1568. _Les Armuriers français et étrangers_, Giraud, pp. 191, 192.
Ung corps de cuirasse lequel sera a l’espreuve de la pistolle, ung habillement de teste a l’esprouve de la pistolle, brassartz ... a l’esprove de la pistolle, tassettes courtes a l’esprouve de la pistolle.
Here is evidently a necessary definition of each piece. Probably on some former occasion the armourer had classed the whole suit as of proof when such a description might only be honestly given to the cuirass. Accounts of actual trials are rare, but the following extract is of interest as showing the methods employed in England. It is given in full, with many valuable extracts bearing on the craft of the armourer, by Viscount Dillon, in _Archæologia_, Vol. LI. The extract is taken from a letter from Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armoury in 1580, to Lord Burghley, and bears the date Oct. 12, 1590.
The first part of the letter states that a gentleman of Shropshire was anxious that the metal mined in his county should be used for armour instead of the German iron which at this time was considered to be the best in the market. Sir Henry writes: “To give the more credyte to that stuffe to the armourers of London and to Jacobi the Mr. workman of Grenewhyche, the Counsell apoynt in there presence that Sr. Robarte Constable and my cossyn John Lee shoulde see a proofe made wh. by tryall proved most usefull.” The “Shropshire gentleman” sent Sir Henry “a new brest beyng sent owt of the country of gret litenes and strengthe as he was made beleve,” and entrusted him to “cause another of the very same wayght to be made in her Matys office of Greenwhyche, wh. I presently performed.” Pistols were then loaded with equal charges and fired at the two breastplates, with the result that “that made in the Offyce and of the metall of Houngere[84] helde out and more than a littel dent of the pellet nothinge perced, the other clene shotte thereowe and much tare the overpart of a beme the brest studde upon as longe as my fyngeers. Thus muche for the Ynglyshe metall.”
From time to time, as has been noticed before, there had been efforts to wrest the monopoly of the supply of metal for armour from the foreigner, but here was a very tangible proof of the superiority of the alien material. It is true that the Shropshire breastplate appears to have been sent from that county for the test, while the foreign metal was made up by the highly skilled workmen in the Royal Armoury at Greenwich under the eye of Jacobi (Topf), a master-craftsman who can have had but few rivals at that time. Possibly he may have possessed some secrets of tempering and hardening his metal which were unknown to less experienced smiths, and so have obtained the award of superiority for the metal of his own country. Topf had migrated to England from Innsbruck and must certainly have had friends among the iron-merchants of that locality. So his interests were obviously on the side of the foreign metal.