in their more salient characteristics. They are extremely defensive and
well made, with every piece more or less fluted, except the greaves,
which are usually perfectly plain. Many of the pieces have turned-over
edges worked into cable patterns. The pauldrons and coudières are well
developed, the gauntlets mittened, sollerets with very broad and square
toes, breast-plate generally globose, but sometimes brought to a blunt
point, often with a roundel guarding the left arm-pit. The armet has
usually a low central cabled comb with parallel flutes on either side,
occasionally there are three or five combs. The visor is usually thrown
into three or four horizontal peaks or ridges, often with the underhung
look believed to have been introduced in compliment to the House of
Hapsburgh. An almost equally common form is the puffed visor, but
the form of the head-piece is generally more varied than that of the
rest of the suit. The fine Nuremberg suit, Fig. 11, owned by Mr. Percy
Macquoid, shows the bellows visor and the rope crest, and in it all
the leading characteristics of Maximilian armour are well displayed,
especially the duck-bill sollerets, the flutings of which boldly finish
in ram's horns. The suit formerly belonged to the King of Prussia, and
seems to be perfect, except the collar, an apparent restoration.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Engraved Maximilian Breast-plate. Burges
Collection in the British Museum._]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--_Portrait. By Piero di Cosimo. National
Gallery._]
Maximilian armour is greatly favoured by collectors. There are
cap-à-pie and barded suits in the Tower and the Wallace collections, at
Warwick, and in the collections of Mr. Panmure Gordon and Sir Wheatman
Pearson. The horse armour, which nearly entirely sheathes the head,
neck, and fore- and hind-quarters, is fluted, gracefully curved, and
except the crinière, worked in large pieces, the lower margins curving
well away from the flanks. Three-quarter and half suits are well
represented in the Tower and the Wallace collections, the one figured,
Fig. 12, being a finely typical example brought from Strawberry Hill,
and now the property of the Duke of Westminster. This armour seems
to have been at times partly gilded, and instances exist where small
badges are repeated to form bands of raised work between the flutes. It
is sometimes engraved with borders of floral design, either edging the
different pieces, or more boldly treated as in Fig. 13 from the Burges
Collection in the British Museum. Though mainly worn in Germany, fluted
armour became everywhere the fashion, the portrait by Piero di Cosimo,
Fig. 14, in the National Gallery affording an admirable representation
of a breast-plate with delicate flutes on the lower half. An actual
specimen resembling this, but engraved, is in the collection from
Rhodes at Woolwich. The corselets furnished to the Swiss pike-men by
the Milanese appear also to have been of this pattern. Besides the
bellows visor, and one puffed out to give breathing space and fluted,
the visor was at times embossed into the form of a grotesque face with
mustachios. Sometimes the helmets in which this occurs had a pair of
fan-like appendages in pierced and fluted steel, forming a dignified
and wing-like crest. The remarkable example in the Tower, Fig. 15,
once silvered, and presented by Maximilian himself to Henry VIII., has
a pair of ram's horns instead of wings. It has since been painted and
rendered more absurd by spectacles, and assigned without any reason to
the King's jester, Will Somers.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--_Helmet. Presented by Maximilian to Henry
VIII. Tower of London._]
These grotesque helmets were sometimes worn with armour puffed and
slashed to imitate civilian dress. A few pieces of this kind are in
the Tower, but the Wallace Collection possesses a three-quarter suit,
slashed, puffed, engraved, and gilt, the armet having the bellows
visor and five-roped comb. The extreme of exaggeration to which German
armourers were carried is seen in the suit in the Ambras Collection,
figured by Hefner and by Hewett, in which the cloth bases as well
as the puffed sleeves of the civilian are carefully imitated in
steel. The visor is singularly grotesque, and the whole presents a
ludicrous and ungainly appearance, as well as being quite unserviceable.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Cap-à-pie Suit of Henry VIII., on a Horse
barded with Embossed Burgundian Armour of the time of Henry VII. Tower
of London._]
The cap-à-pie suit of Henry VIII., Fig. 16, belongs to this group, and
though not fluted, is made like the Maximilian armour, the high erect
shoulder-piece and large coudières giving it a striking character.
