Iron dagger with guard missing. It has a bent flat-backed blade. The square grip on the handle is a brass frame set with alternate plates of silver embossed 'AVE MARIA GRATIA PL' (meaning 'Hail Mary full of grace') with tudor roses, and plates of brass with figures of saints in canopied niches. There is a ball pommel at the end of the handle. Almost everyone carried a dagger in the medieval and Tudor periods. Well-dressed Londoners wore beautifully decorated daggers from Europe to signify their wealth and status. During Mary I's reign, the Spanish and Italian servants were at 'daggers drawn' with their English counterparts: 'not a day goes by', wrote one Spaniard, 'without knife work in the court'.
