The casing of plate-armour, which had been so long elaborating, having at last become complete, the work of the armourer was directed to further perfecting its parts, and to disencumbering the wearer, with the least risk, of his weighty underlying chain-mail, quilted gambesons, and padded surcoats. This process had not proceeded far when Agincourt was fought, if we may credit the testimony of a French knight, who was present and describes the armour as consisting of the long hauberk of chain-mail reaching below the knee, and very heavy, with the leg-armour beneath, and over this the plate or white armour with the bassinet and camail. One Allbright, noted particularly as “mail-maker,” and twelve other armourers, were in the suite of the king on this expedition. The weight of armour would, therefore, have rendered a repetition advisable, on the part of the English, of the tactics of Cressy or Poitiers in this battle, had not the French disconcerted us by dismounting and seating themselves, and refusing to advance. They had also, copying the English, brought a large force of archers and cross-bowmen into the field, and, in addition, kept bodies of men-at-arms in the saddle on either wing, to make flank attacks when opportunities occurred. The English having in vain endeavoured to provoke the enemy to advance by sending out archers to fire a house and barn, posted an ambuscade and moved forward, the archers in front as usual and the men-at-arms behind. The archers thus gave up the shelter of their pointed stakes, and the men-at-arms suffered the fatigue of an advance in armour of an almost insupportable weight to men on foot. They advanced, however, with repeated huzzas, but, as the Chroniclers inform us, “often stopping to take breath.” The French, stooping their visors under the amazing hail of arrows that began to fall upon them, gave way a few paces, and the English, coming close up, pressed them soon afterwards so hardly, “that only the front ranks with shortened lances could raise their hands.” Our archers, flinging away their bows, fought lustily with swords, hatchets, mallets, or bill-hooks, supported manfully by King Henry and his men-at-arms. Pressing on and slaying all before them, they routed the van and reached the main body, which was also quickly destroyed. The rear battalion of the French, which had remained mounted, then fled panic-struck, and the battle terminated in some desultory charges made by a few parties of nobles and their men-at-arms, which were easily repulsed; 10,000 French perished, all but 1600 being gentlemen! many in the massacre of prisoners consequent on a false alarm. The battle of Verneuil, so fatal nine years later to the Scots, who lost the Earls of Douglas, Murray, and Buchan, with the flower of their army, was fought on precisely the same lines; the main French battalion with their Scottish allies on foot being first shaken by the storm of arrows, and then destroyed at close quarters by the advance of the archers with the usual “loud shouts,” supported by the Duke of Bedford and the men-at-arms. These defeats caused the French to again waver in their plan for meeting the enemy, for at the battle of Herrings, and the skirmish at Beauvais in 1430, they made their attack mounted, the English archers receiving the first charge behind their palisade of pointed stakes, and defeating the enemy by the clouds of arrows taking their usual deadly effect on the horses. These stakes, six feet long and sharpened at both ends, formed an important item of the archers’ equipment, and were planted in the ground by the front rank, sloping towards the enemy, the next rank fixing theirs intermediately to affright the enemy’s horse. Throughout the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Burgundians of all arms were often compelled “under pain of death” to fight dismounted, the Picards especially adopting the tactics and perhaps equalling the English. A little later, as at the battle of Montlhéry, 1465, both Burgundian and English archers are armed with the formidable long-handled leaden mauls or mallets, which the armour of the men-at-arms was incapable of resisting. In the account of one of these battles we learn incidentally that the duty of the varlets who invariably formed part of the retinue of each man-at-arms was to succour and refresh their masters during the heat of the engagement, and to carry the prisoners they took to the rear.

As the various hauberks of mail, brigandines, gambesons, and other defences became more or less obsolete and discarded by men-at-arms armed cap-à-pied, they were relegated to a lighter-armed cavalry and the infantry; but so long as a suit of mail continued to be worn by the man-at-arms as a defence underlying the armour of plate, flexibility in the latter was of paramount importance.

