Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/79

 of against any of the company who were present while they continued together."

Irish, early XVIIth century

Unlike those of Scotland, the armaments of Ireland and Wales show no great racial characteristic. They are, for the most part, crude and primitive in their make, and even the products of the latter part of the XVIIth century have no artistic individuality. The XVIth century chieftains of Ireland were notorious throughout civilized Europe for their barbarous appearance. Albrecht Dürer has depicted them as semi-savages, bare-legged, protected only by shirts of mail, and armed with huge swords of peculiar construction which we are inclined to think were the products of his own imagination. That they were exceedingly primitive in their costume is proved by the fact that when a certain Irish gentleman was received at the Court of Henry VIII, his head-piece was a visored bascinet of the period of Richard II. Camden records that in 1562 O'Neil, Prince of Ulster, appeared at the English Court with his guards of Galloglachs bareheaded, armed with hatchets, their hair flowing in locks on the shoulders, attired in shirts dyed with saffron, their sleeves large, their tunics short, and their cloaks shagged. There is a woodcut of about this period preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, of Irish chieftains, whose appearance is quite in accordance with Camden's description of them. Above the figure is the inscription:. Little armour is shown save a gauntlet on one figure. The swords represented are most unusual, having flat ring-like pommels and straight quillons that widen at the ends to a form resembling the ward of a key. The scabbards of the swords are as remarkable as the hilts, their general outlines corresponding exactly with those seen upon the tombs of the Irish kings. Since we are