Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/97



The Jacobe MS.

The present writer, too, acknowledges his gratitude to Dr. Dean for having given him permission to extract from the "Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum" his interesting note describing how the armour was in the first instance discovered at Holme Lacy. We only offer one comment, and that is as to the probability of the suit having originally been white and gold. Dr. Dean's account of finding on certain permanently overlapping plates, when taken apart, a brilliant and originally burnished surface, seems very convincing. But on the other hand it is difficult to explain why in the MS. the three-quarter suit ascribed to Lord Compton, of which the Metropolitan Museum suit is certainly part, is represented as purple or russet and gold; for the drawings are generally accurate as regards colour and decoration. Moreover, in the early XVIIth century portrait of Sir James Scudamore, in which he is represented as wearing this armour, it is there painted purple and gold; while the suit of Lord Buckhurst, now in the Wallace Collection, which has an identical decoration both as regards colour and design to the Compton harness, still bears the colour as depicted in the MS. There is, however, an argument against the suit having necessarily been originally finished according to the drawing in the MS., and that is, that