The Armourer’s House

Name: The Armourer’s House
Rating: 4.3 (80 reviews)

by Rosemary Sutcliff

First published 1951

Amazon

4.1(80)

Tudor England, during Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. After her grandmother dies, Tamsyn is sent from the Devon coast to live in London with her uncle, a successful armourer. She resents losing the sea and the possibility of sailing with another uncle, and initially finds the crowded household and workshop alien.

Her friendship with her cousin Piers reveals that she is not the only member of the family drawn towards ships and distant places. Through apprentices, craftsmen, river traffic and domestic tensions, the novel presents London from inside a working household rather than the royal court. Tamsyn’s growth comes through learning how family duty and personal ambition can be negotiated rather than treated as simple opposites.