The study of Arms and Armour is one of absorbing interest to a large and ever increasing number of the community, inasmuch as it appeals in a marked degree to the student of history, the antiquarian, and to those who work in the realms of art. To the first it appeals as a concrete reminder of the struggles of nations for liberty, independence, power, or conquest; to the second it breathes of the age in which it saw the light with all the feeling and tone which characterised it; to the third it is a source of delight by the consummate beauty of its form or the exquisite details of its adornment. Unfortunately there are few books extant which serve as a guide to the student, although there are many which deal with the subject. The great works of Meyrick, with Skelton his illustrator, are standard only in a sense that it is necessary to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject in order to guard against the many errors embodied in them. Grose is hopelessly antiquated, while Fosbroke, Stothard, Strutt, Shaw, Planché, Cotman, and others who flourished before or about the sixties, only deal pictorially or casually with the subject. The Rev. Charles Boutell by his translation of Lacombe did much to foster the study, but it was from a French point of view, and his epitome of English armour and arms, though excellent in its way, is only superficial, and a digest of his great works on Monumental Brasses. In the latter he probably did more to further the study than any preceding author; he was the first to rationally systematise the arrangement of armour in periods in consonance with the salient features it possessed, thus breaking through the previous methods of classifying it by reigns, which was obviously absurd, or by centuries, which was equally ridiculous. I have followed his method with but little variation in the pages of this book, inasmuch as no better arrangement is extant. It is a matter for great pride to myself that such standard works should have emanated from a former Hon. Secretary of the St. Albans and Herts Architectural and Archæological Society, and if the present volume should in any degree further the good work of my predecessor it will have achieved the height of my ambition. Hewitt is delightful reading, but his arrangement is unsystematic and involved; to the advanced student, however, he is invaluable. The later works of Demmin, Clephan, Gardner, &c., are masterly monographs upon the subject, but hopelessly out of place in the hands of a beginner.