Alexandra in 1507 to chastise the city of Genoa, the King wears an armet with the rondel, and elaborated with a panache and plume of feathers. At a later date Brantôme states that the armet of Francis I, at Marignano, was "orné d'une rose d'escarboucle."
The armet, both of English and of Italian origin, when it is found as a knight's achievement over his tomb, is often surmounted by a crest; we illustrate the one now hanging over the tomb of Sir George Brooke, K.G., in Cobham Church, Kent (Fig. 442 D). These crests are all, however, made for funerary purposes only, and are of carved and painted wood, which, from their very weight, would have rendered their use on the helmet impossible in fighting or even for ceremonial use. Other such funerary crests are to be seen on the armet of the Hastings family in Stoke Poges Church (Fig. 445 H), and on the armet said to have belonged to Sir William Drury in Hawstead Church, Suffolk (Fig. 442 A and B).
In our account of the armet we have not alluded to the damaged condition of many Italian specimens, due to the cutting away of part of the anterior portion of the skull-piece and the upper part of the cheek-piece or pieces. This was due to the later use of these armets for the Giuoco del Ponte—the opening produced by the cutting away being covered by a large roughly made barred visor. Where these damaged armets have passed into the hands of armour collectors they have often been restored. It is not without interest to collectors to know that they may still have the good fortune to recognize in an old Pisa helmet the remains of an Italian armet.
