The helmet at the latter end of the seventeenth century is generally open
and of the burgonet type. The breastplate is usually short and projects
downwards at the lower portion after the fashion of the 'peascod' doublet
of civilian wear. As early as 1586, at the siege of Zutphen, we find
officers discarding their armour and keeping only the cuirass. From the
Hatfield MSS. we learn that a penny a day was allowed to each soldier in
1590, over and above his pay, for the wearing and carriage of his armour,
because it had become the custom for the troops to give their
accoutrements to the baggage-carriers when on the march: 'a matter both
unseemly for soldiers and also very hurtful unto the armour by bruising
and breaking thereof, whereby it becometh unserviceable.' In Cruso's
_Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie_ (1632), we find that the
arquebusiers had wholly left off their armour in favour of buff coats.
Turner's _Pallas Armata_ (1670) mentions the armour of officers as 'a
headpiece, a corslet and a gorget, the captain having a plume of feathers
in his helmet, the lieutenant not'. Further on we read, 'now the feathers
you may peradventure find, but the headpiece for the most part is laid
aside.' Fig. 45 shows that half armour was still worn during the
Commonwealth, but by the Restoration very little was retained except for
ceremonial use. As far as can be gleaned from contemporary letters and
histories, Charles I never wore either the somewhat cumbrous gilt suit
which is shown at the Tower or the more graceful half suit of blued steel
in which Vandyke represented him in his equestrian portrait. All the metal
defence we can be sure he actually wore is a steel broad-brimmed hat
covered with velvet. The headpiece used by the cavalry during the Civil
War is of the same type as No. 11 on Plate IV, a variety of the burgonet
with a movable nasal. The breastplate continued to be worn during the wars
of Marlborough, but that, too, was discarded when the efficacy of the
musket proved its uselessness. The last survival of plate armour is to be
found in the gorget. This became smaller as the uniform was changed, and
in the end was simply a small crescent of brass hung at the neck. It was
worn by infantry officers up to the year 1830, at which date it was given
up in England.
[Illustration: FIG. 45. Cromwellian pikeman. Tower.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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