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| 8 | <title>Primary Sources: King Henry VIII has a jousting accident, 1524</title>
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| 20 | <p align="center"> <br>
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| 21 | <p align="center">
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| 22 | <img border="0" src="1524.gif" alt="Primary Sources: 1524: King Henry VIII has a jousting accident" width="367" height="105"><p align="center"> </td>
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| 30 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8"><font size="2">The account
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| 31 | at right </font><font size="-1">was written by George Cavendish, Cardinal Wolsey's gentleman-usher.</font><p>
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| 32 | <font size="-1">Henry VIII was a superb athlete but, as he grew older, his
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| 33 | prowess often came at the expense of his health. Historians have
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| 34 | speculated that the injuries he suffered may have contributed to his
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| 35 | increasingly bad headaches (and correspondingly short temper.)</font></td>
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| 36 | <td width="4%"></td>
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| 37 | <td valign="top" width="48%">
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| 38 | <p>On 10 March the king, having a new armor made to his own design
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| 39 | and fashion, such as no armorer before that time had seen, though to test
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| 40 | the same at the tilt, and ordered a joust for the purpose. The lord
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| 41 | marquis of Dorset and the earl of Dorset and the earl of Surrey were appointed
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| 42 | to be on foot: the king came to one end of the tilt and the duke of Suffolk
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| 43 | to the other. Then a gentleman said to the duke: 'Sir the king is
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| 44 | come to the end of the tilt.' 'I see him not,' said the duke, 'by
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| 45 | my faith, for my headpiece blocks my sight.' With these words, God
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| 46 | knows by what chance, the king had his spear delivered to him by the lord
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| 47 | Marquis, the visor of his headpiece being up and not down or fastened,
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| 48 | so that his face as quite naked. The gentleman said to the duke:
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| 49 | 'Sir the king is coming.' </p>
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| 50 | <p>Then the duke set forward and charged with his spear, and the king likewise
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| 51 | unadvisedly set off towards the duke. The people, seeing the king's
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| 52 | face bare, cried hold, hold; the duke neither saw nor heard, and whether
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| 53 | the king remembered his visor was up or not few could tell. Alas,
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| 54 | what sorrow was it to the people when they saw the splinters of duke's
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| 55 | spear strike the king's headpiece. For most certainly the duke struck
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| 56 | the king on the brow right under the guard of the headpiece on the very
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| 57 | skull cap or basinet piece to which the barbette is hinged for strength
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| 58 | and safety, which skull cap or basinet no armorer takes heed of, for it
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| 59 | is always covered by the visor, barbette and volant piece, and thus that
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| 60 | piece is so protected that it takes no weight. But when the spear
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| 61 | landed on that place there was great danger of death since the face was
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| 62 | bare, for the duke's spear broke into splinters and pushed the king's visor
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| 63 | or barbette so far back with the counter blow that all the King's head
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| 64 | piece was full of splinters. The armorers were much blamed for this,
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| 65 | and so was the lord marquise for delivering the spear blow when his face
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| 66 | was open, but the king said that no one was to blame but himself, for he
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| 67 | intended to have saved himself and his sight.
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| 68 | <p>The duke immediately disarmed and came to the king, showing him the
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| 69 | closeness of his sight, and he swore that he would never run against the
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| 70 | king again. But if the king had been even a little hurt, his servants
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| 71 | would have put the duke in jeopardy. Then the king called his armorers
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| 72 | and put all his pieces of armor together and then took a spear and ran
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| 73 | six courses very well, by which all men could see that he had taken no
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| 74 | hurt, which was a great joy and comfort to all his subjects present.<p align="center"> </p>
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| 75 |
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| 76 | <p align="center"> <a href="primary.html">
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| 77 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></p>
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| 78 |
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| 79 | </td>
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