Regarding the armour of Henry V. as the earliest complete cap-à-pied plate-armour, we find it thus composed. The breast and back plates are each of one piece, the gorget is usually in one, though a standard of mail sometimes replaces it; the limb-defences are of few pieces and rigid, except at the joints, which are guarded by caps or roundels; while the armour of the fingers, toes, and upper surfaces of the shoulders is articulated or protected by narrow laminar plates. The introduction of the gussets, and more particularly of the horizontal bands of plate forming a short petticoat below the waist, materially altered the appearance of the armour of the fifteenth century from that of the fourteenth. The plates of the petticoat, called the tassets, are first seen in the brass of Nicholas Hawberk, at Cobham, who died in 1406, and they gradually increase in number till about 1420. At Agincourt, where the fighting was on foot, the visored bassinet would have been worn by the king and his men-at-arms, and not the great helm. The example of the latter suspended in the chantry of Henry V. in Westminster Abbey, though a real helm, was only purchased from Thomas Daunt, for 33s. 4d., according to Rymer, with the crest, for the funeral. The bassinet was probably plumed with ostrich feathers, which were taking the place of crests, and was encircled by a coronet, damaged in the melée by a blow from the Duke of Alençon, which among its jewels comprised the ruby of the Black Prince, now in the regalia. The diamond-hilted sword was not taken into the fray, unfortunately, as it happened, and fell a prey to the baggage-looters. The king is generally represented wearing a tabard of arms on this occasion, a garment differing from the surcoat in being loose and cut like the modern herald’s tabard, emblazoned before and behind and on the broad flaps which do duty for sleeves. The horses, borrowing the custom of Lombardy, wore a heavy chamfron or headpiece of plate, of which a specimen still exists in Warwick Castle, and an articulated crinet or neck-defence of overlapping plates, put together on the same plan as the tassets, and probably some mail defences concealed by the emblazoned caparisons. The ostentatious magnificence which had hitherto covered the body armour of the knight with silks and satins, velvet and bullion and gems, especially among the Burgundian French, was now in process of being transferred to the horse. The housings are described as of silks and satins of every colour, or velvet crimson and blue, or cloth of gold, and sweeping the ground, besprinkled with escutcheons of arms, and loaded with silversmith’s work, or raised work of solid gold. We read of trappings of white silver fringed with cloth of gold, and of cloth of gold interwrought with solid silver; and it appears that no materials were too rich to deck out the favourite destrier or war-horse. It is unlikely that the English were at this time behind the French in display, for so early as 1409, of the six pages of Sir John de Cornewall, two rode horses covered with ermine, and four horses with cloth of gold; and in 1414 the English embassy carried themselves so magnificently that the French, and especially the Parisians, were astonished. Splendid, however, as were the housings, the headpieces of the horses eclipsed them. The horse of the Count de Foix at the entry into Bayonne had a headpiece of steel enriched with gold work and precious stones to the value of 15,000 crowns. The Count de St. Pol’s horse’s headpiece on leaving Rouen was estimated to be worth 30,000 francs, while those of the Dukes of Burgundy and Cleves on the entry of Louis XI. into Paris were still more magnificent. That of the king, however, was on this occasion merely of fine gold with ostrich plumes of various colours. As with the armour in the fourteenth century, the rich trappings of the horse naturally led at times to the pursuit and capture of the owner. It is difficult to believe, in days of such magnificence, that the pay of the Duke of York under Henry V. was only 13s. 4d. per day, an earl received but 6s. 8d., a baron or banneret 4s., a knight 2s., an esquire 1s., and an archer 6d.

