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 any 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. In the reign of Elizabeth the breastplate was thickened to resist musket-balls. The helmet in all these reigns assumed the shape 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 morions 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 that 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 keeping 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 Aragon, and is the fellow to a suit of Maximilian's preserved in the Little Belvedere Palace in Vienna. It covers both horse and man, and is richly engraved with legendary subjects, badges, mottoes, and the like. The seal of Henry presents a fine figure of him on horseback, in armour, with his tabard and crowned helmet, and its depending plumes.
The tilting helmet disappeared altogether in the time of Henry VIII., and a coursing-hat was worn instead, with a "mentonnière," or defence for the lower part of the face. In the reign of Mary we learn that the military force of the kingdom consisted of demi-lancers, who supplied the place of the men-at-arms; pikemen, who wore back and breast-plates, with tassets, gauntlets, and steel hats; archers, with steel skull-caps and brigandines; black-billmen or halberdiers, who wore armour called almain rivet and morions; and harquebussiers, similarly appointed. In Elizabeth's reign the armour was seldom worn on the legs and thighs, except in jousting, and not always then.
There were various changes in the shapes of swords and glaives; the battle-axe changed into the halberd in the time of Edward IV., which became general in that of Henry VII. In the reign of Henry VIII. was added the partisan, a kind of pike or spontoon; but the great change was in firearms, the hand-gun making several steps towards its modern termination in the musket and rifle, with detonating caps. The first improvement was to place a cock to the gun-barrel, to hold and apply the match instead of the soldier holding it in his hand. This was called an arc-a-bousa, thence corrupted into the arquebuse, much used by Henry VII. In his son's reign the wheel-lock was invented by the Italians, in which a wheel revolving against a piece of sulphuret of iron ignited the powder in the pan by its sparks. Pistols were also introduced now, and called pistols or dags, according to the shape of the butt-ends; the pistol finishing with a knob, the dag—or tacke—having its butt-end slanting. Pistols at first more resembled carabines in length, and the pocket pistol was of a considerable bulk. Cartridges were first used in pistols, and were carried in a steel case called a patron. In the reign of Elizabeth we hear of carabines, petronels, and dragons. Carabines were a sort of light, Spanish troops, who, probably, used this kind of arm; petronels were so called because their square butt-end was placed against the chest, or "poitrine;" and the dragon received its name from its muzzle being terminated with the head of that fabulous monster, and gave the name of "dragoon" to the soldiers who fought with them. Bandoliers, or leathern cases, each containing a complete charge of powder for a musket, were used till the end of the seventeenth century, when they gave way to the cartridge-box.
With the progress of firearms, it is almost needless to say that the famous art of archery, by which the English had won such fame in the world, was gradually superseded. During the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., bows were much used in their armies as well as firearms, but it was impossible long to maintain the bow and arrow in the presence of the hand-gun and powder. In vain did Henry VIII. pass severe laws against the disuse of the bow; by the end of his reign it had fallen, for the most part, from the hands of the warrior into that of the sportsman. In vain did Henry forbid the use even of the cross-bow to encourage the practice of archery, and Roger Ascham in his "Toxophilus" endeavour to prolong the date of the bow. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth, the endeavour to protract the existence of archery by statute was abandoned, and its long reign, except as a graceful amusement, was over.
The costumes of this age come down to us depicted by great masters, and are displayed to us in their full effect, at least this much can be said for those of the aristocracy. Looking at these ladies and gentlemen, they appear as little like plain matter-of-fact English people as possible. There is a length and looseness of robes about the men which has more the air of a holiday, gala garb, than the attire of people who had serious affairs to carry through, and you would scarcely credit them to be the ancestors of the present prosaic, buttoned-up, and busy generation. In a MS. called the "Boke of Custome," the chamberlain is commanded to provide against his master's uprising, "a clene sherte and breche, a pettycotte, a doublette, a long cotte, a stomacher, hys hosen, hys socks, and his shoen." And the "Boke of Kervynge," quoted by Strutt, says to the chamberlain, "Warme your soverayne his pettycotte, his doublette, and his stomacher, and then put on his hosen, and then his schone or slyppers, then stryten up his hosen mannerly, and tye them up, then lace his doublette hole by hole." Barclay, in the "Ship of Fools," printed by Pynson in 1508, mentions some who had their necks
"Charged with collars and chaines,
In golden withs, their fingers full of rings,
Their necks naked almost to the raines,
Their sleeves blazing like unto a crane's winges."
Their coats were generally loose and with broad collars, and turned back fronts, with loose hanging sleeves, often slashed, and sometimes without sleeves at all, but the sleeves of their doublets appearing through them, laced tight to the elbow and puffed out above. Hats and caps were of various fashions in the time of Henry VII. There was the square turned-up cap, a round hat something like the present wide-awake, but the more gay and assuming wore large felt hats, or bonnets of velvet, fur, or other materials, with great spreading plumes of party-coloured feathers. They wore the showy hats so much on one side, as to display under them close-fitting caps, often of gold network. Others, again, wore only the small cap, and let the large plumed hat hang on their shoulders.