Velvet, mentioned also by Berthelet, is used to cover a large Bible printed at Zurich in 1543, but there does not appear very clearly any mark by which it can. be identified as his work. It is now of a tawny color, but was originally probably crimson, and on it is outlined an elaborate design in gold cord. A broad outer border has an arabesque pattern arranged diamond-wise, with large double roses at each corner. Within this is a smaller rectangular border,enclosing a circle with the king's initials bound together by a scroll, and above and below the circle a repeating arabesque design. On the edges of this book are very elaborate heraldic paintings.

A different kind of work altogether covers the splendid Description de toute la terre Sainte, by Martin de Brion (Fig. 3), a beautiful manuscript on vellum dedicated to Henry VIII., and full of illuminated reference to him and his heraldic attributes.

It is bound in purple velvet and richly embroidered, and is the first of a splendid series of embroidered books on velvet executed in England. The design is simple, but it is carried out with such skill and taste that it is altogether most effective. In the centre is the royal coat-of-arms, the coats of France and England quarterly, as borne by our sovereigns from Richard II. to Elizabeth, Edward III., who first used the French coat, having originally borne it semee de jieurs-de-lis, but the number of these having been reduced to three by Charles VI. of' France, a corresponding change was made in the English coat by his son-in-law Richard.

The bearings on these coats are worked in gold thread on a couched groundwork of silk of the proper colors. The coat is ensigned by a large royal crown worked in gold thread, freely adorned with pearls on the arches, the crosses, and the fleurs-de-lis, as also on the rim, which is further ornamented with" jewels" of colored silks. The blue Garter, with its motto in gold, and the spaces between the words marked by small red roses, surrounds the coat. The king's initial H.'s, originally worked in seed pearls, but now only showing the threads, flank the central design, and the corners are filled with raised Lancastrian roses of red silk, appliques, and finished with gold.

There is still another kind of binding used for one of the volumes in the British Museum that was made for Henry VIII., and that is of gold. It is a tiny copy of a metrical version of the penitential and other Psalms in English by John Cheke, Clerk in Chancery, written on vellum early in the sixteenth century (Plate II.) It has at the beginning a miniature portrait of Henry VIII., and is bound in gold, worked in open-leaf tracery, with remains of black enamel on many of the leaves and on the border surrounding them. The panels of the back have each a small pattern cut into the metal, and filled with a black enamel. At the top of each cover is a small ring so that the volume could be attached to the girdle. It is said to have been given by Queen Anne Boleyn when on the scaffold to one of her maids of honor, and it now forms part of the Stowe Collection at the British Museum.