The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)

by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

Various documents are extant relating to armour in the Tower during the reign of Richard II., and in those of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Henrys. There is, in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, an inventory in MSS. of the arms and ammunition kept in different castles in the kingdom, written in the first year of the reign of Edward the Sixth. In this work particular mention is made of some “brigandines” in the Tower. These were military jackets. Other offensive and defensive weapons are enumerated, such as targets, pole-axes, “great holy water sprinklers” (a kind of stave with a cylindrical-shaped end, “and with a spear-point at the top,” according to Meyrick). In the reign of Elizabeth, we hear of cross-bows and arrows in the Tower, of “bow-stones” and of “slurbowes,” as well as half-a-dozen different kinds of armour.

At the beginning of this notice of the White Tower, I mentioned Paul Hentzner’s description of the armour he saw. He writes as follows:—“We were next led into the armoury, in which are these peculiarities: spears, out of which you may shoot; shields, that will give fire four times; a great many rich halberds, commonly called partuisans, with which the guard defend the royal person in battle; some lances, covered with red and green velvet, and the body-armour of Henry VIII. Many and very beautiful arms, as well for men as for horses in horse fights—(Hentzner probably means tournaments);—the lance of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, three spans thick; two pieces of cannon—the one fires three, the other seven balls at a time; two others made of wood, which the English had at the siege of Boulogne, in France. And by this stratagem, without which they could not have succeeded, they struck a terror into the inhabitants, as at the appearance of artillery, and the town was surrendered upon articles; nineteen cannons of a thicker make than ordinary, and in a room apart, thirty-six of a smaller; other cannon for chain shot, and balls proper to bring down masts of ships; cross-bows, bows and arrows, of which to this day the English make great use in their exercises; but who can relate all that is to be seen here. Eight or nine men, employed by the year, are scarce sufficient to keep all the arms bright.”

German Armour (XVIᵗʰ. Century.)

One cannot help wishing that Hentzner had told us more about the Tower itself as it looked in Elizabeth’s days, and less about the armour.

Charles the First had a survey written of the arms and armour in the Tower when he succeeded to the Throne, but during the Civil War much of it disappeared, in common with most of the Royal possessions in that troubled time. After the Restoration, William Legge, Lord Dartmouth, who had been deprived by the Commonwealth of his post of “Master of the Armouries,” was reinstated, and he had an inventory of the armour in the Tower drawn up in 1660. There is an interesting list in Britton and Brayley’s Tower book of the different officers to whom the making of the military stores in the Tower had been entrusted, up to the time of Charles II., when the employment of the following ceased:—There was first the “Balistarius,” who lodged in the Bowyer Tower, and who provided the cross-bows. In the reign of Henry III. this officer received a shilling a day and “a doublet and surcoat furred with lambskin” once a year. The “Attiliator Balistarum” provided the harness and accoutrements for the cross-bows: and received “seven pence halfpenny per diem and a suitable robe every year.” Then came the “Bowyer,” an inferior Balistarius; he also received a robe annually. After him came the “Fletcher,” or maker of the flêches or arrows. This craftsman supplied arrows to the whole army. To him succeeded the “Galeator,” the maker of helmets and head-pieces, and after him the Armourer, who made and supervised all the armour and military accoutrements in the Tower. But the greatest of these was the Master of the King’s Ordnance, who, as far back as the reign of Edward the Fourth, provided all warlike stores for the Army and also the Navy. He received eleven shillings per diem, and his clerk and valet were each paid sixpence per diem, which, according to the present value of money, would be about five pounds a day for the master, and five shillings for the two men. At the close of the reign of George the Third the following officers formed the Board of Ordnance:—First came the Master-General, chosen from among the Generals of the Army, “who by virtue of his office was Colonel-in-Chief of the Artillery and Engineers.” Next to him came the Surveyor-General, the head of all the store departments. Beneath him ranked the Clerk of the Ordnance; then the Store-keeper, the Clerk of the Deliveries; and, closing the list, a Treasurer and a Paymaster, both attached to the Ordnance Office.

Returning to the White Tower and its memories, the changes and revolutions that its massive walls have witnessed, rise before the mind. Merely glancing at the changes of fashion, as seen in the suits of armour in its armoury, one is carried back to the Middle Ages. And although the armour is all of a later time, the Norman barons in their steel-ringed surcoats and pointed helmets, as they are portrayed on the Bayeux tapestry, have been seen here. All the chivalry of England, from the time of the Normans down to our present Guardsmen with their bearskin head-dresses, are closely bound up with the old Norman fortress, and it should be remembered that from the end of the eleventh century up to the present day the Tower has always retained the rank and position of chief fortress and depository of arms in the realm, and so may still be regarded as the “Arx Palatina” of the British Empire.

The oldest armour in the Tower are some “bassinets” of the second half of the fourteenth century. Until the death of Henry VIII., the royal collection of armour was kept in the Palace at Greenwich, and the possessions of that monarch now form by far the finest portion of the Tower Armoury, consisting of several splendid suits of armour given him by the Emperor Maximilian. The best armour was made in Italy and Germany, and Henry, who loved a fine suit of armour almost as much as a handsome woman, had a number of skilled armourers sent to England to work for him. As we see by Hentzner’s narrative, foreigners of distinction were shown the collection of armour in the Tower as one of the principal sights of London. During the Civil War a great deal of the armour was carried away from the Tower, and but little of it was returned, even when the Restoration had become an accomplished fact.

Nuremberg Armour (XVIᵗʰ. Century.)