Armour & Weapons

by Charles John Ffoulkes

Fig. 44. Pageant shield, sixteenth century. Vienna.

It will be sufficient to give one example of this prostitution of art and craftsmanship. This helmet after Negroli ([Fig. 43]), and a similar example, signed by Negroli, at Madrid, show how the canons of the armourer’s craft were ignored at this period. It is true that the casque still provides a metal covering for the head, and that the comb gives an additional protection to the skull, but when we examine the embossed figures at the side—and marvellously good the embossing is—we find lodgements for the sword or spear which would most certainly help to detach the helmet from its wearer. As to the comb, it may fairly be cited as an example of all that is artistically worst in the late Renaissance. Its technical merits only emphasize this. The warrior is laid on his back to suit the required shape of the helmet, and to give point to his position his hair is held by two figures whose attributes seem to suggest that intercrossing of birds, beasts, and fishes which delighted the decadent mind of the period. The figures are human to the waist and end in a dolphin’s tail. Angels’ wings spring from their shoulders and leopards’ claws from the junction of tail and waist. Not content with this outrage to the dignity of art, the craftsman ends his warrior in an architectural base which has not even the slight merit of probability which the tail of the merman might offer. In short it is an example of technical skill at its highest, and artistic perception at its lowest point. The shield from the Vienna collection ([Fig. 44]) is another example, like King Sebastian’s suit, of meaningless decoration. The strap work does not in any way follow the lines of the shield, and the female figures seem to be introduced only to show that the craftsman could portray the human form in steel as easily as he could the more conventional ornament.

As the armourer, weary of constructional skill, turned to ornament as a means of showing to what further extent his powers could expand, so, with this change in his point of view, his constructional skill itself declined. The headpiece, which in the golden age of the armourer was forged in as few pieces as possible, is in the late seventeenth century made of many pieces, as the art of skilful forging declines. The ingenious articulations of the soleret are changed, and the foot is cased in plates which, overlapping only in one direction, preclude the easy movement of the wearer. The fine lines of leg and arm defences, which in the fifteenth and sixteenth century follow the shape of the limbs, give place to straight tubular plates which can only be likened to the modern stove-pipe. The grace and symmetry of the Gothic suit shown on [Plate VIII], especially the leg armour, exemplify this merit of the best period of armour, while the suit made for Louis XIV, and the gilt suit of Charles I in the Tower, offend in the opposite direction. Another sure indication of the decadence of the craftsman is to be found in the imitation of constructional detail with no practical purpose. Examples of this may be seen in late seventeenth-century armour, where a single plate is embossed to represent several overlapping plates or lames, and also in the plentiful use of ‘clous perdus’ or false rivets which are scattered broadcast on some suits in places where no rivets are needed.

To turn from the degradation of the simplicity and constructional perfection of armour to the reasons which led to its gradual disuse, we find that, after the Gothic period, armour became heavier, partly because of the shock tactics in vogue on active service and partly because, in the case of jousting armour, strength and great weight were needed to protect the wearer from vital injury, and partly because the improvement of firearms necessitated extra defence. The temper of the metal used was such that it would resist a pistol shot, as we have noticed in Chapter III; and on examining the surface of the metal we find, as in the Pembridge helm, that it is of so fine a texture that a modern knife will not leave a scratch when testing it. Therefore we must regard the weight of armour as one of the chief reasons for its disuse. Again, military tactics necessitated forced marches and longer expeditions than before; or at any rate it was discovered that when engaging in long expeditions the troops were chafed and hindered by their armour. It is somewhat curious to note that as the leg was the first part of the body to be armed with plate, so the leg armour was the first to be discarded. The jambs were the first pieces to go, and were replaced, in the case of the mounted man, by thick buff leather boots. The tassets were prolonged to the knee or—to describe this portion of the armour in a different way—the cuisses themselves were formed of riveted lames and the tassets discarded.

Fig. 45.
Cromwellian pikeman.
Tower.

The helmet at the latter end of the seventeenth century is generally open and of the burgonet type. The breastplate is usually short and projects downwards at the lower portion after the fashion of the ‘peascod’ doublet of civilian wear. As early as 1586, at the siege of Zutphen, we find officers discarding their armour and keeping only the cuirass. From the Hatfield MSS. we learn that a penny a day was allowed to each soldier in 1590, over and above his pay, for the wearing and carriage of his armour, because it had become the custom for the troops to give their accoutrements to the baggage-carriers when on the march: ‘a matter both unseemly for soldiers and also very hurtful unto the armour by bruising and breaking thereof, whereby it becometh unserviceable.’ In Cruso’s Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie (1632), we find that the arquebusiers had wholly left off their armour in favour of buff coats. Turner’s Pallas Armata (1670) mentions the armour of officers as ‘a headpiece, a corslet and a gorget, the captain having a plume of feathers in his helmet, the lieutenant not’. Further on we read, ‘now the feathers you may peradventure find, but the headpiece for the most part is laid aside.’ [Fig. 45] shows that half armour was still worn during the Commonwealth, but by the Restoration very little was retained except for ceremonial use. As far as can be gleaned from contemporary letters and histories, Charles I never wore either the somewhat cumbrous gilt suit which is shown at the Tower or the more graceful half suit of blued steel in which Vandyke represented him in his equestrian portrait. All the metal defence we can be sure he actually wore is a steel broad-brimmed hat covered with velvet. The headpiece used by the cavalry during the Civil War is of the same type as No. 11 on [Plate IV], a variety of the burgonet with a movable nasal. The breastplate continued to be worn during the wars of Marlborough, but that, too, was discarded when the efficacy of the musket proved its uselessness. The last survival of plate armour is to be found in the gorget. This became smaller as the uniform was changed, and in the end was simply a small crescent of brass hung at the neck. It was worn by infantry officers up to the year 1830, at which date it was given up in England.

The last official use of full plate armour was at the Coronation of George IV, when the King’s Champion, Dymoke, entered Westminster Hall and threw down the gauntlet to challenge those who disputed the King’s right to the crown. The suit worn on this occasion belonged originally to Sir Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, and was made by Jacobe,[34] whose designs for armour have been referred to in Chapter III. The suit is now in the Guard Room at Windsor. The Guardia Nobile of the Pope still wear the picturesque half armour of the sixteenth century. The cuirass and helmet of the Household Cavalry of the present day are not survivals, for they were introduced at the time of the Coronation of George IV.