The collection now occupies the two upper floors of the White Tower. On the lower floor are kept the more modern weapons and the Oriental armour, of which there is a great quantity. On the upper floor the far more interesting of the earlier weapons, and all the suits of foot and horse armour, are ranged along the walls and in rows down the middle of the hall, making an imposing show of mounted and unmounted mail-clad figures of men and horses.
In the lower floor we will only take a glance at the Indian and Oriental arms and at the modern European weapons, as these are of little historical interest. There are, however, amongst them some relics of the so-called “good old days” worthy of inspection. These consist of a grim collection of instruments of death and torture. Here, for instance, are the thumbscrews, the bilboes, and the Scavenger’s Daughter—in the last the victim was almost bent double in its iron embrace. Here, too, is an iron collar, very massive, with a row of iron spikes within its ring, which, when fastened round the sufferer’s neck, must speedily have caused death. This horrible instrument is incorrectly stated to have been taken in one of the ships of the Armada, but Lord Dillon vouches for its having been used in the Tower long before the Spanish ships were seen in the Channel. Here, too, is a small model of the rack, the most general form of torture employed in the Tower during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when even women were cruelly torn almost limb from limb by its cords and pulleys. This toy rack does not give so vivid an impression of the torture as does a small wood-cut from Fox’s “Book of Martyrs.” Here is also the block, with the axe. The latter was kept here as far back as the year 1687, so it is uncertain whether it is the axe that was used for the execution of the Duke of Monmouth and William, Lord Russell, but it is probable that it was the one used for beheading the rebel lords after the two Jacobite risings in Scotland, and it was undoubtedly used for decapitating Lord Lovat in 1747.
As regards the block, it appears to have been the custom for a new one to be made for each State execution, and although there is more than one mark made by the axe on the top of this block, it does not follow that it was used for more than one execution.
The upper floor is reached by a staircase in the south-eastern corner of the Tower. On reaching this upper floor a collection of spears of all sorts and sizes is seen. Among these is a formidable-looking weapon called a “holy water sprinkler,” which consists of a staff with a wooden ball at the top, covered with long iron spikes. Another sinister-looking weapon is the “Morning Star,” so named by the Germans, and certainly calculated to raise up many a star before the eyes of anyone who had the misfortune to be struck by it. Besides these there is a goodly array of partisans, halberds, and pole-axes. In the centre of this gallery is an equestrian figure clad in sixteenth-century armour which was made at Nuremberg, where the best armour in Germany was manufactured. The whole of the knight’s armour, as well as the panoply of the horse, is ornamented with that quaint device, the Burgundian cross “ragule,” and also the flint and steel pattern, the same that appears on the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece: from these ornaments and devices it follows that this armour was made for one of the Burgundian princes, perhaps for the Emperor Maximilian, it having been given to Henry VIII. by that monarch.
There are many suits of armour which, until Lord Dillon re-arranged and classified the collection, passed as genuine, and among them is a sham suit of armour worn by Lord Waterford at the famous Eglinton tournament—a tourney which ended by the competing knights taking shelter from the rain under their umbrellas. Another splendid specimen of the German armourers’ work is the fluted suit for man and horse belonging to the early part of the sixteenth century. Two other suits of armour which are placed in the centre of the gallery belonged to Henry VIII.; they are of prodigious weight, and as they were intended for fighting on foot, it must have required considerable physical strength to walk when clad in this ponderous habiliment: it certainly would have been impossible for its wearer to run away with it upon his back. Lord Dillon believes that both these suits are of Italian or Spanish workmanship; one of them is made up of 235 separate pieces. Besides these, two other suits of Henry VIII.’s armour are in the collection; one of them still retains traces of gilding, and must have shone resplendently when worn by the bluff king.
Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIᵗʰ. Century.)
Regarding the equestrian suit of armour in the centre of the gallery, Lord Dillon thinks “that it is one of the finest in existence.” It was made at Augsburg by the famous German armourer Conrad Sensenhofer, and was given to Henry by the Emperor Maximilian in 1515. It is covered with devices, such as roses, pomegranates, and portcullises—the badges of Henry and Catharine of Arragon—the letters H and K stand out in bold relief on the horse armour. Engraved within panels are representations of scenes from the lives of St George and St Barbara. No finer example of the great German’s art workmanship than this truly Imperial suit can be seen, not even in the great German, Spanish, and Italian collections.
Close to this stands a curious shield, one of eighty similar ones made for Henry VIII., with a pistol in the middle. Worthy of note is a helmet with a mask attached, also a gift to Henry from Maximilian. It was formerly known as Will Somers’s mask (the King’s Jester), but recent research does not show that Somers ever used this ugly vizor. Here, also, is a very gorgeous suit of gilt armour which belonged to the Earl of Cumberland, one of Elizabeth’s smartest courtiers, who fitted out at his own expense no less than eleven expeditions against the Spaniards. Noticeable, too, are the quaint double weapons—staves with pole-axes and gun-barrels attached; one of these has three barrels, a kind of gigantic early revolver which was called King Harry’s Walking-Stick. Here are also ancient saddles used for tournaments. One of these belonged, and was probably used by Charles Brandon, Henry VIII.’s brother-in-law: much horse armour besides these tilting saddles is to be seen here,—“chaufons” and “bards” made of leather, known by the name of “cuir bouall,” and “vamplates,” worn when tilting to protect the hand, and into which the tilting spear was fastened. More suits of armour for men and horses are those which belonged to the Earl of Worcester in Elizabeth’s time, and a still richer one, once worn by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, bearing all over it the badge of the rugged staff, and the double collars of the English order of the Garter and the French one of St Michael. The armour of another of Elizabeth’s favourites is here, a suit which is believed to have belonged to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. To come to later times, and the House of Stuart, the most conspicuous of the armour of that period is a gilt suit which belonged to Charles I., but very inferior in workmanship and artistic excellence to the earlier work of the German armourers. There is also a small suit of armour made for Charles I., when a child. Here, too, are models of cannon made for Charles II., when he was Prince of Wales, and a richly decorated suit of armour given to Henry, Prince of Wales, by the Prince de Joinville.
Of all this display of arms and armour in the Tower, of which I have but touched upon the chief objects of historical and artistic interest, the “processional” axe is, to my mind, by far the most interesting in regard to the Tower and its history, for it is the outward and visible sign of the part the “great axe,” as Shakespeare called it, has played in our country’s history, the symbol of its highest justice, whether it appeared with its edge turned towards or turned away from the prisoner: and what scenes in English history has not that steel reflected in its impassive surface. This axe is in itself an epitome of the history of the Tower, and consequently of England.