In the year 1580 the Armourers’ Company endeavoured to obtain an Act of Parliament to protect and encourage the craft of the Armourer, but with no result owing to the opposition of other Companies. In the minutes of the Company detailing this effort occurs the following passage, which is of interest as bearing upon the skill of English workmen at that date: “It was the Master’s chance to speak with Sir Walter’s[132] honor again, Dr. Doull, one of the Masters of Requests, being with him, praying him to have the Armourers’ Bill in remembrance. ‘What,’ said Mr. Doctor, ‘there is none of your Company that can make an armor.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Master, ‘that there is verily good workmen, and skilful as needeth to be.’ ‘Tell me not that,’ saith he, ‘for I will hould you a hundred pounds that there is none in England that can “trampe” an armor for “the Cappe to the Soul of the foot.”’ ‘I will lay with your worship afore Sir Walter’s honor if you will give me leave that we have in England that shall work with any in the world from the toe to the crown of the head from 100 to 1000’; and then he made as though he would have laid it. ‘No,’ saith Sir Walter, ‘ye shall not lay, for he will win of you, for they have very good workmen, and I know of the workmanship myself.’” This skill in craftsmanship was doubtless attained under the tutelage of the Almaine armourers that have been referred to before who were brought over by Henry VIII to Greenwich. As an example of this we may notice the work of Pickering,[133] to whom is attributed the suit made for Henry, Prince of Wales, now at Windsor Castle, which bears a strong resemblance to the work of Jacob Topf, who was Master Armourer at Greenwich in 1590 (Fig. 63). In 1595 a Court of the Armourers’ Company was held to examine targets and other pieces of armour, and the decision arrived at was that it was “not of the proportion that cometh from beyond the seas, the Breast and Back Plates were too short and too narrow everywhere.” Again in the year 1620 at a Court it was certified that a Sussex smith “did alter old Armour, persuading the Countrey that they were workmanly done, which notwithstanding were utterly unserviceable.” This matter was reported to the Justices at Guildford to be dealt with by them. From these entries it will be seen that the control of the Company was very real and that in the main the English craftsman was of not much account until he had learned his trade from foreign experts. It was doubtless due to the instruction given by the foreigner that the Company possessed skilled hammermen. Under Elizabeth in 1560 these hammermen were employed to assist in the process of coin-striking and were sent, two to the Clothworkers’ Hall, two to the Sessions Hall, Southwark, and two to the Merchant Taylors’ Hall, to strike and stamp “with portcullis and greyhound the several pieces of money called ‘Testons,’ there to continue until the end of fourteen days from the date of precept.”[134]