The armet is of fine form, with the visor thrown into the series of
peaks and ridges common to fluted armour, and known to collectors as
the bellows shape. The bridle-hand wears the mainfere (main-de-fer),
while the right hand grasping the spear is gauntleted. The horse
armour, though so boldly embossed, is of earlier date, not later than
Henry VII. The foliated scrolls surround the _cross ragulé_ and steel
brickets and fire-stones, so that it probably presents a rare specimen
of the Burgundian armourer's craft.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--_Tilting Helm. Time of Henry VII. Westminster
Abbey._]
The head-piece for tilting used in Germany and England during the reign
of Henry VII. and first years of Henry VIII., and known a century
earlier, is represented, Fig. 17, by the remarkably perfect specimen
found in the triforium of Westminster Abbey in 1869. It weighs 17½
lbs., the few others known in England weighing, with one exception,
considerably over 20 lbs. When fixed, the helm itself was immovable,
but as there were quite three inches of space round the head, movement
inside was possible. The occularium is placed so that the head must
be lowered to see out, the combatants sighting each other like bulls
before making their rush, and throwing up the head to escape splinters
of the lance.
The abandonment of this heavy helm for a much lighter form may have
been due to Henry VIII. himself. Hall narrates that tilting on one
occasion in 1524, with his great friend and brother-in-law Brandon,
Duke of Suffolk, he had on a helmet of a new fashion, devised by
himself, the like of which had not before been seen. It had a visor,
which was up and unfastened, leaving the king's face exposed, when by
some mischance the word was given to Brandon to start. No doubt in the
old helm, and remarking that he could not see, he couched his lance,
striking the king on the brow of the skull-piece or main portion of his
helmet. Appalled at the narrow escape, he vowed he would never tilt
with his sovereign more. One of the lighter forms of tilting helmet,
Fig. 18, from Penshurst, shows the small trap-door for speaking or
breathing, but now riveted down. A second helmet, Fig. 19, of rather
later date, is surmounted by the porcupine crest in wood, removed
in the illustration, and is interesting as having belonged to the
grandfather of Sir Philip Sidney. Both these helmets perhaps hung in
Penshurst Church.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Tilting Helmet. Early sixteenth century. At
Penshurst._]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Tilting Helmet of an Ancestor of Sir Philip
Sidney. Penshurst._]
The sallad, the head-piece _par excellence_ of Gothic armour, continued
in use, especially in Germany, until far into the sixteenth century.
In its simplest form it was the archer's head-piece: but provided with
slits for vision, pulled over the brow in time of danger to meet the
chin defence or bavier, it became almost a closed helmet; and with the
further addition of a visor and other reinforcing pieces, it was used
for battle or tilting by the mounted knight. It was never a very safe
head-piece, De Commines relating how the Count of Charolois received
a sword-wound on the neck at Montlhéry, 1465, for want of his bavier,
"which, being slightly fastened in the morning, dropped from his head
in the battle--I myself saw it fall." The Venetian form survived during
the seventeenth century, though for pageantry rather than use, being
covered with red velvet richly ornamented with beaten iron foliage
and scrolls, gilded and sometimes surmounted by a swan-like crest.
The richness of decoration of the sallad has been alluded to in the
former monograph. The battle picture by Paolo Uccello, Fig. 8, shows
one covered with red velvet and studded with nails. Elizabeth with
her own hands garnished the sallad of Henry VII. with jewels, and
in 1513 Erasmus Kirkener received £462:4:2 for "garnishing a salet"
and a head-piece, "and mending a shapewe." Pope Pius V. sent Alva a
sallad and sword for his brave fights for the Church. Wooden shields
covered with painted canvas, embossed leather, or gesso, continued
in use in Germany down to about the end of the reign of Maximilian.
The magnificent specimen, Plate I., is now in the British Museum. Of
late fifteenth century date, it is of wood lined with leather, faced
with canvas, over which a layer of gesso has been laid to receive the
gilding. Upon the gold ground the design has been painted, a knight
in Gothic armour, with armet and poll-axe on the ground before him,
kneeling to a lady, with the appropriate legend _Vous ou la mort_. The
surfaces are finely curved. In the Tower inventory, quoted by Lord
Dillon, among the jewels is a target of the Passion with Our Lady and
St. George.
