From entries in the State Papers preserved in the Record Office, it would seem that Milanese armourers were employed by Henry VIII during the first years of his reign. By the year 1515 the Almain or German armourers from Brussels had evidently taken their place, for they are entered as king’s servants with liveries. Only one Milanese name is found in the list of armourers, Baltesar Bullato, 1532, so that it is clear that Henry, owing, no doubt, to the influence of Maximilian, had definitely committed himself to German armour as opposed to Italian. England seems to have remained faithful to this German influence, but her rulers and nobles never indulged in the exaggerated and over-elaborate productions which held favour in Spain and Germany, a fact which is noticeable even at the present day, when the so-called “Art Nouveau” disfigures many German and Italian cities but has never obtained a serious foothold in England. Simplicity and practicality were always the chief features in English armour. The few known specimens of English work of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the jousting-helms at Westminster, Woolwich, Ashford, Petworth, and the Wallace Collection, are examples of this, and the armour of later years has the same qualification (Figs. 11-14). Even the suits of Topf, who worked in England at the end of the sixteenth century and produced the magnificent work that is shown at the Tower, Windsor, and elsewhere, the designs for which are contained in an album in the Art Library at South Kensington, are marked by a restraint which is not found in the works of Piccinino and Peffenhauser. The decoration never impairs the utility of the armour, and the designs are always those suitable for work in tempered steel, and are not in any way suggestive of the goldsmith’s work of his foreign contemporaries. In the English national collections we have but little eccentric armour, which is so common in Continental museums; all is severe and yet graceful, practical even if decorated, a tribute to the characteristics of the English race of fighting men. [Illustration: FIG. 11. The Westminster Helm, _circ._ 1500. Westminster Abbey. 17 lb. 12 oz. FIG. 12. The Brocas Helm, Rotunda, Woolwich. 22 lb. 8 oz.] [Illustration: FIG. 13. The Fogge Helm, Ashford, Sussex. 24 lb. FIG. 14. The Barendyne Helm, Great Haseley, Oxon. 13 lb. 8 oz.]