Though Henry V. wore royal armour at Agincourt it does not appear that he followed the prudent custom, first noticed in the battle of Viterbo, 1243, of dressing several knights in an identical manner with himself. At Viterbo, on a knight dressed like the emperor being slain, the result was a panic, and the emperor himself had to press with his trumpets into the thickest of the fight to restore confidence. At Poitiers, though nineteen knights were dressed like the king, it did not preserve him from capture. In England, however, the king was saved on many a field by this precaution, as at the battle of Shrewsbury, when the earl, Sir Walter Blount and two others in royal armour were slain. The passages in Shakespeare will be present to the mind of all:—

and again, when Richard exclaims at Bosworth—

The appreciation of steel, called by the Chroniclers plain or white armour, for its own sake, had not progressed very far by the time of Henry V.’s invasion of France, but the more lavish splendours were at least reserved for gala occasions. The next modifications were evidently devised to increase the flexibility of the armour, and can be traced with greater precision in England than elsewhere, owing to the fortunate preservation in our churches of a matchless series of military monumental brasses. These clearly indicate that the tendency during the first half of the fifteenth century was to increase the number of joints or articulations in every part of the armour. By the close of the reign of Henry V. things had proceeded so far in this direction that in some cases the greater part of the limb-defences are made up of laminated plates.

The next important change in the appearance of the man-at-arms occurs in the early years of Henry VI., and is due to a striking development of the fan-shaped elbow-guards, first seen in a rudimentary form in 1425, as well as to an addition of short hinged plates called tuilles to the bottom of the hoop-like skirt of tassets which lay closer to the body. By 1435 these tuilles are ridged or fluted perpendicularly and scalloped along the lower edge, and shortly after they take the more developed, elongate and elegant forms familiar in Gothic armour. By 1440 we have the addition of great shoulder and elbow plates attached by nuts and screws, and concealing the articulated shoulder-pieces or epaulettes. These extra plates usually differ in size, being often very much larger on the left side, which received the blows, and thus conferring a quite peculiar character on the plate-armour of the middle of the century. A scarcely less important modification, introduced about 1445, is the articulation of the breastplate in two pieces, the lower overlapping and sliding over the upper, and made flexible by straps.

The Daundelyon brass of this date, at Margate, exhibits a left elbow-piece of immense size, and pointed and ridged tuilles below the tassets, which are almost repeated again in form by the plates below the knee-caps. John Gaynesford’s brass at Crowhurst, 1450, presents strong reinforcing shoulder-guards over articulated plates, and repeats the same long peaked and ridged plates below the knee-cap. We continue for the next few years to find the limb-defences constantly varying in the number and form of the pieces composing them, according to the dictates of conflicting requirements, namely flexibility and impenetrability. The frequent absence of tuilles at this time is held to imply that they were not used in combats on foot, then very popular. It is obvious that when the immensely long and pointed solleret came in with the equally preposterous spur, the fashion of fighting on foot was on the wane, and the men-at-arms generally fought mounted during the Wars of the Roses.

