[Illustration: FIG. 27.--_English armet from the collection of Seymour Lucas, A.R.A. Date about 1500. From a photograph by Baron de Cosson._] English armets dating from about 1500 are not uncommon, but, as frequently observed, "they want that perfection and delicacy to be found in fine Italian or German work." The earlier open down the front, and the later at the side. They are generally combed, the ridge or comb running from the forehead to the back of the neck, and being beaten or raised out of the metal in the most able way. There is generally, but not always, a reinforcing piece over the forehead. The visor is of one piece, and works on a pivot, but in a few of the early specimens the pin and hinge arrangement of the older Italian examples is preserved, rendering it removable. The slit for vision is generally made in the body of the visor, but is sometimes obtained by cutting out a piece of its upper edge. It is beaked, thrown into few or several ridges, with the slits or holes for breathing principally on the right side. The English armet was rarely furnished with a bavier or movable chin-piece, and the fixed one, called a mentonière, was small. Baron de Cosson obtained one from Rayne Church in Essex, when it was pulled down, and Meyrick procured a similar one from Fulham Church, and Mr. Seymour Lucas, A.R.A., has two very fine specimens, now exhibited at South Kensington, while specimens are to be met with in most great collections. The not inelegant fluted Maximilian armets of the same date are, however, far more frequent. Like the later English armets, they have no baviers. Between 1510 and 1525, a hollow rim was introduced round the base of the helmet, fitting closely into a corresponding ridge round the upper edge of the gorget. This manifest improvement was considered by Meyrick to constitute the Burgonet. Between 1520 and 1540 the visor was formed of two parts, the upper of which closed inside the lower, and was capable of being raised without unfixing the latter. It remained in this form until the closed helmet fell into disuse in the seventeenth century. The armet frequently comprised, especially in the later examples, a fixed gorget, generally of two or more articulated plates. A number of these are included in the sixteenth and seventeenth century suits illustrated in the succeeding pages, one of the most singular being the helmet of the mounted suit of Henry VIII., made for the king by Conrad Seusenhofer of Innsbrück in 1511-14. It consists of six pieces fitting one within another without hinge or rivet, and seems originally to have had one of the curious discs at the back seen in Italian fifteenth-century armets and contemporary illustrations. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Complete suit for fighting on foot, made for Henry VIII. In the Tower of London._]