stimulate in Europe a taste for establishing similar collections. That some such assemblage of armour of more than ordinary importance had been formed, during the times of Elizabeth, is sufficiently shewn by the account so often cited which Paul Hentzner gave of his visit to the Tower in 1598. The full import of his relation, however, does not appear to have been admitted; his attention was chiefly attracted by the striking suit which had belonged to Henry VIII., but it is clear from the Latin original that various other remarkable armours for man and horse were then in the "armamentarium" at the Tower[1]. The phrase "arma multa et egregia, tam pro viris, quam pro equis, in equestri pugna," ambiguously rendered "many and very beautiful arms," in the English translation, may suffice to prove that some of the suits of armour, cap-a-pie, with horse furniture of the same, enumerated in the following survey, formed, as early as the forty-first year of Elizabeth's reign, part of the display in the Tower armory, augmented in the following century by some from the Green Gallery at Greenwich, as we learn from this document of 1660[2]. The curious fact recorded by Stowe that a lottery for rich and curious armour was opened in St. Paul's churchyard in 1588 (29 Eliz.), being probably the spoil of the Armada, may not be undeserving of notice, as appearing to indicate a more general estimation of such objects than might have been expected in peaceful times, and under the decline of the popular taste for tournaments and chivalrous display.
The original inventory here printed forms a thin folio volume, endorsed thus on the parchment cover: "The Booke of Remayne of the Office of the Armory, in the Charge of William Legge, Esquʳ. taken in the month of October, Anno R. R. Caroli secundi 12, Annoque Domini, 1660[3]."
- ↑ Pauli Hentzneri Itinerarium, Norib. 1629, p. 192. In the "Estimate of Remaines in the Office of Ordinance," 1578, 20 Eliz., twenty years previous to Hentzner's visit, a return is made of rich weapons in the Tower, estimated at £2300, but no mention occurs of suits of armour. Annual Expenses of Elizabeth, printed in Household Ordinances, published by Antiqu. Soc, p. 272.
- ↑ The title of "Queen Elizabeth's Armory," which now designates only the collection formerly preserved in "the Spanish Weapon House," dates only from the arrangement of the whole by Sir Samuel Meyrick, in 1825. We must leave the question to the intelligent investigation of Mr. Hewitt, whether this title might not with propriety be assigned to the entire National Collection, and the earliest formation of such a display be attributed to the reign of Elizabeth.
- ↑ The contracted words have been printed in extenso, and common figures used in place of Roman numerals, employed in the MS.
