STORY OF SUIT OF ARMOUR

Chronicle (Levin), 23 October 1947, Page 5

STORY OF SUIT OF ARMOUR

. Received Wednesdav, 7 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 22. A suit of Milanese armour made for King Henry Eighth of which the leg pieces had been lost for centuries, has been reunited at the Tower of London where the full suit is now on displav in the armoury in the White Tower. The missLig leg pieces were discovered by the Master of the Iving's Armouries at Scrivelsby Court, Lincolnshire, the seat of the late Mr. Frank Scaman Dvmoke whose family held the post of King's Champion for 70'0 years. Up till the time of the coronation of George Fourth, the last occasion when a full coronation banquet was held, the head of the Dvmoke family rode in full armour in Westminster Hall during the banquet and flung down his challenge before the assembled company. Since the reign of George Fourth, the right of the head of the House of Dymoke to act as King's Champion, ehanged to give the head of that house the right to bear the banner of England in Westminster Abbey during a coronation service. During the period when the Dymokes of Serivelsby held the post of King's Champion, the traditional fee paid for their services was a suit of armour and a gold cup. As a result many notable suits of armour accumulated at Scrivelsby where Mr. Frank Dymoke established one of the mosi notable colleetions of armour in Britain. It was during an inventory of the eollection after Mr. Djmoke's death last year that the Master of the King's "Armouries, discovered the missing leg pieces frpm Henry Eighth 's suit. The armour is engraved with the insignia of the Garter and design of the Tudor Rose. Its measurements show it was worn by the King before he assumed the ample girth of Tiis later years and when he was known as1 one of the' foremost jousters of Europe. The Dymoke trustees agreed to lcnd the leg pieces to the Royal Armoury for a period of years.