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IRON AND STEEL

There is but little information to be obtained regarding the actual materials used by the armourer. The chief source from which he drew his supplies seems to have been Innsbruck. Why this was so is not clear from the contemporary records, but we may be sure that the German metal was harder and better tempered than that of other countries, or there would not have been the demand for it that there evidently was. In the various entries in the State Papers Domestic we find specific mention of “Isebruk” iron, and the merits of this metal must have been appreciated even in Shakespeare’s time, for we have in Othello, v. 2, 253, “a sword of icebrook’s temper.” In the earliest editions of the play the word is “Isebrooke,” which is obviously the anglicized version of Innsbruck.[61]

Sheffield steel must have been appreciated as early as Chaucer’s time, for the Miller carries a “Sheffield thwyrtel” (knife), and in 1402 the arrows used at the battle of Homildon were pointed with Sheffield steel, so sharp that no armour could repel them.

It is possible that the German iron-smelters had discovered the properties of manganese, which hardens steel, and thus obtained a superior metal to that produced in other countries.

The discovery of steel was probably a fortuitous accident, due to the fact that the first smelting-works were fuelled with charcoal, which deoxidizes iron and turns some portion of the metal into natural steel. The Germans themselves realized the superiority of their material, for in 1511 Seusenhofer complained that his merchant was not giving him good metal, and advised that it should be classed as “Milanese,” so as not to lessen the fame of Innsbruck iron.

Till the seventeenth century English iron seems to have been largely used for domestic purposes, for we find on examining Professor Rogers’s Agriculture and Prices that German iron is never mentioned, but there are frequent references to English and Spanish metal. The following prices from the above work show the fluctuations in prices of iron in England.

1436. Spanish iron, 24 lb., 1s. 6d., or about £14 the ton.
1462. Iron, 42 lb. at 5d., or £17 10s. the ton.
1562. Raw English iron, £12 10s. the ton.
Bilbow (Bilboa), £11 8s. the ton.
Spanish, £12 the ton.
1570. Iron gun-stocks, made up, £28 the ton.
1571. Steel bar, £10 the ton.
Bar steel, £37 4s. the ton.
1584. Spanish iron, £14 the ton. 50 bars to the ton, or about
45 lb. to the bar.
1622. Steel, £32 the ton.
1623. Spanish iron, £14 10s. to £15 10s.
1624. Iron bars of 24 lb. at £37 4s. the ton.

These prices vary so greatly that we must be sure that there was a great difference in the quality, and also in the state in which the metal is delivered. In some cases there must have been a great deal of preparation and finishing of the raw material to account for the high price paid.

In 1517 an entry in the State Papers Domestic, given on page 31, states that 2541 lb. of Isebroke steel cost £26 12s., which gives about £23 for the ton.

In the Sussex Archæological Journal, II, 200, Walter Burrel gives an account of Sussex ironworks in the seventeenth century. He states that when once the furnace was lit it was kept going sometimes for forty weeks, the period being reckoned in “foundays.” During each founday eight tons were made with twenty-four loads of charcoal. The metal was cast into “sows” weighing from 600 to 2000 lb. He states that “they melt off a piece of the sow about three quarters of a hundredweight and beat it with sledges near a fire so that it may not fall to pieces, treating it with water they thus bring it to a ‘bloom,’ a four square piece 2 ft. long.”[62] Modern bar-iron 1 in. by 1 in. by 12 in. weighs 3.4 lb. Therefore this bloom would approximately make a plate 33 sq. ft. by ¹/₁₆ in. thick.[63] Even with these data it is impossible to tell the size of the plates delivered to the armourer; for the appliances in the Middle Ages were but crude, and it is doubtful if rolling-mills were used in the sixteenth century. From the picture by Breughel, given as the frontispiece, we know that tilt-hammers were in use, but these would hardly have been used to flatten plates of any great size.

It would appear that iron in some localities was tainted with some poison; for in a Géographie d’Edrisi quoted in Gay’s Encyclopædia, 699, reference is made to a mountain in Armenia where the iron ore is poisoned and which, when made into knives and swords, produced mortal wounds. It may have been that this was actually the case, but it is more probable that it was an invention of the owner of the mine designed to give his productions a fictitious value.

