Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/80

 unable to illustrate an example of defensive apparel of the "Wilde Irische," as they are described in a Flemish MS. of 1574 preserved in the British Museum, we overstep the mark of the chapter by giving the representation of an Irish sword, probably of early XVIIth century date (Fig. 1464).

Probably Polish, late XVIIth century. Burges bequest, British Museum

Outside the British Isles we note that armour of primitive aspect was worn on the fringe of civilized Europe throughout the XVIIth and partly into the XVIIIth centuries. Scale armour is to be seen, for instance, in the examples of body armour and helmet, part of the Burges bequest to the British Museum (Fig. 1465), excellent pieces of work which may possibly be Bohemian or Polish of as late a date as 1680, but which are quite mediaeval in appearance. Chain mail was still much used in Russia and in Poland about this time, as were also quilted defences of leather and canvas.

Before we close this chapter we would ask the collector to search for an early Jacobean chest fitted to hold all the pieces of a suit of armour. Has anyone ever come across such a thing? Here is Charles I (Fig. 1465); his hand rests on a table, on which are his helmet and gauntlets; in a case close by are the other pieces of a suit, evidently of French workmanship of about 1620, and much resembling the suit illustrated in Fig. 1450. Perhaps the "chest lyned within and without with red cloth," and "the Truncke" which held