Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/31

 by someone probably in the first half of the XVIIth century, after the volume had been rebound. Pages 2 and 3 are blank, page 4 portrays the first suit, "The Erle of Rutlande, M.R.," which is numbered "1," and page 5 illustrates the drawings of the four extra pieces of that suit. Pages 6 and 7 are blank, pages 8 and 9 show the second suit, that of the "Erle of Bedforde, M.R.," and the four extra pieces; pages 10 and 11 are blank, and thus it continues until pages 58 and 59, which give the suit and its seventeen extra pieces of "Sur Cristofer Hattone," numbered "16." There is no suit numbered "15," but as there are no missing leaves until pages 93 and 94, doubtless this discrepancy in the numbering was due to carelessness. Pages 62 and 63 give the suit and extra pieces of the "Earle of Pembrouke," numbered "17." The suits numbered "18," "19," "20," "21," "22," "23," and "24" follow until page 92 is reached, when the leaf of pages 93 and 94 is cut out and only the drawing of the extra pieces of suit numbered "25" on page 95 is preserved. This missing leaf was probably cut out before the Table of Contents was written, as the Table does not mention this suit. We do not know, therefore, for whom the suit was made. Pages 96 and 97 are blank, and pages 98 and 99 give the suit "My L. Cobbon," numbered "26"; pages 102 and 103 illustrate the third suit of "Sr Harry Lea," numbered "28." This numbering was apparently due to carelessness, as no leaves are missing to suggest that there was a drawing of a suit numbered "27." The remaining four drawings are not numbered. There are now fifty-eight leaves in the volume, and the last three pages are blank. That the book was bound before the draughtsman began his work is proved by the fact that pages 1 and 8, 2 and 7, etc., are the same sheets, and therefore another leaf is missing making the total number of leaves up to sixty.

Where the suit is numbered, the numbering is in contemporary writing and apparently was made before the colouring. The writing of the numbering is not in the handwriting of the person who wrote the names on the drawings; a slender argument against Jacobe (of whom we shall speak later) being the draughtsman. The consecutive numbering, the use of a bound book, the progressive character of the decorations, seem to point to a desire to compile a record in what was believed to be the order of their production.—C.-D.]

As the fourteenth suit is described as that of "Ser Henry Lee," without the addition of the words "Mr. of Tharmerie," an office to which he was appointed in 1580, it is to be surmised that this description was perhaps written before 1580, and as all the drawings appear to have been made by the same hand, some with greater care than others, and as their style and