Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/258

 Mons. Jorevin de Rochefort was guilty in the XVIIth century were made late in the XVIIIth and early XIXth centuries in the descriptions of the armour and weapons. A coloured aquatint after Rowlandson, published in 1809, appearing in Ackermann's "Microcosm of London," shows a view of the so-called horse or royal armoury of the Tower with a row of mounted figures (Fig. 1015). According to the letterpress of Ackermann these were the "effigies of the Kings of England, clad in armour and on horseback, inclusively from William the Conqueror to his late Majesty George II."

In the year 1825 Dr. Samuel Rush Meyrick received the royal commands to rearrange the horse and Spanish armouries, as they were then called; but instead of that learned antiquary being given a free hand, he was hampered by the instructions of the War Office. He was allowed to arrange the armour upon the principal equestrian figures in a certain chronological order, and to do away with the gross absurdity of exhibiting a suit of the reign of Elizabeth as one that belonged to William the Conqueror; but he was not permitted to destroy entirely the "line of kings," or when he did, was ordered to assign the mounted figure to some great personage. Dr. Meyrick was knighted for his gratuitous services: he did his work conscientiously, exploding nearly all the XVIIIth century absurdities of attribution. After the lapse of a quarter of a century Mr. J. R. Planché, well known in his triple capacity as herald, authority on costume, and writer of extravaganzas, started a crusade against the War Office authorities for permitting the gross irregularities that disgraced the management of the Tower armouries. It was at this period, from the end of the 'thirties to the 'sixties of the XIXth century, that purchases were made by the authorities in charge. These, for the most part, were puerile forgeries, nearly all the work of one Grimshaw, a clever artificer, who supplied with each of his products an account of its so-called discovery. The building which then contained the armoury was simply an annexe, through the roofs and skylights of which, as Mr. Planché records, the rain penetrated, forming pools of water in the gangways, and dripping upon the armour and weapons. Although Mr. Planché started his agitation for the improvement of the Tower Armoury in 1855, it was not until 1869 that he was allowed to do something, and he did all that was possible, in view of the narrow-minded official control of the time. In 1885 the annexe was demolished, and the armoury reinstated in the White Tower. Little attempt was made at a scientific arrangement; indeed, it may be said that, if possible, the care of it relaxed. Only twenty years ago a figure in a suit of Eastern chain mail, and mounted, was described as that of a