Iron Mask, Man with the, a prisoner who in the reign of Louis XIV. wore, when he was transferred from prison to prison, what seemed an iron mask to prevent any one discovering and revealing his identity, over which to this day there hangs an impenetrable veil; he is reported to have been young and of noble form, and the conclusion is that he was a man of distinction.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Iron Hand * Ironclads