Composite corselet comprising ‘Spanish’ morion (catalogued separately as RCIN 67340.a), gorget, breastplate, fauld, tassets, backplate, pauldrons and vambraces.

The gorget from a pikeman’s armour, formed of a single plate front and rear, each bearing traces of three diverging pairs of vertical incised lines, North European, about 1630; the breastplate of ‘peascod’ fashion fitted with movable gussets at its arm-openings, decorated at its upper end with a pair of addorsed, roped volutes, and fitted at its flanged lower end with an associated fauld of two lames; the tassets attached by a pair of turning-pins (replacing straps and buckles) and widening to their lower ends where they are decorated with a pair of addorsed, roped volutes; the one-piece backplate en suite with the breastplate; the broad-fronted pauldrons, not a pair; and articulated vambraces with turners and bracelet couters.

Decorated overall, except on the gorget, with etched bands and borders of trophies and scrolling foliage retaining, on the breastplate and backplate, traces of gilding; all except the gorget, North Italian, about 1570–80.

Text adapted from Arms and Armour in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: European Armour, London, 2016