The history of the most unusual armor — the horned helmet of King Henry VIII

This is not a joke or a fake. This is a real helmet of the beginning of the XVI century. Moreover, it is the helmet of the King of England. His name was Henry VIII Tudor, and in addition to the glory of Bluebeard, he left behind some excellent tournament armor.

Henry received this helmet as a gift from the legendary Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. In addition to the helmet, Maximilian presented the English king with the so-called "costume" armor, which is currently lost.

Let's digress a little to understand what "costume armor" is. This is armor made in the form of clothing. From what has come down to us, as an example, we can recall this armor.

Pay attention to the sleeves. It seems as if it is a woolen fabric, but in fact it is metal. Moreover, the armor is exceptionally mobile, bends perfectly in the joints and does not restrict movements at all. But not every armor smith could make such armor.

As for the armor of Henry VIII, which came with a horned helmet, it is lost. However, we have an idea of what she looked like.

The yellow stripes on the armor are gold embossing, plus (in the picture, however, it is not clear) there was a silver decoration and other charms. It is a pity to fight in such armor, therefore, like any other "costume" armor, Maximilian's gift was intended for various "outings". There are tournaments, celebrations and much more.

If you have not sorted out the details of the helmet properly, do not rush to run for a ticket — perhaps sanctions have already been imposed on you to enter England. But it's not scary, because you can see Henry's helmet in all the details right now.

Let's be honest: the helmet of Henry VIII is one of those armor that should be examined as closely as possible. It is very detailed and very detailed.

On the metal of the mask, you can see a "slight unshaven", near the eye sockets, under the glasses — wrinkles, and in the area of the ears — in general "flowers":

Most likely, Henry VIII never fought in this helmet. Do you see any damage on it? We're not.

Glasses, by the way, exactly copy the real ones. As we have already written many times, the artists of Western Europe in their works accurately repeated life in all its manifestations. In addition, the drawings are confirmed by the finds of similar glasses of the 16th-18th centuries. Therefore, the glasses on the helmet are exactly the same as they were then, in ordinary life.

In general, glasses appeared in the XIII century, for people of age who were prevented from reading by farsightedness. Since they were sitting on the bridge of the nose without shackles, which means it doesn't matter at all, they used them as a kind of "lazy magnifying glass" that didn't need to be held with their hands.

The shackles on the glasses will appear only by the XVIII century, and here we have the helmet of Henry VIII and as many as two hundred years before the invention of glasses with shackles. Therefore, we will not get into the wilds. Let's take a look at his horns.

There is another interesting question — why are there horns on the helmet? There is a version that the helmet was made not for the king, but for his jester named Somers, but this assumption has not yet been clearly confirmed.

Actually, there was a time in the life of Henry VIII when these horns on the helmet would have been very useful — to put your own there. But it is unlikely that the king was doing this. And the story is like this. The King's fifth marriage was in full swing. The wife of Henry VIII was Catherine Howard — by the way, the cousin of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, already beheaded.

As it turned out, after getting married, Catherine did not end her relationship with her longtime lover Francis Durham. And even started new ones — with the king's personal page Thomas Culpeper. Of course, the king executed all three. But it was many years after Henry VIII received the helmet and armor from Maximilian.

Are you probably thinking now about how Henry VIII got inside this design miracle? It's not clear at first glance, so watch the video.

Oddly enough, thanks to this very ironic helmet, Henry committed another of his deeds — which is often forgotten. And the deed, by the way, is the most important.

The fact is that Maximilian's gift in all its glory showed the skill of German gunsmiths. And Henry VIII invited them to England, to the town of Greenwich, where he created all conditions for them. Almost a hundred years in Greenwich was run by German gunsmiths, and only in 1607 the "Royal" German "Arsenals" would be headed by Englishman William Pickering.

So the monarch was not just a bluebeard and a tournament lover. And we can also say that it was this helmet that prompted him the idea, thanks to which Henry VIII created a real industrial center for the production of armor.