Four centuries on, it remains almost perfectly preserved — save for the musket hole that killed the young man who wore it.
At Doddington Hall, the buff coat and armour of John Hussey — aged just 21 — still bear the mark of the shot fired at the Battle of Gainsborough on July 28, 1643. The musket ball pierced both leather and breastplate, with no exit wound, offering a chillingly precise record of a life cut short in the English Civil War.
As John Goodall discovers, the survival of Hussey’s coat, helmet, gloves and boots is extraordinarily rare — and quietly revealing. The mismatched, slightly antiquated armour hints at the improvised reality of even wealthy Royalist soldiers, while a family connection to Ferdinando Fairfax may have spared the house from destruction.
A poignant reminder of how civil war divided households as well as nations.
Read the full story: https://country-life-magazine.visitlink.me/hrorVq
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