The Arms and Armour Society was formed in 1950 to ‘ bring together enthusiasts, collectors, scholars and professional experts to further the study, collection and preservation of arms and armour.’
The Society meets regularly and one of its venues is, unsurprisingly, His Majety’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London.
Several of our Company are members and so on Monday 6 th June at 6.30pm – on the 80 th Anniversary of D-Day – at their invitation we entered the West Gate of The Tower to attend their presentation on ‘Henry VIII’s Gun Shields’. One of these had been found in the silt in the bottom of the Mary Rose when she was salvaged from the Solent in 1982.
This serious piece of historical investigation had been crowned with a complete reconstruction of the item by Andrew Braund. (See photos.) To a Philistine like me, this resembled a wooden dustbin lid with handles, a small iron gridded window near the top with below this a centrally fixed crude, sorry, early pistol poking through the shield. Even so, this was an impressive piece of work and jolly heavy to hold let alone fight with. (Had it been proved?)
