We see by manuscript illustrations that a few suits were still gilded, and we find Jack Cade after his victory in 1450 flourishing about in a suit of gilt armour, the spoils of Sir Humphrey Stafford. But the ever-growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of the steel panoply and its fine military qualities is now distinctly felt, and the armourer sought more and more to invest his work with beauty of form. All is still entirely dictated by fitness to its purpose, and the requirements of jousts and war; and the decorative and subtle shell-like ridgings and flutings are really present more to deflect the weapon's point than as ornament, while the engrailing, dentelling, scalloping and punching of the margins of the plates unmistakably indicate that the decorative spirit is applied to embellishing and not to concealing the steel. The superb gilded metal effigy (Fig. 19) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, presents a faithful model of the most beautiful type of Gothic armour known. Every fastening, strap, buckle or hinge is represented with scrupulous fidelity, not only on the front, but on the unseen back. Baron de Cosson, who has minutely described it, expresses the belief that it is a faithful reproduction of a suit actually worn by the Earl, and therefore earlier than 1439; although the effigy itself was only produced in 1454, and the armour agrees with that worn in England at the latter date. He regards the suit represented as the work of the celebrated contemporary Milanese armourers, the Missaglias. Italian armour is shown by sculptures, medals and paintings to have been many years in advance of English, and the two known contemporary suits by Tomaso di Missaglia greatly resemble it. The Earl of Warwick knew Milan in his youth, when he had tilted successfully at Verona; and it was a practice among the great to obtain armour there, dating from so far back as 1398, when the Earl of Derby had his armour brought over by Milanese armourers; the Baron's view presents therefore no improbabilities. Wherever made, the Earl of Warwick's suit appears to have solved the armourer's problem, being at once light, flexible, yet impenetrable. Indeed, in its beautiful proportions and admirably perfect adaptation to all requirements, it appears more like a work of nature than of art. The contours of the pieces and their graceful fan-like flutings, to give strength and deflect opponents' blows, are artistically splendid. The great shoulder-guards and elbow-pieces, the cuissarts and winged kneecaps, the tuilles, the jointed breast and back plates, the upright neck-guard, not hitherto seen, are all fashioned with consummate skill. In such a suit the preux and gallant knight for three days held his tournament victoriously against all comers, presenting each of his discomfited adversaries with new war-chargers, feasting the whole company, and finally "returning to Calais with great worship." The two cuts (Figs.