Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/101

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Fig. 1152. Miniature portrait

By Nicholas Hilliard, of Lord Buckhurst. Collection: H.M. the King, Windsor Castle

Fig. 1153. "My Lorde Bucarte"

The Jacobe MS.

The armour of Lord Bucarte (i.e., Buckhurst, or Sir Thomas Sackville as he was called before being raised to the peerage), now in the armoury of the Wallace Collection, No. 435 (Fig. 1151). The drawing of this suit is entitled "My Lorde Bucarte" in the Jacobe MS. (Fig. 1153). This harness was formerly in the Meyrick Collection and is described and illustrated in Skelton's "Engraved Illustrations," vol. i, Plate XXIX. In the catalogue of 1870 of the Meyrick Collection it is stated that it was taken from the Château de Coulommiers en Brie at the time that the château was dismantled during the French Revolution. The catalogue goes on to state that it is said to have belonged to the eighth Duke of Longueville. The author can find no account of the history of the suit from the time it was sold from the Meyrick Collection until it passed into that of Sir Richard Wallace. The edging of the suit is roped and its outline is followed by a row of brass-headed rivets one inch apart, to which were secured the lining straps. The whole surface is richly decorated by bands and bordering, deeply etched and partly gilt with a scroll design, through which runs a zigzag line an eighth of an inch wide, the ground-*work having been granulated and filled in with a black pigment. The edging to the design is three-eighths of an inch wide and contains a compressed serpentine line through which runs a line parallel with the edging. The plain surfaces have been oxidized to a rich russet-brown. The suit now consists of the following parts: the burgonet head-piece with hinged ear-pieces coming well forward and hinged umbril; the skull-*piece has a roped comb 2-5/8 inches high; and the umbril, which is pointed, is pivoted