The Silvered and Engraved Armour of King Henry VIII decorated by Paul van Vrelant. Probably English, Greenwich, about 1515 (II.5)



Art historian and curator Tobias Capwell celebrates the great age of armour. Referencing the unstoppable rise of the Royal Almain Armoury at Greenwich, he tells the forgotten story of how Henry VIII fused German high technology with Renaissance artistry in the pursuit of one aim - to become the very image of the perfect knight. Using the talents of foreign craftsmen and his court artist Hans Holbein, Henry transformed himself into a living metal sculpture. His daughter Elizabeth I further exploited that image, making her courtiers parade before her in the most innovate and richly decorated works ever commissioned in steel.