The splendid decoration of the sword-hilts used with Gothic armour has
already been noticed. By the kindness of Sir Noël Paton an exquisite
specimen in the finest preservation is illustrated in Fig. 20. The
pommel and cross-hilt are plated with silver gilt, and the former bears
a shield with the arms of Battle Abbey and the initials T. L. of Abbot
Thomas de Lodelowe, 1417-1434. It came into the possession of Sir John
Gage, K.G., on the suppression of the monasteries, his descendant
presenting it to the Meyrick Collection. Few existing swords, except
those used as municipal insignia, are in equal preservation, but richly
worked hilts are represented in brasses and monuments. Swords abounded
in churches, but few are left besides the royal swords at Westminster,
Canterbury, and Windsor. Part of the glamour surrounding Joan of Arc
was due to the consecrated sword taken by her from St. Catherine's
Church at Tours. The sword of Guy, Earl of Warwick, was specially
mentioned in a will of the time of Henry IV., and its custody confirmed
to the family after the accession of Henry VIII. It is curious to note
that in 1319 the wearing of swords in London was forbidden, and those
confiscated were hung up beneath Ludgate, within and without.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--_The Sword of Battle Abbey. Fifteenth century.
Collection of Sir Noël Paton._]
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--_Sword of 14th century, with Guard for
Forefinger. Windsor Castle._]
The interesting sword, Fig. 21, from Her Majesty's collection at
Windsor, dates from about the end of the fourteenth or early in the
fifteenth century. Its peculiarity is the semicircular guard for the
forefinger growing out of one of the quillons, the first step, as
Baron de Cosson remarks, "towards the evolution of the beautiful and
complicated rapier of the sixteenth century." "The pommel and guard
are of iron fully gilt, the grip of wood." The blade is gilt and
engraved for a few inches where it shows dark in the illustration, and
is inscribed with the name of the Cid Marchio Rodericus Bivar and a
shield of arms, these having been added, in the Baron's opinion, in
the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Only four swords with the little
semicircular guard or "half pas d'ane" were known when he described
them, being introduced owing to the Italian custom of bending the
forefinger round the quillon when slashing.
IV
ENRICHED ARMOUR
Armour was enriched in almost all ages, sometimes ostentatiously so,
and at other times left affectedly plain. It was, however, only when
wearing it in battle ceased to be a paramount necessity, that armour
definitely became little more than a mere vehicle for lavish display.
Lightly armed and easily manoeuvred troops and artillery were steadily
becoming increasingly important factors in deciding the fortunes of
battle, and at last men could with difficulty be brought to undergo the
fatigue of carrying weighty armour which they regarded as no efficient
protection. Sir James Smith's complaint in 1530 puts the matter
clearly: "But that which is more strange, these our new fantasied men
of warre doo despise and scorne our auncient arming of ourselves, both
on horseback and on foot, saying that wee armed ourselves in times
past with too much armour, or peeces of yron (as they terme it). And
therefore their footmen piqueurs they do allow for very well armed when
they weare their burgonets, their collars, their cuirasses, and their
backs, without either pouldrons, vambraces, gauntlets, or tasses." This
arming is even lighter than Mr. J. F. Sullivan's picturesque Marauder
of Picardie (Plate II.). The Battle of the Spurs perhaps did much
to break the prestige of men-at-arms, who were routed by one-tenth
their number of English horse. The French chivalry, armed cap-à-pie,
came on in three ranks thirty-six deep, and were targets as usual for
the English archers, who lined a hedge, "and shotte apace and galled
the French horse." The English horse, and a few mounted archers who
had gone forward with spears, "set on freshly crying St. George,"
whereupon the French fled, throwing away "speres, swordes, and mases,"
and cutting the bards of their horses. The Estradiots coming down
in front of the French host caught sight of the English horse, and
mistaking the king's battaille of foot for horse also, turned and fled,
chased by the Burgundians and Walloons; the main body of English, on
foot with the king, having no opportunity of engaging.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--_German Armour. Date about 1570. The Duke of
Westminster, K.G._]
The large proportion of mercenaries retained on either side contributed
more perhaps than anything else to the disuse of armour. Nicander
Nucius relates that in Henry VII.'s expedition to Scotland there were
"Italians in no small number, and of Spaniards, and also moreover of
Argives from Peloponnesus." In 1546 Lord Grey de Wilton brought his
"Bullenoyes and Italian harquebuziers" from Boulogne. In invading
Scotland two years later he divided "his menne of armes, demilaunces,
and light horsemenne into troops, appointing the Spanish and Italian
hagbutters on horsebacke to keepe on a wing." Captain Gambo, a
Spaniard, and others held command, and, "being backed by the Almayne
footmen, entered againe into Scotland."
