Overview

When the Mary Rose sank in 1545 she took to the bottom of the Solent the largest and most comprehensive collection of guns and weapons of the sixteenth century to have been in use and survived. The assemblage is enormously important for the understanding of Tudor warfare. This great warship sailed into battle carrying everything from bows to bronze cannons, pikestaffs to powder flasks, arrows to armour. At least ten different types of bronze and iron guns were recovered from the wreck, together with hundreds of shot made of iron, lead and stone, and all the associated paraphernalia. Chests of longbows and arrows were lying on her upper decks ready for use; incendiary devices and canisters full of lethal fragments of flint had been prepared for firing at French ships; dozens of staff weapons - bills, pikes and halberds - were on hand to repel boarders and engage the enemy at close range. Some of the men were in armour, others clad in leather jerkins carried swords and daggers for hand-to-hand combat. Weapons of Warre provides, for the first time, a real insight into the armoury and fighting capabilities of a Tudor warship in battle. A detailed introduction is given to all the ordnance from the the great guns to incendiary devices and a notable collection of hand-guns. The unique assemblage of longbows, arrows and staff weapons are examined, along with the armour and hand weapons which provide a more personal glimpse of some of the men on board. The archaeological evidence is combined with what is known from historical sources and surviving contemporary collections to paint a fascinating picture of how the Mary Rose worked as a fighting unit and to provide a comparison between warfare on land and at sea.

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9780954402938

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Reviews

The ship was a weapons platform carrying a variety of armaments designed to complement each other and present a multi-layered weapons system. All of these are copiously illustrated with photographs, technical drawings and instructions for their use, and anyone buying the two-volume work also receives a DVD with many more line drawings and photographs, plus documentary film on the building and firing of wrought-iron and bronze replica guns at the Royal Armouries.' -- Christopher Catling SALON - The Society of Antiquaries Online Newsletter, No. 259 1 August 2011 The authors of these essays are leaders in their own fields and the quality of writing is exceptional. It is complimented by a plethora of high quality photographs and detailed line drawings that portray the wide variety of weaponry recovered from the ship. The icing on the cake is a DVD with many more line drawings and photographs, plus documentary film on the building and firing of wrought-iron and bronze replica guns at the Royal Armouries.' Classic Arms and Militaria Oct/Nov 2011 This is an important and informative publication, magnificently produced. It is not just a triumph of nautical archaeology, which after all is only the process by which these outstanding results were achieved; but, much more significantly, it adds immeasurably to the sum of knowledge we possess about the evolution of warfare in general at a crucial stage of its development. At the same time it has demonstrated that archaeology is a rich source of primary information for historians, who now know more new things about Tudor naval tactics than documentary sources alone could ever have provided.' -- Colin Martin International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 2012 ...[Ships and Guns and Weapons of Warre] importantly advance current perspectives on naval armaments in the late and post Renaissance eras. They are copiously illustrated and annotated, making them major resources for further research and as reference points for archaeologists and historians. Both of them are absolutely essential items on the bookshelves of any serious student of early modern naval technological history. -- Robert Desmoulins, Caumont-sur-Durance Nautical Research Journal 57:4 (December 2012)

Author Information

Alexzandra Hildred is Curator of Ordnance at The Mary Rose Trust and a leading authority on Tudor ordnance and maritime archaeology.

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