THE HORSE ARMORY.
From the jewel room you pass on to an infinity of towers, all through long halls, how long I can’t say, filled with all sorts of armor and weapons. Horses are set up and figures placed upon them, dressed in the identical armor worn by the old kings and nobles, who, in their day, rode about the country clad in iron fish scales, with a half ton of iron, more or less, on their heads, engaged in the (to them) delightful occupation of burning each other’s castles and killing the occupants. They did not require a “cause,” or anything of the sort. If Sir Hugh Bloody-bones wanted the wife or daughter of Sir Magnus Blunderbore, he simply donned his iron, picked up his lance, called together the inferior cut-throats who followed and lived upon him, and went for it. Sir Magnus, if not surprised and murdered in cold blood, and he was generally not, for those old ruffians slept upon their arms, harried the country for supplies, shut the clumsy gates of his castle, and stood the siege. If the castle was carried, all within were put to death, except such of Sir Magnus’ cut-throats who were willing to join Sir Hugh, the women were carried off, and so on. The survivors were willing, always, to join the victor. The successful Knight would say, “Now look here, you fellows, Sir Magnus is dead. I slew him, and you can’t get provisions from him any more, while with me there will always be plenty of prog. I shall keep you busy, for there are other castles to storm, and I am not very particular with my men.”
And they would all “take service,” as they called it, with the successful robber, and go right on as usual. They would take anything.
It was a cheerful life these ancient murderers lived, though the people who supported them didn’t find it so pleasant.
The Horse Armory, so called because the figures in it are mostly equestrian, is one hundred and fifty feet in length by thirty-four in width. There sits a Knight of the time of Henry VI., in complete armor, lance and all, just as he appeared when he started out to kill somebody and steal his effects. The armor, understand, is not a fac-simile, it is the genuine thing, actually worn by the marauder of that time. Then come Knights of the time of Edward III. and Edward IV., both on their horses and armored from top to bottom. How any man could carry such a load of iron and sit upon a horse, and how any horse could carry such a mass of iron, with his own, for the horses were armored also, passes my comprehension. Imagine a man in July, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, with a steel pot on his head, covering his face entirely, with little holes to admit air, with a breast-plate of boiler-iron, and a similar one on his back, with his arms and hands guarded with iron, and his legs and feet likewise, with swords and battle-axes, and daggers hung to him, and a lance fourteen feet in length, to handle, doing battle. Yet they wore all this, and in Palestine, and in every other hot country in the world.
