The first part of the letter states that a gentleman of Shropshire was anxious that the metal mined in his county should be used for armour instead of the German iron which at this time was considered to be the best in the market. Sir Henry writes: “To give the more credyte to that stuffe to the armourers of London and to Jacobi the Mr. workman of Grenewhyche, the Counsell apoynt in there presence that Sr. Robarte Constable and my cossyn John Lee shoulde see a proofe made wh. by tryall proved most usefull.” The “Shropshire gentleman” sent Sir Henry “a new brest beyng sent owt of the country of gret litenes and strengthe as he was made beleve,” and entrusted him to “cause another of the very same wayght to be made in her Matys office of Greenwhyche, wh. I presently performed.” Pistols were then loaded with equal charges and fired at the two breastplates, with the result that “that made in the Offyce and of the metall of Houngere[84] helde out and more than a littel dent of the pellet nothinge perced, the other clene shotte thereowe and much tare the overpart of a beme the brest studde upon as longe as my fyngeers. Thus muche for the Ynglyshe metall.” From time to time, as has been noticed before, there had been efforts to wrest the monopoly of the supply of metal for armour from the foreigner, but here was a very tangible proof of the superiority of the alien material. It is true that the Shropshire breastplate appears to have been sent from that county for the test, while the foreign metal was made up by the highly skilled workmen in the Royal Armoury at Greenwich under the eye of Jacobi (Topf), a master-craftsman who can have had but few rivals at that time. Possibly he may have possessed some secrets of tempering and hardening his metal which were unknown to less experienced smiths, and so have obtained the award of superiority for the metal of his own country. Topf had migrated to England from Innsbruck and must certainly have had friends among the iron-merchants of that locality. So his interests were obviously on the side of the foreign metal. It may be only romance or it may be fact, but certainly Oliver de la Marche,[85] writing about the year 1450, describes some such process of tempering armour after it was made. “Boniface avoit trempe son harnois d’une eau qui le tenoit si bon que fer ne povoit prendre sus.” It is not to be suggested that it was a special kind of water that was used for this, but rather that it was some method of heating and cooling the metal which was employed. Angellucci, in the _Catalogue of the Armeria Reale, Turin_ (p. 129), quotes, from documents of the sixteenth century, the account of a breastplate made by Colombo, an armourer of Brescia, being spoiled because he had used excessive charges for his pistol or musket. 1602. _Milice français_, Montgomery, Pt. II, p. 187. Les chevau-légers estoient armez d’armes complètes d’une cuirasse à l’épreuve. Le reste estoit à la légère.