James II ARMOUR
This is the last Royal armour in the Royal Armouries collection. The armour cost £100, was made by Richard Holden, and was delivered on 14 December 1686. It is the only finely decorated royal armour ever known to have been made by a member of the London Armourers Company, and the last.
It is a harquebusier’s armour, comprising a pot, breastplate, backplate and long elbow gauntlet; essentially the same as the ordinary munition armours made for the contemporary cavalry, but of rather finer quality. Like the ordinary munition armours, the cuirass bears the proof marks that attest that it is bullet proof.
The whole armour is decorated with punched, engraved and originally gilt bands of trophies. The faceguard is fretted and decorated with the initials IR (Iacobus Rex) and with the Royal Arms and their supporters: the lion and the unicorn. The central band on the breastplate has IR separated by a crown and surmounted by a figure 2 at the top, with crossed sceptres below.
Richard Holden, from Swadlincote in Derbyshire, was apprenticed to a London armourer in 1658 and made free in 1665. From 1673, he was supplying munition armour to the Board of Ordnance, and by 1681 he had become the armourer responsible for Royal commissions. He was involved in the negotiations that resulted in the incorporation of the Brasiers into the Armourers Company in 1708, though he was too old to sit on the Court of Assistants that was formed to control the new company. He died in 1709, the last of the London armourer makers.
|