Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/266

 provenance and a more or less definite date of production, a date which serves to provide the writer on armour with one or two careful starting-points. Viscount Dillon, in his description of the suit, states that the armour for the man alone weighs 64 lb. 13 oz., and that the accompanying armour for the horse weighs 69 lb. 3 oz.

We have alluded to the horse armour made to match it (ante, page 194).

Next, in striking evidence of King Henry's athletic figure at the age of about twenty-five, may be seen that splendid fighting suit in the Tower of London, Class II, No. 6, intended for use on foot alone (Fig. 1018). It is a suit of war armour in the truest sense of the word. Every idea of ease in wear and all possibility of quick movement have been sacrificed to its ingenious protective quality. Once arrayed in this harness the wearer could neither sit nor ride, nor could he raise his elbows more than a little above the waist line as here shown in the illustration. The suit weighs 94 lb., and no less than 235 separate parts go to make it. Though doubtless it is recorded, we are unable definitely to identify this suit either in the 1547 or in the 1561 inventory; but there is recorded at Greenwich a suit that might be it, viz.: "Armour complete for the Body of your Mat^s late father King Henry the Eigth." In the 1611 inventory there is mentioned at Greenwich in Mr. Pickering's "woorkehouse": "One Footemans armo^r compleate made for King Henry the Eight." This seems to describe the suit. In the 1629 inventory of Greenwich of the contents of the workhouse is the same entry: "One footemans arm^r Compleate made for King Henry Eighte." In the 1660 inventory of the "closet within the armoury at the Tower" it is again recorded with an additional identification: "Armour of King Henry the 8^{th} cap-a-pe, being rough from the hammer." In the 1676 inventory it figures as: "Armour Capape rough from y^e hammer said to be King Henry y^e 8^{th}. 1 suite." In the 1683 inventory it is entered as: "Compleate black armour rough from the hammer said to have been made for King Henry the Eighth." In the 1688 inventory and valuation it appears as: "Armour for K. H. 8^{th} rough from the Hammer £40." This same description and valuation figures in the inventories of 1691 and 1693. The statement that it was left rough from the hammer is hardly correct; but its present brightened surface certainly has not that finish generally associated with fine harnesses of this time. Viscount Dillon, who was responsible for the remounting and restrapping of this suit, states that it has evidently been originally "glaised" or freed from all hammer marks, but that its present somewhat uneven surface is due to the ill-advised over-cleaning of the past.