I.—The Emperor Maximilian's Gift of Armour to King Henry VIII and the Silvered and Engraved Armour at the Tower of London

The armour that forms the main subject of this paper is perhaps the best known of the many historical harnesses preserved in the national armoury at the Tower of London (Inv. no. II. 5) (pls. i, ii, viii a, b, xv; figs. 3–10, pp. 45–50). An account of it—which must be the earliest study of a single armour in any European language—was published by Dr. (later Sir) Samuel Rush Meyrick as long ago as 1829, and since then it has figured prominently in many works on arms and armour. Though designed primarily for parade, it is basically a handsome field-armour of the second decade of the sixteenth century, but it is made particularly impressive by its long steel skirt, an imitation of one of the cloth bases worn with both the military and the civil dress of the period, and by the fact that it is completely covered with engraved decoration. Originally its surfaces were also entirely silvered and gilt, but much of the silver and all but a few traces of gold have disappeared.