صفحة 307 من 490

When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it

away-Procopius tells the story-nor was it ever found again,

though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight of gold

pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain

Venetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every

god that he worshipped.

When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI., visited Louis

XII. of France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according

to Brantome, and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out

a great light. Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung

with four hundred and twenty-one diamonds. Richard II had a coat,

valued at thirty thousand marks, which was covered with balas

rubies. Hall described Henry VIII., on his way to the Tower

previous to his coronation, as wearing "a jacket of raised gold,

the placard embroidered with diamonds and other rich stones, and

a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses." The

favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold

filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold

armour studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with

turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parseme with pearls. Henry II.