1545

Mary Rose

Not since the Norman Conquest of 1066, almost 500 years

earlier, had England faced such a serious threat.

The Mary Rose was one of the largest ships in Henry VIII's navy and was built in Portsmouth between 1509-1510. As Henry's favourite ship, she was also his flagship. She had enjoyed an illustrious 34-year-long naval career and had fought in several successful campaigns against France, Scotland and Brittany, until that fateful day in 1545. Henry VIII could only look on in horror as the Mary Rose disappeared beneath the Solent.

On 19 July 1545, the mighty French Armada, twice the size of the Spanish Armada of 1588, arrived in the Solent intent on invading Portsmouth and destroying the English fleet. Early in the battle something went catastrophically wrong. While engaging the French galleys the Mary Rose suddenly heeled (leaned) heavily over as she was turning sharply to fire guns portside and seawater surged in through the open gun-ports and within minutes she crashed beneath the waves of the Solent. So quickly and so close to shore. For those who were not injured or killed outright by moving objects, there was little time to reach safety, especially for the men who were manning the guns on the main deck or fetching ammunition and supplies in the hold.

What turned the sinking of the Mary Rose into a major tragedy was the anti-boarding netting that covered the upper decks. With the exception of the men who were stationed in the tops of the masts, most of those who managed to get up from below deck were trapped under the netting; they would have been in view of the surface, and their colleagues above, but with little or no chance to break through, and were dragged down with the ship. Out of a crew of as many as 700 and 1 dog, fewer than 35 escaped.

The Battle of the Solent was an inconclusive stand-off and is remembered for the sinking of the Tudor Mary Rose.

From the seabed to a new museum.

 After the Battle of the Solent had ended, the French had withdrawn an the clean-up process had begun, work on recovering the Mary Rose was started. Even though she was quite an old ship, with 34 years behind her when she sank in 1545, she was still a valuable asset, as well as the property of theKing, so Henry VIII was eager to have her

re-floated and back in service as soon as possible.

Despite many attempts by Tudor divers, including the legendary Guinea-born Jacque Francois. She was then lost for hundreds of years near Portsmouth until the Dean brothers found her and started to strip and take possessions to sell in Portsmouth. Yet again, the Mary Rose was lost until 1971, when Alexander McKee and his team found her in the Solent. Then Margaret Rule and her team helped to pull off the impossible, finally excavating and raising the Mary Rose in Portsmouth, bringing the ship to her final resting place at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, and sharing her story for all the world to see.

On 11 October 1982, after years of extensive planning, in the presence of Charles III, then Prince Charles, a flotilla of ships, and cannon fire from Southsea Castle, with thousands jostling on Portsmouth harbour, and an estimated 60 million worldwide transfixed to BBC live on TV, the fragile wooden frame of Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose emerged from the murky waters of the Solent. She now sits in her permanent home within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and is the only 16th-century warship on display anywhere in the world.

The excavation and salvage of the Mary Rose was and still is at the cutting edge of science, maritime archaeology, conservation and Tudor life. 19,000 artefacts have been recovered from the site of the wreck providing a veritable time capsule of technology, medicine and life on board in 16th-century Britain. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is now on display in a new purpose-built museum, The Mary Rose Museum (founded in 1984 and opened to the public in 2013).

"I have never forgotten as it came out there was the most

almighty crunch..." Charles III, then Prince Charles, 2014

The remains of the Mary Rose's hull. All deck levels can be made out clearly, including the minor remnants of the sterncastle deck.

The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, a painting that commemorated King Henry's voyage to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, painted in 1540. The vessels in the painting are shown decorated with wooden panels similar to those that would have been used on the Mary Rose on special occasions.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Image is in the public domain.

The final stages of the salvage of the 16th century carrack Mary Rose on October 11 1982.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: the Mary Rose Trust