1660. A survey of the Tower Armoury and the Remaines contained therein. This was taken after the Civil War and shows that much of the working plant had been scattered. _Harl. MS._ 7457 (see Appendix M). 1666. “Armour of the Toyras provision with headpeeces whereof made in England to be worn with the said armes.” _Tower Inv. sub ann._ Meyrick considers that this was made at Tours, but brings no evidence to support his statement. It may have been part of the equipment of the infantry under Marechal de Toiras, who assisted Charles I against the Huguenots in La Rochelle in 1625. Several breastplates in the Tower are stamped “Toiras.” 1666. Col. Wm. Legge appointed Master of the Armoury. Legge was Governor of Chester in 1644, Governor of Oxford in 1645, was offered and declined an earldom by Charles II, and died in 1672. His eldest son was created Baron Dartmouth. 1685. An ordinance of James II that all edged tools, armour, and all copper and brass made with the hammer in the city of London should be approved by the Armourers’ Company. _Records of the Company._ [Illustration: _PLATE XV_ ALEGORIA DEL TACTO, BY JAN BRUEGHEL, CIRC. 1600 PRADO, MADRID] There are no details relating to the lives of any of the known English armourers that are worth recording. Pickering, the pupil of Topf, was the most celebrated, and the record of his position of Master of the Armourers’ Company will be found under that heading. John Blewbery, whose name occurs in several entries in the Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic, seems to have been merely the master-workman, and we have no evidence that he attained to a higher position. His name does not appear in the existing records of the Armourers’ Company. Asamus or Erasmus Kyrkenor first appears in a list of payments in 1518. He was employed to make candlesticks and for “garnishing books” with clasps, etc., in 1529, when presumably there was a slack time in the armouries. There are further entries of this nature in 1530, 1531, and 1532, in which year he “garnished” eighty-six books. In 1538 he was made Brigandarius to the King, vice John Gurre, deceased; but we find no details as to the duties of this office, which was continued to the reign of Charles I, when it became the subject of a complaint from Roger Falknor (Appendix J). In 1547 we find Erasmus in charge of the Greenwich Armoury, and in 1593 a note of the will of Wm. and Robt. Mighill states that they were the grandsons of Erasmus Kirkenor, deceased. A list of English armourers is given on page 126. FOOTNOTES: [66] _The History of Inventions._ Beckman. [67] See _Dover Castle Inventory_, p. 25. The “nailtoules” may have been used for this purpose. [68] _Archæologia_, LXII. [69] _Arch. Journ._, XXXVII. [70] _Archæologia_, LIX. [71] _Historia Anglicana_, Rolls Series, p. 457. [72] _Arch. Journ._, LX. [73] “Italian Armour at Chalcis,” C. ffoulkes, _Archæologia_, LXII.