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.
[Illustration: _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.