buted to the early part of the sixteenth century; it has on one side a strong maul, cut into four blunt teeth in place of the axe-blade, a fashion of no uncommon occurrence at an earlier period[1]. A round projecting plate, called the burr, serving as a protection to the left hand of the combatant, and impeding its slipping down too close upon the head of the hache, may usually be seen, and sometimes a second ring is to be distinguished, intended to keep the right hand in its proper position, towards the lower extremity of the handle. The military axe is very rarely to be found in armouries; there is an early specimen at Warwick castle, in the porter's lodge, but deprived of its long handle; and another remarkable weapon of this kind is preserved in the Musée de l'Artillerie at Paris. It is of very beautiful workmanship; the burr is in the form of a large English rose, and it has been supposed to have belonged to Edward IV. More probably it was a weapon used by Henry VIII., who delighted in single combats and passages of arms, and it is possible that it might have been used by him in some memorable contest in one of the gorgeous celebrations which occurred during his visits to France.
With the axe may be seen in the drawing in Lord Hastings' MS., another long-handled weapon, with a double-edged blade like a large spear, and a burr immediately beneath the blade. Possibly this may be intended to represent the weapon termed in the French text of the Ordinance of Thomas of Woodstock, concerning single combats, a "gleyve" as one of the weapons assigned by the court, and in the English version "spere," or "glave." The glaive, however, was properly a weapon of a different form to that here represented; it had one cutting edge only, like a large knife.
Amongst those whose valiant deeds in single combat have been most honourably mentioned in ancient chronicles and romances, as
"doughty of dede,
A styffe body one a stede,
Wapynes to welde,"
there is none perhaps more renowned than the gallant knight, ancestor of the noble possessor of the MS. from which these
- ↑ The head of this curious axe is formed of iron partly coated with brass. The handle is ornamented with fleurs-de-lys, and a rose and fleur-de-lys appear just beneath the head, with kneeling boys as supporters, and surmounted by a mitre. There were large acorns at the end of the handle, serving, like the burr, to keep the hand in proper position.