We see by manuscript illustrations that a few suits were still gilded, and we find Jack Cade after his victory in 1450 flourishing about in a suit of gilt armour, the spoils of Sir Humphrey Stafford. But the ever-growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of the steel panoply and its fine military qualities is now distinctly felt, and the armourer sought more and more to invest his work with beauty of form. All is still entirely dictated by fitness to its purpose, and the requirements of jousts and war; and the decorative and subtle shell-like ridgings and flutings are really present more to deflect the weapon’s point than as ornament, while the engrailing, dentelling, scalloping and punching of the margins of the plates unmistakably indicate that the decorative spirit is applied to embellishing and not to concealing the steel. The superb gilded metal effigy (Fig. 19) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, presents a faithful model of the most beautiful type of Gothic armour known. Every fastening, strap, buckle or hinge is represented with scrupulous fidelity, not only on the front, but on the unseen back. Baron de Cosson, who has minutely described it, expresses the belief that it is a faithful reproduction of a suit actually worn by the Earl, and therefore earlier than 1439; although the effigy itself was only produced in 1454, and the armour agrees with that worn in England at the latter date. He regards the suit represented as the work of the celebrated contemporary Milanese armourers, the Missaglias. Italian armour is shown by sculptures, medals and paintings to have been many years in advance of English, and the two known contemporary suits by Tomaso di Missaglia greatly resemble it. The Earl of Warwick knew Milan in his youth, when he had tilted successfully at Verona; and it was a practice among the great to obtain armour there, dating from so far back as 1398, when the Earl of Derby had his armour brought over by Milanese armourers; the Baron’s view presents therefore no improbabilities. Wherever made, the Earl of Warwick’s suit appears to have solved the armourer’s problem, being at once light, flexible, yet impenetrable. Indeed, in its beautiful proportions and admirably perfect adaptation to all requirements, it appears more like a work of nature than of art. The contours of the pieces and their graceful fan-like flutings, to give strength and deflect opponents’ blows, are artistically splendid. The great shoulder-guards and elbow-pieces, the cuissarts and winged kneecaps, the tuilles, the jointed breast and back plates, the upright neck-guard, not hitherto seen, are all fashioned with consummate skill. In such a suit the preux and gallant knight for three days held his tournament victoriously against all comers, presenting each of his discomfited adversaries with new war-chargers, feasting the whole company, and finally “returning to Calais with great worship.” The two cuts (Figs. 20 and 21), illustrating scenes from his life, are taken from the exquisitely drawn illustrations to the contemporary Beauchamp manuscript, now in the British Museum. The incidental testimonies to the excellence of Italian armour of the middle of the fifteenth century are abundant. A stalwart Burgundian champion tried in vain during a tournament in 1446 to penetrate or find a crevice in the armour of the Duke of Milan’s chamberlain, whom it was impossible to wound; and in 1449 the suit of another knight in the service of the same Duke was said to be steeped in some magic liquid, as so light a harness could not possibly have otherwise withstood the heavy blows it received.

No word ever escapes the chronicler in praise of English armour; but the splendid model of the Earl of Warwick’s suit is by William Austin, founder, and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith, both of London, with the gilding, chasing, and polishing by Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman and goldsmith of London. The will directs that the effigy shall be made according to patterns, directions obviously most scrupulously carried out.

In contemplating the lithe figure we may well believe that the steely quality and workmanship of such a suit would confer immunity on the wearer; and that the relative elasticity and lightness of a perfectly-fitting suit might confer such superiority on an active and sinewy champion engaging with men swathed like mummies beneath their armour in thick gambeson or mail, as to enable him to emerge from his deeds of arms as triumphantly as the heroes of romance. Nothing was worn beneath but the fustian doublet, well padded and lined with satin, with the small lozenge-shaped gussets of mail under the limb-joints and the short petticoat of mail tied round the waist. It is also unlikely that such armour was concealed under any garment, and we may observe that while some princes and nobles are still wearing brigandines of velvet and cloth of gold in pageants, many more are in “plain armour,” presenting, except when standing collars of mail were worn, a uniform surface of smooth polished steel.

The Missaglia suit remained the type with little modification for several years, almost to the close of the Gothic period. The Quatremayne brass in Thame Church, of the year 1460, presents a magnificent example of it with singularly exaggerated elbow-guards. During the next few years the limb-pieces and gorget become more articulated and flexible, and the breast and back plates are formed of as many as three or four overlapping articulated plates, cut chevron-wise, and notched and indented in an interesting manner. The gauntlets and sollerets are also of excellent workmanship. There are a number of peculiarly fine examples in the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda at Woolwich, from the Isle of Rhodes, which exhibit the graceful outlines and ornament of later fifteenth-century Gothic armour in perfection, and also present early and interesting examples of engraving on armour. Lord Zouche has also some remarkable suits, said to be from the Church of Irene at Constantinople, in his collection at Parham. Sir Noel Paton’s fine collection also comprises several Gothic suits, and there are some in the Tower. None, however, are connected historically with English wearers, and the destruction of Gothic armour in this country appears to have been unusually complete. The illustrations from the Life of the Earl of Warwick, an English MS. of the second half of the fifteenth century (Figs. 20 and 21); and the scene (Fig. 25) from the late fifteenth-century MS. of Froissart, which belonged to Philip de Commines, both now in the British Museum, give excellent ideas of the armour of this period in actual use, while the brasses supply exact figures of the details.

