[Jim McDougall]

Peter, thank you for the image of the complete sword from the Mary Rose.
Your thread on this famous shipwreck is outstanding, and I wanted to chime in with focus on the weaponry, most notably of course this basket hilt. Here is the perfect alignment of that.
What I found amazing from some material I found is that there were apparently more of these types aboard as well, so clearly in use by one of the military contingents. This one appears to be the only one that survived intact.

Keith,
I think you are spot on with the form basket surmised to be the likely one Stone supplied. While he was 'tooling up' the Hounslow enterprise from 1629 it is noted he was 'importing' foreign swords (not just blades). It seems unlikely that the King cared where the swords were from. In this entire situation it seems apparent that the import of German blades to in effect 'salt' the production volume at Hounslow was in degree present through the scope of its presence. Stone was enterprising enough to 'broker' these kinds of deals...he was supplying swords...regardless of who made them, however the King wanted them produced in England ...Stone likely made it seem as though they were.

The Oley's and the fox has been a quandary for some time, and that connection seems to have solved the mystery of the 'running fox' (cf. running wolf of Passau) of Birmingham.

While some of these details may be perceived as outside the topic at hand in discussion, they are often inextricably pertinent in the overall understanding of the subject matter.