Sorry Sean, I was confusing it with this intriguing harness, which I would love to know more about. I'll have to dig out the catalogue and see what it says about it....... Unless James has any info. on it...hint, hint :lol:

Regards,

Russ

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That's very interesting. I'd love to see it from the side. Looks like there might be a brass or copper applied border there, which makes me think ca. 1500, but with the peak added later in the first quarter of the 16th c. (?)

Russ, regarding the Boulogne harness of Henry VIII, I'll have to downsize the museum tag, which gives a VERY abbreviated version of the story. Meanwhile, here's some pic's of D 20 Real Armeria Madrid, which is c. 1500. My apologies about the quality; they are actually details of photos taken at a goodly distance, as it is up on horseback. I think this is a product of the Helmschmid family.

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James,

Thankyou for that ! I have only ever seen the line drawing in Claude Blairs 'European Armour' book of that helmet before. I find it strange that it is classed as a burgonet, and not as a form of sallet? Incidently, the armour at Vienna KHM. is # 352. I did look at the Churburg catalogue,Vol. 2, but it says nothing about the harness, other than it was made by Witz, the younger in ca.1530. The KHM. catalogue lists the harness in Vol. 2, but doesn't really say much, that I can understand anyway ! :confused: , about it, other than the fact that that too is a burgonet, not a sallet. I'll try and write to the KHM, and see if they have a better picture of it that we can see :)

BTW. I realise that it is, of course, Michael Witz, not Witt...... he was a German WWII tank commander ! :blush: Still, I suppose it is still armour !! :lol: :lol:


Dariuz,

Thankyou very much for the links ! :D

Regards,

Russ

Russ, regarding A 352... WHOA! What in Sam Hill is going on with that bevor?! :eek:

Here's the museum tag for the Met armour. The assistant curator, Dirk Breiding, has told me the story in much greater detail, and I think Thom Richardson mentioned it last I saw him in 2001.

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Thankyou very much for that James.

Dirk Breiding very kindly sent me the article by Claude Blair and Stuart W. Phyrr about the history of the harness, it got to Norway, but didn't arrive here in Telemark :\ And I haven't the heart to ask him to do it again.

I would love to hear the whole story. Even though there is another pair of vambraces at Windsor, which I didn't know about, that doesn't of course prove a link with Henry VIII in itself. I do find the somewhat tenuous link with the 1547 inventory rather ambiguous. That said, I would of course like to believe it to have been an armour of Henry's ! :) However, the story of it being captured at St. Quentin (1557), and the ownership of it ever since by the Pembroke family does sound convincing, as does the date of their having had it at Wilton since 1558. Why would they aquire a harness of the king's eleven years after his death?? We do know from a letter by Sir Henry Lee that the kings armours were at one point kept in great disarray, but that letter is from much later in the century.
I would like to read the whole story, it is certainly an intriguing one! Don't you just love history! :lol:

Thanks again.

Regards,

Russ

Edit. The letter from Sir Henry Lee regarding the lamentable state of the late kings armour is in fact from 1601.

Hi Folks,

I have eventually received my copy of the Wilton 'Montmorency' armour........ it turned up in New Zealand!! :eek:

I now have the whole story, so far, of the armour and its link to King Henry VIII.

It is a fantastic article by Claude Blair and Stuart W. Pyhrr - as one has come to expect from these two authors! The detail is, as usual, fantastic and minute and is very convincing in its arguement: that the harness was in fact Henry VIII's. It mentions, amongst other things, an inventory of the armoury at Wilton House dated December 8th 1558, just a year or so after the battle of St. Quentin. The inventory mentions no armour at all connected with the St. Quentin campaign, but does evidently mention "a feld armor graven and gilte that was Kinge Henry theightes". This is just eleven years after the kings death, and many people would have remembered Henry with this armour, not least of whom would have been William Herbert, later earl of Pembroke,and owner of Wilton House, who as esquire to the late king, carried the kings helmet and sword as the king left in procession to start the campaign in 1544! Pembroke was later also one of the executors of the kings will.
There are numerous possibilities with this harness, but the arguement, put forward by Blair and Pyhrr is quite convincing in that it was Henry's and not Montmorency's, not least of which are the little tudor roses that have been found on the armour!
It appears that the Montmorency attribution dates from the late 17th century, the original provenence of it being by then forgotten.

I just thought that an update was in order.

Regards,

Russ