Turning now to head-defences, the great crested helm, still represented as pillowing the head in effigies, had long since been relegated to the joust and tilt, while the bassinet with a visor, already seen in the Transition period, remained the fighting helmet till about the middle of the century. The visor, however, was not unfrequently struck or wrenched off in tourneys, and the neck pierced by the lance. Some hardy warriors, indeed, like Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Warwick, dispensed with it and went into the fray with faces bare, but this was exceptional, and the pig-faced and beaked visored bassinets occur in all delineations of combats of the first half of the century.

The bassinet began to be superseded towards the middle of the fifteenth century by the sallad, which remained in fashion almost to its close. Its merits were, the free supply of air it afforded, and the readiness with which the face could be concealed and protected. It was the headpiece of the Gothic armour, such as that of the Warwick effigy, though monuments of this date almost always leave the head bare. The origin of the sallad, whether German or Italian, is unknown, but the term occurs in Chaucer. In its simplest form it was low-crowned, projecting behind, and strapped under the chin, something like a “sou’wester” or the heraldic chapeau, and in this form it was worn by archers and billmen. Another kind had a higher crown, with two slits in front as an ocularium, and could be pulled over the brows till this came level with the eyes (Fig. 22). A hinged nose-piece was also sometimes present, to be let down in time of danger. It was also made more completely protective by a chin-piece called the bavier, strapped round the neck or fastened to the breastplate for tilting; while a lighter bavier was in two pieces, of which the upper was hinged at the side and could be raised for speaking. It was frequently furnished with a visor to let down. The tail-piece was occasionally so prolonged that sallads measure as much as eighteen inches from back to front. It occurs both smooth-topped and combed, and with a slot for plumes approaches nearer to classic models than any other form of mediæval helmet. This picturesque headpiece is the one so frequently represented by Albert Dürer, and was favoured for a longer time in Germany than elsewhere, many of the Germans in the picture of the meeting of Maximilian and Henry VIII. appearing in it, while all the English wear the later close helmet or armet. The form represented has the addition of articulated pieces behind and a double visor moving on pivots at the sides, which make it a near approach to a closed helmet.

The sallad was the principal helmet in use throughout the Wars of the Roses, and is constantly represented in manuscripts of that period. But one solitary example has been preserved in England from the time of those destructive wars, in which its first wearer may have taken part. It hangs in St. Mary’s Hall, Coventry, and owes its preservation to its use as a stage property in the Godiva processions. There are specimens, however, in all the important collections in England and abroad.

The sallad was a relatively dangerous headpiece in tourneys on foot, and a large-visored bassinet is often mentioned as being retained in use for this purpose down to the sixteenth century. The Baron de Cosson has identified this form, seen to have been fixed to the breast by two staples and a double buckle behind, and himself possesses a magnificent example, which once hung over the tombs of the Capels in Rayne Church. Sir Giles Capel was one of the knights who with Henry VIII. challenged all comers for thirty days on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The visor in this example is very massive, the holes so small that no point could possibly enter, and the helm being fixed the head moved freely inside. A second and possibly earlier example has the visor thrown into horizontal ridges and a small bavier. The visor is hinged at the sides, and the sight and breathing holes are short slots, parallel to and protected by the ridges. It hangs over the tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Wimborne Minster, who died in 1444, but it is of later date; and another belonging to the suit of Henry VIII. in the Tower, made for fighting on foot, is not dissimilar. Baron de Cosson calls attention to the fact that this form, called a bassinet, is shown in the miniature of the manuscript entitled, “How a man shalle be armyd at his ese when he schal fighte on foote.”

