Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/155

 is, however, greatly on the decrease, the craft being less lucrative than in the past. To-day, too, there is a more general dissemination of a knowledge of armour and of weapons, and the miserable fabrications which used to be made, we will say, for instance, in Venice, and disposed of to the tourist, no longer have that ready sale which they formerly met with. Indeed, most of these faked suits are sold to-day as confessedly modern suits of armour, scarcely any attempt being made to foist them on purchasers as genuine.

English forgery of the mid-XIXth century. Armoury of the Tower of London

(a) Said to be the only extant portion of a page's suit worn by the son of Sir John Hopton, when page to the Duke of Norfolk at Bosworth. The whole suit was discovered in a crypt of a church near the battlefield and was broken up by a local blacksmith. Ex collection: the late Sir Noël Paton, now in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

(b) Complete right leg armour of the XVth century. Ex collection: the late Sir Noël Paton, now in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

There are few modern suits in the fashion of XVIIth century armour; for until quite recently the value of even a real XVIIth century harness was small, unless of course it was elaborately enriched. Consequently the fabricator, knowing that the true XVIIth century armour was not uncommon, and