In proceeding to quell the insurrection in Devonshire, Lord Grey's
forces included, among other strangers, a band of horsemen "most part
Albanoyses and Italians," and a band of Italian footmen under Captain
Paule Baptist Spinola of Genoa. These mercenaries armed themselves in
their own fashion and were not to be controlled. Nor does it appear
that the Tudor kings were anxious to put even their body-guards in
anything like complete armour. Henry VII.'s guard consisted "of fifty
yeomen, tall personable men, good archers, and divers others." A little
later, on the marriage of Prince Arthur, the guard consisted of 300
carrying halberts, in white and green damask, with garlands of vine
embroidered back and front, richly spangled in front and enclosing a
red rose worked in bullion and goldsmith's work. Nicander Nucius says
that "they consisted of halberdmen and swordsmen who used bucklers and
Italian swords, so that resting the bucklers on the ground, they could
discharge arrows." Perkin Warbeck, posing as the "Whyte Rose Prince
of England," had a guard of thirty in "Murray and blewe." Henry VIII.
appointed a guard of fifty "speeres" in the first year of his reign,
each to be attended by an archer, demilaunce, and a custrell, on great
horses. They were so extravagantly dressed, "trapped in cloth of golde,
silver, and goldsmithes woorke, and their servants richly appareled
also," that "they endured not long the apparell and charges were so
greate." They were not reinstated until the thirty-first year of his
reign. Edward VI.'s guard was 400 strong, all very tall, and dressed
in crimson velvet doublets embroidered with golden roses. In meeting
Philip of Spain on his way to Winchester in 1554, Lord Arundel took 100
archers in yellow cloth striped with red velvet with their bows ready,
Mary's colours, however, being white and green.
The taste for sumptuous armour became definitely fixed on the accession
of Henry VIII. in 1509. Harding relates that, at the Coronation jousts,
Brandon "turneyed in harneyes all over gylte from the heade-peece to
the Sabattons." Hall devotes scores of pages to descriptions of the
magnificence of Henry, especially in presence of rival potentates or
their ambassadors. Before Terouenne, the weather being very foul,
Maximilian and his retinue came to the rendezvous in black cloth,
but Henry was attended by a large retinue extravagantly dressed,
comprising his usual "nine henxmen" in white and crimson cloth of gold
richly embroidered with goldsmith's work, on great coursers as richly
caparisoned, with the addition of many gold bells, and "tassels of
fyne gold in bullion"--these bore his helm; "the two grangardes," his
spears, axe, etc. He entered Terouenne as a conqueror in "armure gilt
and graven"; and Maximilian set out on his return "toward Almaine in
gilte harness, and his nobles in white harness and rich cotes." On
the occasion of the French ambassador's visit to Greenwich, the king
disported himself at the "tilte in a newe harnesse all gilte of a
strange fashion that had not been seen." No less than 286 spears were
broken. Charles V. is often represented in very richly embossed armour,
and some of the suits made for him, such as by the Colmans of Augsburg,
show that these sculptured and pictorial representations were not
wholly imaginary.
It is not, however, until the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth that the
culminating point of richness in armour is attained, when poems abound
in allusions to it. In Spenser's _Faerie Queen_ armour always glitters
with gold, and in Camoens' _Lusiad_ there are "breast-plates flaming
with a thousand dyes."