A form of helm used for tilting with the lance and also frequently depicted in heraldry, is the great helm of the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., of immense weight and strength, resting on the shoulders, and securely fixed to the back and breast. It was relatively flat on the crown, produced in front into a kind of blunt beak, giving a bird-like aspect with no distinct neck. The ocularium, or slit for vision, is large and in the crown, and can only be used by bending the body forward; the head being raised before the moment of impact to avoid the danger of the lance penetrating. This helm is well represented in the tournament roll of Henry VIII. in Heralds’ College, and from its massive strength and the fact that by no possibility could a combatant be accidentally unhelmed, afforded absolute protection to the head. Le Heaulme du Roy is represented in this roll as silvered, with a crown-like border round the neck of pearls and gems set in gold. There is a magnificent specimen in the Museum of Artillery at Woolwich, one in Westminster Abbey, two in St. George’s Chapel, one in Petworth Church, and one at Parham. This form of helm was the most massive and secure, and the last that remained in use. A very early delineation of a helmet of this type is seen in the late fourteenth-century French MS. (Burney, 257) in the British Museum. Some exceedingly interesting delineations of the same kind of tilting helm in actual use are to be seen in Philip de Commines’ Froissart, Harl. MS., 4379-80 (Fig. 25). It is there represented plain and fluted, and with various crests and mantling, one of the most singular, and a favourite, being a close copy of the lady’s head-dress of the period, with the lady’s long gauze veil reaching below the waist. This manuscript is of late fifteenth-century date, and very remarkable for the apparently faithful representations of the armour worn by the English and French at that time. In one group of soldiery alone, in the second volume, page 84, the helm of the early fourteenth century, the beaked bassinet of the early fifteenth, and various forms of visored and unvisored sallads are assembled together.

An early armet, identified by Baron de Cosson as Italian, with a double bavier riveted together, but without a visor, hangs over the tomb of Sir George Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, K.G. (Fig. 26), and dates from 1480 to 1500. Baron de Cosson describes it as having a reinforcing piece on the forehead, hinged cheek-pieces joined down the middle of the chin, and of peculiarly delicate and beautiful outline. It originally had a camail hanging to a leather strap. The wooden Saracen’s head may date from the funeral of this Lord Cobham in 1558, “but was certainly never worn on any helmet.” Its owner served under Norfolk in Ireland, in 1520, and was subsequently Governor of Calais.

English armets dating from about 1500 are not uncommon, but, as frequently observed, “they want that perfection and delicacy to be found in fine Italian or German work.” The earlier open down the front, and the later at the side. They are generally combed, the ridge or comb running from the forehead to the back of the neck, and being beaten or raised out of the metal in the most able way. There is generally, but not always, a reinforcing piece over the forehead. The visor is of one piece, and works on a pivot, but in a few of the early specimens the pin and hinge arrangement of the older Italian examples is preserved, rendering it removable. The slit for vision is generally made in the body of the visor, but is sometimes obtained by cutting out a piece of its upper edge. It is beaked, thrown into few or several ridges, with the slits or holes for breathing principally on the right side. The English armet was rarely furnished with a bavier or movable chin-piece, and the fixed one, called a mentonière, was small. Baron de Cosson obtained one from Rayne Church in Essex, when it was pulled down, and Meyrick procured a similar one from Fulham Church, and Mr. Seymour Lucas, A.R.A., has two very fine specimens, now exhibited at South Kensington, while specimens are to be met with in most great collections. The not inelegant fluted Maximilian armets of the same date are, however, far more frequent. Like the later English armets, they have no baviers. Between 1510 and 1525, a hollow rim was introduced round the base of the helmet, fitting closely into a corresponding ridge round the upper edge of the gorget. This manifest improvement was considered by Meyrick to constitute the Burgonet. Between 1520 and 1540 the visor was formed of two parts, the upper of which closed inside the lower, and was capable of being raised without unfixing the latter. It remained in this form until the closed helmet fell into disuse in the seventeenth century. The armet frequently comprised, especially in the later examples, a fixed gorget, generally of two or more articulated plates. A number of these are included in the sixteenth and seventeenth century suits illustrated in the succeeding pages, one of the most singular being the helmet of the mounted suit of Henry VIII., made for the king by Conrad Seusenhofer of Innsbrück in 1511-14. It consists of six pieces fitting one within another without hinge or rivet, and seems originally to have had one of the curious discs at the back seen in Italian fifteenth-century armets and contemporary illustrations.

Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century knightly armour underwent some profound modifications. The exaggerated elbow-guards and shoulder-pieces were reduced, the tuilles, the laminated corselets with their handsome flutings and indented margins, and the pointed sollerets were either modified or seen no more; and with them disappear much of the angulated, defensive mannerism, and the grace peculiar to the armour of the third quarter of the fifteenth century. That which followed appears smoother, rounder, and heavier, less mobile, and less apt for real campaigning. The modifications tending to this result may have been in a large degree due to the personal tastes of the three great monarchs of Europe. Maximilian and Henry VIII. preferred at heart the pomp and pageantry to the realities of war; while the classic bias of Francis I. banished all Gothic feeling so far as his personal influence extended. The short-waisted, podgy, globular breastplate, the stolid limb-pieces, rounded knee-caps and strikingly splay-footed sollerets, appear as if invented to altogether banish the very idea of agility, if not of movement; and contrast in the strongest manner with the lithe and supple-looking armour of the Beauchamp effigy. The Tower collection, so relatively poor in Gothic armour, is fortunately extremely rich in that of the period of Henry VIII., containing four or five suits actually made for his personal use. One of the finest of these, and an admirably perfect suit, is shown in our illustration (Fig. 28). Though without any decoration or marks, it was undoubtedly made expressly for the king, and is a chef-d’œuvre of the armourer’s craft, being formed, according to Lord Dillon, of no less than 235 separate pieces, which are used about one half below and the rest above the waist. The principal pieces are fitted with a hollow groove along the inferior margin, and overlap others provided with a corresponding ridge: so that the whole suit thus interlocks, and the plates cannot be separated or the armour taken apart except by removing the helmet and beginning at the neck-pieces. To the left shoulder-piece or pauldron one of the upright neck-guards is still fixed by rivets. The breastplate is globose, and has a central ridge called the tapul. The arms are sheathed in rigid plates, separated by a series of narrow laminar plates, by which power of movement is obtained. The elbows are guarded by not inelegant caps, and the gauntlets are miton-fashioned, of eleven small plates, and very flexible. The leg-armour is in large pieces ridged down the centre, similarly to the breastplate, except above and below the knee-cap, and at the ankle, where laminar plates give the necessary play. The sollerets being made, like the gauntlets, each of thirteen pieces, are also extremely flexible, and reproduce in an exaggerated way the great broad toes of the civil dress. Like the helm, already noticed, the suit is intended for combats on foot and in the lists, which were greatly in fashion. No mail gussets were needed, for there were no crevices between the plates, and the wearer inside his armour was as well defended as a lobster in its shell; but this security, as with all armour-plate, was purchased, notwithstanding the perfection of manufacture, at the expense of unwieldiness and fatigue, for the suit weighs over 92 lbs. There are three other suits which belonged to Henry VIII., besides the magnificent equestrian one next figured. The second dismounted one was also intended for combats on foot, and is known as a tonlet suit from the long, laminated skirt of horizontal plates reaching to the knee, and sliding over each other. It is decorated with some engraved bands or borders, while the fine headpiece to it is Italian, bearing the marks of the celebrated Missaglias of Milan. We meet at this time with the sliding rivets, a new mode of attachment for the plates, which enabled them to play freely over each other without parting company. The overlapping tassets of most of the close-fitting skirts are made in this fashion, to which the term Almayne rivets, so frequently met with in inventories, is believed to apply. Some of the suits are provided with a locking gauntlet, to prevent the sword from being struck out of the wearer’s hand, the so-called forbidden gauntlet, though its prevalence in collections negatives the idea that its use was disallowed. In one mounted suit the insteps are protected by the great ungainly stirrups necessitated by the broad-toed sollerets, and therefore only covered with mail. This suit is enriched with a picturesque banded ornament, partly gilt.

The superbly-mounted suit in our illustration (Fig. 29), one of the 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.