The Earl of Pembroke’s Armour is one of the pieces in the Royal Ontario Museum’s European Collection. This suit of armour belonged to the Earl of Pembroke, William Herbert (1501-1570).
William Herbert was a noble and courtier during the Tudor Period and served as a guardian to King Edward VI following the death of King Henry VIII. After King Edward's death he served Queen Mary I. The Earl had 3 children surviving to adulthood who also served the House of Tudor. William Herbert died on March 17, 1570, and is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral next to his first wife, Anne (Parr) Herbert. [1]
The armour on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is the torso and upper leg portion of the full suit that was created for William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. This piece is a rare example of armour made by master armourer Erasmus Kirkener at the Royal Armoury Workshops at Greenwich, England in the 1550s. [2] The Greenwich workshops were founded by King Henry VIII in 1525 to provide tailored armour for nobles of England.
This piece, originally from the ancestral estate of the Earls of Pembroke, [3] was kept in the Armoury of Wilton House near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. After the First World War, as with many large country houses, the contents of Wilton House were sold. The selling of estates and their contents have an interesting history of their own tied in with the social and financial changes brought on by the war. Charles Currelly acquired this piece for the Royal Ontario Museum in 1930. [4] It is on display in the Weston Family Gallery of the Samuel European Galleries.
The armour is composed of overlapping horizontal lames of steel that are held together by internal leather straps and sliding rivets. This Italian influenced design of armour found on the breastplate and backplate is known as anima. Kirkener designed animas between 1550 and 1560. The ROM's anima is one of only three surviving animas made at Greenwich in public collections. Animas formed the core parts of armour garnitures. [2]
Garniture armour is a collection of interchangeable pieces which could be rearranged for various combat situations. Pembroke's armour forms what is known as a small garniture that would be used for infantry and light or heavy cavalry use. [2]
In addition to serving as protection for the wearer, the armour is reflective of fashion styles during the 1550s. The shape of the shoulders and sides of this piece reflect the cut of the doublet worn by civilians during the reign of Mary I. The custom-made piece also reflects the physical dimensions of the Earl of Pembroke. [2]
Earl of Pembroke is a title in the Peerage of England that was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title, which is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, has been recreated ten times from its original inception. Due to the number of creations of the Earldom, the original seat of Pembroke Castle is no longer attached to the title.
Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford was the uncle of King Henry VII of England and a leading architect of his nephew's successful accession to the throne in 1485. He was a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd.
The Royal Armouries is the United Kingdom's national collection of arms and armour. Once an important part of England's military organization, it became the United Kingdom's oldest museum, and one of the oldest museums in the world. It is also one of the largest collections of arms and armour in the world, comprising the UK's National Collection of Arms and Armour, National Artillery Collection, and National Firearms Collection. Originally housed in the Tower of London from the 15th century, today the collection is split across three sites: the Tower, the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, and Fort Nelson near Portsmouth.
Wilton House is an English country house at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, which has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years. It was built on the site of the medieval Wilton Abbey. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII presented Wilton Abbey and its attached estates to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. The house has literary associations. Shakespeare's theatre company performed there, and there was an important literary salon culture under its occupation by Mary Sidney, wife of the second Earl.
Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, KG, KB was an English peer and politician. He was the nephew of Catherine Parr and brother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey through his first wife.
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset was an English statesman, poet, and dramatist. He was the son of Richard Sackville, a cousin to Anne Boleyn. He was a Member of Parliament and Lord High Treasurer.
William Alexander Sidney Herbert, 18th Earl of Pembroke, 15th Earl of Montgomery is an English peer. He became earl in 2003 following the death of his father, the 17th Earl.
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of Montgomery, was an English courtier, nobleman, and politician active during the reigns of James I and Charles I. He married Susan de Vere, the youngest daughter of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the Oxfordians' William Shakespeare. Philip and his older brother William were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623.
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, of Wilton House in Wiltshire, was an English nobleman, politician and courtier. He served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford and together with King James I founded Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1608 he was appointed Warden of the Forest of Dean, Constable of St Briavels Castle, Gloucestershire, and in 1609 Governor of Portsmouth, all of which offices he retained until his death. He served as Lord Chamberlain from 1615 to 1625. In 1623 the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays was dedicated to him and his brother and successor Philip Herbert, 1st Earl of Montgomery.
Elsyng Palace was a Tudor palace on the site of what are now the grounds of Forty Hall in Enfield, north London. Its exact location was lost for many years until excavations were carried out in the 1960s.
William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, 1st Baron Herbert of CardiffKG PC was a Tudor period nobleman, politician, and courtier.
Sir George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, 13th Baron de Clifford, 13th Lord of Skipton,, was an English peer, naval commander, and courtier of Queen Elizabeth I of England. He was notable at court for his jousting, at the Accession Day Tilts, which were highlights of the year at court. Two famous survivals, his portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard and a garniture of Greenwich armour, reflect this important part of his life. In contrast, he neglected his estates in the far north of England and left a long succession dispute between his heirs.
Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Viscount FitzWilliam of Mount Merrion, Dublin, Ireland, and of FitzWilliam House in the parish of Richmond in Surrey, England, was an Anglo-Irish nobleman in the Peerage of Ireland who was a benefactor and musical antiquarian who founded the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, with a bequest of his library and art collection. He was also a significant urban developer in the City of Dublin. He served as a Member of Parliament for Wilton in Wiltshire, England, from 1790 until his death.
Lt.-Gen. Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, 6th Earl of Montgomery was an English peer and courtier. He was the heir and eldest son of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke and his first wife Margaret Sawyer. He was styled Lord Herbert from birth until he inherited his father's earldoms of Pembroke and Montgomery in 1733. He also became Lord of the bedchamber to King George II of the House of Hanover.
Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Baroness Herbert of Cardiff was lady-in-waiting to each of Henry VIII of England's six wives. She was the younger sister of his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.
Sir Richard Herbert of Ewyas, Herefordshire, was a Welsh knight, gentleman, landowner, and courtier. He was an illegitimate son of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1423–1469), and Maud ap Howell Graunt, a daughter of Adam ap Howell Graunt (Gwynn). Richard had a full brother named George.
Greenwich armour is the plate armour in a distinctively English style produced by the Royal Almain Armoury founded by Henry VIII in 1511 in Greenwich near London, which continued until the English Civil War. The armoury was formed by imported master armourers hired by Henry VIII, initially including some from Italy and Flanders, as well as the Germans who dominated during most of the 16th century. The most notable head armourer of the Greenwich workshop was Jacob Halder, who was master workman of the armoury from 1576 to 1607. This was the peak period of the armoury's production and it coincided with the elaborately gilded and sometimes coloured decorated styles of late Tudor England.
Hon. Sir Edward Herbert of Powis Castle was an English politician and landowner. His aunt, Katherine Parr, was the sixth, and final, wife of King Henry VIII.
Anne Devereux, Countess of Pembroke, was an English noblewoman, who was Countess of Pembroke during the 15th century by virtue of marriage to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
The horned helmet of Henry VIII is the surviving part of a full suit of armour made by Konrad Seusenhofer between 1511 and 1514. The armour was a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to the English king Henry VIII, following their alliance in the War of the League of Cambrai. The suit was elaborate and intended for display at tournament parades. It is unclear who was the intended wearer of the armour, but it appears to have been modelled on one of Henry's court fools. Henry may have worn the armour as a jest. The helmet has protruding eyes and a toothy grimace and is adorned with horns and spectacles. The helmet survived when the rest of the suit of armour was scrapped, probably after the English Civil War, and it is now in the collection of the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, which formerly used it as a symbol of the museum.