The jewelled neck-chain worn by women, and composed of strings of precious stones, "ropes of pearls", or of jewelled and enamelled sections, is often represented in pictures as being gathered in a festoon at the breast and hanging in loops at each side as low as the waist. A chain of gold of this character--one amongst many similar presented by the Earl of Leicester to Queen Elizabeth--was "made like a pair of beads, containing eight long pieces, garnished with small diamonds, and four score and one smaller pieces, fully garnished with like diamonds." Besides the chains or collars worn round the neck and upon the shoulders, there were the actual necklets worn round the throat, and often only distinguishable from the collar proper by their length (Pl. XXXI, 1). These necklaces, or carcanets, which almost invariably had as a central ornament an elaborate pendent jewel, are figured in such profusion in sixteenth-century portraits, particularly by the painters of the German school, that it is needless to mention particular examples. In Henry VIII's time they were worn in great abundance. The King loaded his wives with sumptuous jewels, and encircled their throats--on which the axe was eventually to fall--with jewelled and enamelled necklaces. The "carkyonetts" of Queen Elizabeth, of which she received an immense number, were equally magnificent. A New Year's gift in 1587 was a "carkyonett of golde, like halfe moones, garnished with sparcks of rubyes and diamonds pendant, and one rowe of seede perles."[158] [158] Nichols, _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_, II, p. 498.