Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/45

 comparison. Secondly, there is a drawing of a suit remarkably like it in general outline and decoration in the Victoria and Albert Museum MS., where it is described as armour made for George, Earl of Cumberland (see Vol. iv, page 56, Fig. 1137). So that we cannot say more than that this suit was undoubtedly made by an armourer of the Greenwich school, and that as William Pickering was one of the master armourers of that school, the suit may be one of those made by him.

The surface of the suit is decorated in the following manner. Upon a field that is burnished and blued by fire are slightly recessed vertical bands which radiate upon some of the principal plates. Between these bands, also recessed and at given intervals, are formal arrangements of the seeded rose of England, of the thistle of Scotland, and of the fleur-de-lis of France. Both the bands and the various sunken forms are deeply etched and fully gilt with strapwork and scrolls, introducing at intervals the letters H P crowned. The edges of the various plates have been turned over to a cable-pattern border, and the whole has been studded with hemispherically-headed rivets, each coated with brass or latten. Apart from its small proportions the suit presents no variation in construction from that of the harnesses illustrated in the Victoria and Albert Museum MS. The breastplate, which is of "peascod" form, has its right side the lance-rest attached by a staple; while in the centre is a large staple and pin that secures in position the grand-guard. The breastplate is attached beneath the arms to the backplate by gilt steel straps and double hooks. The tassets are permanently fastened to a single tace, and could be shortened at the third plate; their lower outline is escalloped. There is a garde-de-rein of one plate. The pauldrons are complete, and somewhat accentuated in form, exactly corresponding with those on the Greenwich suits referred to. The remainder of the arm-pieces consists of rere- and vambraces, turners, and elbow-cops. The leg-pieces are full, with cuisses of eight laminated plates, knee-kops, jambs laminated in four plates at the ankle, and square-toed sollerets to which are riveted the original spurs. The helmet, which is of the close type with the skull-piece forged from one plate, has visor and mezeil, the latter pierced with holes for breathing purposes on the sinister side only. The lower edge of the helmet finishes in a hollow roping into which fits the top plate of the gorget, ensuring a free rotatory movement of the head. The gorget is high and consists of four plates. Both the ordinary fingered gauntlets of the suit are missing, their places being filled by a right-hand mitten gauntlet and a large left-hand tilting gauntlet, both made for this harness. A century ago the fingered