20 and 21), illustrating scenes from his life, are taken from the exquisitely drawn illustrations to the contemporary Beauchamp manuscript, now in the British Museum. The incidental testimonies to the excellence of Italian armour of the middle of the fifteenth century are abundant. A stalwart Burgundian champion tried in vain during a tournament in 1446 to penetrate or find a crevice in the armour of the Duke of Milan's chamberlain, whom it was impossible to wound; and in 1449 the suit of another knight in the service of the same Duke was said to be steeped in some magic liquid, as so light a harness could not possibly have otherwise withstood the heavy blows it received. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, on his tomb in St. Mary's Church, Warwick. About 1454. From the cast in the Crystal Palace, Sydenham._] No word ever escapes the chronicler in praise of English armour; but the splendid model of the Earl of Warwick's suit is by William Austin, founder, and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith, both of London, with the gilding, chasing, and polishing by Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman and goldsmith of London. The will directs that the effigy shall be made according to patterns, directions obviously most scrupulously carried out. [Illustration: FIG. 20. The Earl of Warwick slays a "mighty Duke" who has challenged him to combat for his lady's sake, and wins the favour of the Empress, to whom he makes a present of pearls and precious stones. The costume is about fifteen or twenty years later than the death of Earl Richard, and shows the extra pieces worn in the tilt-yard, 1450-60.] In contemplating the lithe figure we may well believe that the steely quality and workmanship of such a suit would confer immunity on the wearer; and that the relative elasticity and lightness of a perfectly-fitting suit might confer such superiority on an active and sinewy champion engaging with men swathed like mummies beneath their armour in thick gambeson or mail, as to enable him to emerge from his deeds of arms as triumphantly as the heroes of romance. Nothing was worn beneath but the fustian doublet, well padded and lined with satin, with the small lozenge-shaped gussets of mail under the limb-joints and the short petticoat of mail tied round the waist. It is also unlikely that such armour was concealed under any garment, and we may observe that while some princes and nobles are still wearing brigandines of velvet and cloth of gold in pageants, many more are in "plain armour," presenting, except when standing collars of mail were worn, a uniform surface of smooth polished steel.