Excerpt from Inventory and Survey of the Armouries of the Tower of London, Vol. 1

The most valuable documentary evidence which Lord Dillon discovered in connection with the armour in the Tower is the Armourers' Album, which is now in the Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the year 1723 the book was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. Vertue, and in 1790 it was in the possession of the Duchess of Portland (daughter of Harley Earl of Oxford). One of the illustrations, the armour of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, was engraved by Pennant in his London, and the armour of George Clifford Earl of Cumberland was engraved in Strutt's Costumes, 1799. About the year 1890 Baron de Cosson, the learned connoisseur of arms and armour, found this album in the possession of M. Stein, who had acquired it at the Spitzer sale, and, on Lord Dillon's representations to the Board of Education, the volume was purchased for the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It consists of thirty-one pages, 17in. By 11�in., drawn in ink and coloured in water-colour, showing suits of armour and extra pieces for the tilt made for certain nobles and gentlemen during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Some of the sheets are signed Jacobe, and all are marked with the name of the owner of the armour depicted. By means of this valuable record Lord Dillon was able to give an assured provenance to the suits in the Tower Armouries of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester (ii. William Somerset Earl of Worcester (ii. Sir John Smythe (ii. 84) and the helmet of Sir Henry Lee (iv. The present writer has added to these Roger, Baron North (ii. The identity of Jacobe will be found noted in the Index of Armourers. The volume was reproduced in part by Messrs. Griggs, with a preface by Lord Dillon under the title of An Almain Armourer's Album, in 1903, and was described by the same author in the Archwological journal, Vol. LI.

It is a somewhat curious fact that in spite of the lavish expenditure indulged in by kings and princes for arms and armour, and of the truly magnificent productions of the armourer's craft which they collected all over Europe, but few English portraits have come down to us in which the armour can be recognised as existing at the present day. Henry VIII is never represented in armour except in the coloured sketch (brit. Mus. Cott. Ms. Augustus in the wall painting of the siege of Boulogne, formerly at Cowdray, engraved by the Society of Antiquaries, and in the picture at Hampton Court showing his meeting with Maximilian at Terouanne. Charles I was certainly painted in armour by Vandyck, but the suit is a plain one, and is not the gilt suit in the Armouries.4 the armouries OF the tower OF london.

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