European Armour in the Royal Collection
An introduction to European armour in the Royal Collection.
ILLUSTRISSIMI GENEROSISSIMIQUE PRI. HENRICI MAGNAE BRITANNIAE ET HYBERNIAE PRINCIPIS
c.1616-21RCIN 601457
Armour was among the great passions of Henry, Prince of Wales (1594–1612), the elder brother of Charles I. Rich armours were presented to him by the Prince de Joinville and Henri IV of France in 1607, and the following year he was given an armour for field and tournament use embellished with national emblems and his personal cipher. Such was his reputation, that in 1607 the Dutch artist Jacob de Gheyn II dedicated to him his Exercise of Arms, one of the best-known illustrated military works of the period. In this engraving, the prince is shown practising for combat at the barriers, with the scene of a joust in the background. Because a waist-height barrier separated them, combatants in the barriers did not need protective armour on their legs. One contemporary commentator even declared armoured legs 'an ugly sight', since they obscured from spectators the agility and elegance of the lower body which the barriers were intended to test.