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Suit of late Italian Armour. Embossed and
damascened. Tower of London._]
Little sumptuously decorated armour was made in England, the finest
that can claim to have been made here being five existing suits out of
the twenty-nine in the Jacobe album. One only of these belongs to the
nation, Lord Bucarte's bequeathed with the Wallace Collection; the
opportunity of acquiring Sir Christopher Hatton's, notwithstanding its
historic interest, being hitherto neglected.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Fine Italian Breast-plate, c. 1550. Said to
have been worn by Philip of Spain. Collection of Mr. David Currie._]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--_Pair of fine Italian Gauntlets. Possibly
belonging to the same Suit as the Breast-plate. Collection of Mr. David
Currie._]
Of foreign armour the suits of the Dukes of Bourbon and Montmorency at
Wilton are spoils of victory, and others in the Tower and at Windsor
were royal presents. The vast bulk of foreign armour in the country,
however, has been acquired by purchase, and of late years. Of small
collections one of the least known is that made by the grandfather of
the Duke of Westminster, who purchased it from Sir Horace Walpole. The
light peascod breast-plate and tassets (Fig. 22), richly engraved and
gilt in bands, are probably German of about 1570, and the gauntlets of
approximately the same date, while the close helmet is about twenty
years earlier. The finely engraved and parcel-gilt breast-plate and
tassets (Plate III.) are probably Italian, dating from about 1540. A
deep peascod breast-plate and tassets richly arabesqued with dolphins
on a blue ground, bears an engraved escutcheon with the figure of a
porcupine, motto and date.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--_Embossed Gorget. French, c. 1550. Collection
of Mr. David Currie._]
One of the most sumptuously decorated suits in the Tower, for long
described as that of the Black Prince, is reproduced in Fig. 23. It is
late Italian, much of it embossed with lions' heads, etc., while the
plainer surfaces are entirely covered with very delicate gold ornament
on russet ground. Detail of the damascening is shown in Plate IV.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Silver Armour of Prince Charles, afterwards
Charles II. Tower of London._]
Several of our illustrations are taken from Mr. David Currie's
magnificent collection, part of which is deposited in the South
Kensington Museum. Very little armour is finer in its way than the
breast-plate (Fig. 24) formerly in the Bernal and Londesborough
collections. The repoussé work, designed in the best Italian taste of
the sixteenth century, is enhanced by gold damascening on backgrounds
gilt and inlaid with silver. It is said to have been worn by Philip of
Spain, the steel gauntlets (Fig. 25), of similar work, having perhaps
formed part of the same suit. It recalls one in Madrid presented to
the Infant Philip III. by the Duke of Terranova. The finely embossed
breast-plate (Plate V.), and gorget (Fig. 26), are French, but
unfortunately no history attaches to them.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Sixteenth century Armet of rare form, with
double visor. Mr. E. Cozens Smith._]
This extremely costly armour, with no defensive quality, was intended
for parade rather than use, and an appropriate head-piece was also
especially devised for triumphal display. This was the casque, based
on classic models, which left the face entirely uncovered. Artists
of high renown, like Verrocchio and Pollajuolo, designed and worked
upon these _casques d'honneur_, and the Negrolis, Colmans, and other
famous armourers vied with each other in their production. Superb
examples exist in the great national collections of Europe, but rarely
find their way into private hands. Plate VI., not one of the finest
examples, was formerly in Lord Londesborough's, and now in Mr. Currie's
collection. It has a triple comb and plume-holder, and is believed to
have formed part of the armour of an officer of the guard to Cosmo de'
Medici.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Suit of parcel-gilt Armour. Made for Prince
Charles, afterwards Charles I. Tower of London._]
The casque passes almost insensibly into the more serviceable burgonet,
a classic-looking helmet with ear-pieces and neck-covering, dear to
Salvator Rosa and his contemporaries. This developed into the spider
helmet with bars to protect the face, and the open and barred helmets
of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. Fig. 27 represents an extremely
rich example of the latter, made with cuirass and gorget in repoussé
silver for Charles II. when prince. The defensive quality of the armet,
not being so purely consecrated to parade, was rarely impaired by
embossing, and even when made for monarchs, the decoration was mainly
confined to etching and gilding. A rare form with double visor, five
rope-like combs, and bands of engraving, is illustrated (Fig. 28)
from the collection of Mr. Cozens Smith of Benyeo. The armet continued
to be used by mounted officers until the middle of the seventeenth
century, a picture of Rocroy, 1643, showing Condé in a hat, but his
staff in visored helmets. One of the latest cap-à-pie suits, probably
never worn, is that in the Tower, richly worked and gilded all over,
presented to Charles I. by the City of London.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Richly Embossed and Damascened Target.
Italian, sixteenth century. Mr. David Currie's Collection._]
The high-combed morions and cabassets of the pikemen and musketeers are
generally richly etched in vertical bands, or covered with interlacing
arabesques, which we gather, from numerous passages in Brantôme's
works, were usually gilt. Thus 4000 harquebuziers stepped out of the
ranks as _enfans perdus_, at the call of Mons. d'Andelet "tous morions
gravez et dorez en teste."
The buckler or target appears an archaic defence, but survived with us,
sometimes in high favour like the sword, at others nearly obsolete,
until the reign of James I., and in Scotland till recent times. It was
banished while the Spanish rapier and left-handed dagger were in use.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--_Lower part of enriched Chanfron. Suit
presented to Charles I. by the City of London. Tower of London._]