Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/618

604 rich and precious articles of use and show. There are vast and long passages, simply matted; with huge chests filled with coals, which formerly were filled with wood, and having ample crypts in the walls for chips and fire-wood. There are none of the modern contrivances to conceal these things; yet the rooms, which were then probably uncarpeted, or only embellished in the centre with a small Turkey carpet bearing the family arms, or perhaps merely with rushes, are still abounding with antique cabinets, massy tables, and high chairs covered with crimson velvet, or ornamental satin. You behold the very furniture used by the Queen of Scots; the very bed, the brocade of which she and her maidens worked with their own fingers. In the entrance hall the old feudal mansion still seems to survive with its huge antlers, its huge escutcheons, and carved arms thrust out of the wall, intended to hold lights. But still more does its picture gallery, extending along the whole front of the house, give you a feeling of the rude and stately grandeur of those times. This gallery is nearly 200 feet long, of remarkable loftiness, and its windows are stupendous, comprising nearly the whole front, rattling and wailing as the wind sweeps along them, whilst the walls are covered with the portraits of the most remarkable personages of that and prior times. You have Henry VIII., Elizabeth, the Queen of Scots, with many of the statesmen and ladies of the age.

In such old houses we find abundance of furniture of the period. The chairs are generally high-backed, richly carved, and stuffed and covered with superb velvet or satin. At Charlcote House, near Stratford-on-Avon, the seat of the Lycys, there are eight fine ebony chairs, inlaid with ivory, two cabinets, and a couch of the same, which were given by Queen Elizabeth to Leicester, and made part of the furniture of Kenilworth. At Penshurst, Kent, the seat of the Sidneys, in the room called Elizabeth's room, remain the chairs which it is said she herself presented, with the rest of the furniture. They are fine, tall, and capacious ones, the frames gilt, and the drapery yellow and crimson satin, richly embroidered; the walls of each end of the room being covered with the same embroidered satin. In the Elizabethan room at Greenwich Court are chairs as well as other articles of that age. In Winchester Cathedral is yet preserved the chair, a present from the Pope, in which Queen Mary was crowned and married.

At Penshurst we have, in the old banqueting hall, the furniture and style which still prevailed in many old houses in Sir Philip Sidney's time: the dogs for the fire in the centre of the room, from which the smoke ascended through a hole in the roof, the rude tables, the raised dais, and the music gallery, such as Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon, as well as the Royal Elizabeth, witnessed them. In this house is also preserved a manuscript catalogue of all the furniture of Kenilworth in Leicester's time, a document which would enlighten us on the whole paraphernalia of a great house and household of that day.

Looking-glasses were now superseding mirrors of polished steel. My late friend, Sir Samuel Meyrick, had a fine specimen of the looking-glass of this age at Goodrich, as well as a German clock, tire-dogs, a napkin-press, and an "arriere-dos" or "rere-dosse," and a small brass fender of that age. I have already mentioned that he possessed the box containing the original portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves. The clock, like the large one over the entrance at Hampton Court, has the Italian face, with two sets of figures, twelve each, thus running the round of the twenty-four hours, such as Shakespeare alludes to in Othello:—

Richly carved wardrobes and buffets adorned the rooms of this age: some of these buffets were of silver and of silver gilt. Engravings of these, as well as of tables with folding tops, round tables with pillar and claw, and many beds of this age may still be seen in old houses, and are represented in engravings in Montfaucon, Shaw, and Willemin. The beds we have alluded to at Hardwicke, the great bed at Ware, a bedstead of the time of Henry VIII. at Lovely Hall, near Blackburn, are specimens. Forks, though known, were not generally used yet at table, and spoons of silver and gold were made to fold up, and were carried by great people in their pockets for their own use. Spoons of silver—apostle-spoons, having the heads of the twelve apostles on the handles—were not unfrequent, but spoons of horn or wood were more common.

The armour of every period bears a coincident resemblance to the civil costume of the time, and is in this period rather noticeable by its fashion than by a material change of another kind. The breastplate was still globose, as in the reign of Edward IV., but was beautifully fluted in that of Henry VII. In the reign of Henry VIII., the breastplate being still globose, the old fashion revived of an edge down the centre, called a tapul; and in this reign puffed and ribbed armour, in imitation of the slashed dresses of the day, was introduced, as may be seen in the Meyrick collection. In the reign of Elizabeth the breastplate was thickened to resist musket-balls. The helmet in all these reigns assumed the form of the head, having movable plates at the back to guard the neck, and yet allow free motion to the head. In the reign of Elizabeth the motions were much ornamented by engraving. In the time of Henry VII. the panache which had appeared on the apex of the bassinets of Henry V. was changed for plumes, descending from the back of the helmet almost to the rider's saddle. A new feature in armour also came in with Henry VII., called "lamboys," from the French "lambeaux," being a sort of skirt or petticoat of steel, in imitation of the puckered skirts of cloth or velvet worn at this time, and this fashion, with variations in form, continued through the whole period. In the reign of Henry VIII. the armour altogether became very showy and rich, in character with the ostentation of that monarch. A magnificent suit of the armour of Henry is preserved in the Tower, which was presented to him by the Emperor Maximilian, on his marriage with Catherine of Arragon, and is the fellow to a suit of Maximilian's preserved in the Little Belvidere Palace in Vienna, in the collection of armour and arms formed on the model of Sir Samuel Meyrick's. It covers both horse and man, and is richly engraved with legendary subjects, badges, mottoes, &c. The seal of Henry presents a fine