Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/34

 note: "Thes peces wer made by me Jacobe," and on drawing No. "14" of the first suit of Sir Henry Lee there are these words: "This feld armor was made beyond see" and "thes tilte peces wer made by me Jacobe." All these three notes are in the same handwriting as that of the names written on the drawings of the suits. That this Jacobe did not describe the ownership of all the armours may perhaps be explained by arguing that all the names were not written at the same time. Jacobe writes the name of Sir Henry Lee on the fourteenth suit (perhaps before 1580), new drawings were added, and he writes "Sur Cristofer Hattone" on the first Hatton suit made in 1585, and again describes the drawings until the nineteenth suit is reached. Then probably more drawings were executed; another hand writes the description on suits numbered "20," "22," "24," "26," "28," and the Buckhurst drawing; still another hand records the name on the suit numbered "21," and the author thinks that Jacobe probably wrote the descriptions on the suits numbered "23," "26," and those of "Sir Macke William," "My Lorde Cumpton," "Mr. Skidmur," and "Sir Bale Desena." The deduction we make is that the book was after 1585 not under the sole control of Jacobe, and that at least two other persons recorded the names. The handwriting of Jacobe is of the earliest type of the three hands, and as the technique of the decoration is progressive in character, it seems that the order of the drawings is to a large extent the order of the manufacture of the suits they represent.

But the reader will ask: "What had Jacobe to do with Greenwich?" Now we know that there was a master workman at Greenwich named Jacobi, as there exists a document amongst the State papers dated 12 October 1590, a letter of Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armoury, which commences thus: "May it please your good Lordship in the time of M^r. Secretary, who God hath latly called to his mercy, he was very desirus to prefere to the comodyty of some fewe as I take yt, certayne ierne metell w^h grewe or was made in Scropshere or ther abouts in the possessyons of a gentellman whos name I knowe not, never makynge me acquaynted w^{th} his meanynge. To give more credyte to that staffe, to the armourers of London & to Jacobi, the M^r work-*man of Grenewyche, the Counsel appoynt in there presence that M^r Robarte Constable & my cossyn John Lee shoulde see a proof made w^h by tryall proved most usefull." On no piece of the armour is there any mark; but this is not surprising when we remember that it was not until 1631 that the Armourers' Company (in whose records no name of Jacobe appears) issued regulations as to their mark of the Crown and the letter "A" underneath it.