Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the FirstGardner, John Starkie
History
Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the First
Gardner, John Starkie
Armor -- England
In proceeding to quell the insurrection in Devonshire, Lord Grey's
forces included, among other strangers, a band of horsemen "most part
Albanoyses and Italians," and a band of Italian footmen under Captain
Paule Baptist Spinola of Genoa. These mercenaries armed themselves in
their own fashion and were not to be controlled. Nor does it appear
that the Tudor kings were anxious to put even their body-guards in
anything like complete armour. Henry VII.'s guard consisted "of fifty
yeomen, tall personable men, good archers, and divers others." A little
later, on the marriage of Prince Arthur, the guard consisted of 300
carrying halberts, in white and green damask, with garlands of vine
embroidered back and front, richly spangled in front and enclosing a
red rose worked in bullion and goldsmith's work. Nicander Nucius says
that "they consisted of halberdmen and swordsmen who used bucklers and
Italian swords, so that resting the bucklers on the ground, they could
discharge arrows." Perkin Warbeck, posing as the "Whyte Rose Prince
of England," had a guard of thirty in "Murray and blewe." Henry VIII.
appointed a guard of fifty "speeres" in the first year of his reign,
each to be attended by an archer, demilaunce, and a custrell, on great
horses. They were so extravagantly dressed, "trapped in cloth of golde,
silver, and goldsmithes woorke, and their servants richly appareled
also," that "they endured not long the apparell and charges were so
greate." They were not reinstated until the thirty-first year of his
reign. Edward VI.'s guard was 400 strong, all very tall, and dressed
in crimson velvet doublets embroidered with golden roses. In meeting
Philip of Spain on his way to Winchester in 1554, Lord Arundel took 100
archers in yellow cloth striped with red velvet with their bows ready,
Mary's colours, however, being white and green.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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