A total of 65 of these 'ballock daggers' were found on the Mary Rose, suggesting that these unusually-shaped objects were a common tool among the crew, used both for working and fighting.
Myths and legends are a popular part of our society, and we cling to them even when all the evidence says they’re wrong. Yet still, people believe things like Vikings wearing helmets with horns on them, Bob Holness playing Saxophone on ‘Baker Street’, and the Mary Rose sinking on her...
Being a warship, the Mary Rose carried a lot of objects that were, shall we say, unpleasant. As well as the various ship-to-ship weapons, there were pikes, daggers and swords for stabbing, bills and halberds for slashing, longbows and handguns for long distance killing, and rather nasty antipersonnel weapons such...
An inventory of “stuff, tackle, apparel, ordnance, artillery and habiliments of War” made on 27th July 1514, lists the Mary Rose carrying, among all the rigging and weapons, a quantity of cookware, including a frying pan! We’ve no idea if it remained on board until 1545, or if it got...
We always talk about Alexander McKee being the person who discovered the wreck of the Mary Rose, but although it was because of him the ship was rediscovered in the 1970s, there are a few people who got up close to Henry VIII's flagship while she was still on the...
While today relations between England and Scotland are mostly civil, it’s not always been that way. Scotland were long-time allies of France, so in 1513 King James IV of Scotland demanded that the English army withdraw from French Soil. Henry, unsurprisingly, declined, so James IV built up an army of...