is well
known, in 1588.