A few details of interest in connection with the manufacture of iron in England may be gathered from the Metallum Martis of Dud Dudley, a natural son of Edward, Lord Dudley. The treatise was printed in 1665 and refers to the author’s endeavours to interest the Crown in his project for smelting iron with sea-coal instead of wood or charcoal. In his address to the King (Charles II) and Council he prefaces his technical remarks as follows:—

“Our predecessors in former Ages had both serious Consultations and Considerations before they made these many Wholesome and Good Lawes for the preservation of Wood and Timber of this Kingdome. 1 Eliz. 15, 23 Eliz. 5, 27 Eliz. 19, 28 Eliz. 3, 5.... Therefore it concerns His Sacred Majesty, his high Court of Parliament ... to lay it to heart and helping hands upon fit occasions in these laudable Inventions of making Iron & melting of mines and refyning them with Pitcoal, Seacoal, Peat, and Turf; ... for maintenance of Navigation, men of War, the Fishing and Merchants trade, which is the greatest strength of Great Britain ... whose defence and offence next under God consists by his sacred Majestie’s assisting care and view of his men of War ... Ordinance of Copper, Brass and Iron, Armories, Steels, and Irons of all sorts.”

PLATE X

HELMETS OF HENRY VIII

1, 2. FRONT AND BACK OF HELMET BY THE MISSAGLIAS
3, 4.     ” ” ” PART OF THE SUIT SHOWN ON PLATE XII, BY CONRAD SEUSENHOFER
    5. BEVOR FOR THE LATTER
THE ARMOURER’S MARKS APPEAR ON 2 AND 4

In his letter to the King he mentions Shippings, Stores, Armories, Ordnance, Magazines, and Trade. He mentions several counties as mining centres, but does not include Sussex or Shropshire. The first of these two was probably ruled out, as the industry there depended on the use of wood, against which Dudley’s introduction of coal was levelled. We find Shropshire mentioned in the Trial of Armour given in the chapter on “Proof” (page 66).

Dudley seems to have formed a company in May, 1638, into which he took one Roger Foulke, “a Counsellor of the Temple and an ingenious man,” as partner.

Before this his father, Lord Dudley, had employed a certain Richard Parkes or Parkhouse to carry iron merchandise to the Tower, which James I ordered to be tested by his “Artists,” that is, of course, his armourers. Parkes made a sample fowling-piece of the new “Dudley Ore,” smelted from pit-coal, and signed his name in gold upon the barrel. The gun was taken from him by Colonel Levison and was never returned.

Dudley gives three qualities of iron: grey iron, the finest, and best suited for making bar-iron; motley iron, a medium quality; and white iron, the least refined.

It is curious that in all his calculations and specifications he never actually mentions the making of armour and but seldom the casting of ordnance.

In considering the weights of suits as given in Appendix J we find the following details. By the prices given 20 cwt. make one ton. The cwt. at the time of James I was 112 lb.

Now we are told that “Sixe hundred of iron will make five hundred of plates,” so we gather that in turning the pig-iron into plates one hundredweight was lost. The above entries give the following weights per suit or portion of a suit scheduled:—

Four “platers” will make up 3700 weight or 37 cwt. of plates in one week, therefore one plater will make up 9 cwt. 28 lb. in a week or 1 cwt. 57 lb. or thereabouts in one day.

For comparison with existing suits of which the weights are known we may use the following details:—

It should be noted that two of the items in the Appendix are described as of “proof” and one is described as “strong.” The lance-armours are not qualified in any way, but from their weight they must have been proof against musket or arquebus.

It is impossible to discover what size the “plates” were made before they were handed over to the armourers. The largest single plate in the Tower is a portion of the horse-armour of II, 5, known as the “Engraved Suit.” This piece measures 27½ in. at top and 28½ in. at bottom by 17 in. and 18½ in. high, or roughly speaking 28½ in. by 18½ in., about ¹/₁₆ in. thick, weighing about 6 lb. 4 oz. If the numbers given on page 41 represent plates and not hundredweights, each plate ¹/₁₆ in. thick would be 6 in. by 11 in., and this is obviously absurd. It is more likely that, with the crude appliances in use, an ingot of metal was beaten out into such a plate as the weight of the ingot might give, larger or smaller as the case might be, and not standardized in any way. Dud Dudley writing in 1665 describes the methods of ironworkers before his introduction of sea-coal.

“They could make but one little lump or bloom of Iron in a day, not 100 weight and that not fusible, nor fined, or malliable, until it were long burned and wrought under hammers.”[65]