Thom Richardson – författare

The Littlecote House armoury is the most important surviving armoury of the English Civil Wars. This volume describes how the collection was saved for the nation (in part by a sponsored march in original armour from Littlecote to London), and includes a full illustrated catalogue of its contents.

The papers presented in this book represent the latest research on a wide variety of arms and armour given as diplomatic gifts between Asia and Europe, or within Europe, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The research originated at a conference that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Anglo-Japanese relations.

The Royal Armouries’ collection of Asian arms and armour is among the finest in the world. With the aid of stunning photography, former Deputy Master Thom Richardson outlines a rich and vibrant diversity of military cultures from the Ottoman Empire to East Asia. The book provides fascinating information about medieval Islam, the Ottoman Turks, the Arabian Peninsula, Islamic kingdoms of North Africa, Iran and Iraq, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, India and Indonesia.

The Elizabethan court was a vibrant and colourful place, where the inherited traditions and technological skill that had characterised the Middle Ages came face to face with the decorative techniques of the Renaissance. The book includes fascinating background about the court, government and armies of the age (including the main protagonists of the Spanish Armada) together with information about the individual owners of many pieces. It features beautiful photographs of key objects from the Royal Armouries’ collection including the Lion Armour, the ‘Forget-me-not’ Gun and the Burgonet of Smyth armour.

India is a vast sub-continent with a complex history and a great array of languages, cultures and religions. This book serves as a short introduction to the exquisite weapons used in the region, focusing on the Royal Armouries’ collections from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Beautiful photography is interwoven with remarkable historical and cultural detail about archery, swords, shields, daggers, firearms, artillery and elephant armour.

The documents surviving from the privy wardrobe, the department which administrated the Tower armoury under Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV, provide a unique insight into the use of arms and armour in late medieval England. Thom Richardson expertly brings these documents to life, showing how the previously peripatetic armoury became established in the Tower of London at the outbreak of the Hundred Years War, and grew into the national arsenal which today forms the basis of the Royal Armouries, the national museum of arms and armour.

In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne, an international exhibition, 'Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill', was held at the Tower of London in partnership between the Royal Armouries and Historic Royal Palaces. Published to coincide with the launch of the exhibition, this definitive publication illustrates and records over 90 Henrician treasures drawn from the Royal Armouries' own collections and from museums and institutions worldwide. Leading historians and specialists in arms and armour have contributed major essays on subjects which encompass the wide-ranging aspects of Henry's reign from war and politics to dress and dining.