The Mary Rose was a carrack in the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She was launched in 1511 and served for 34 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank off Spithead in the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight. The wreck of the Mary Rose was located in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of significance as a Tudor period time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost to the raising of the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa in 1961. The Mary Rose site is designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 by statutory instrument 1974/55. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England. The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies, and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. The remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard since the mid-1980s while undergoing restoration. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the Mary Rose Museum, built to display the remains of the ship and her artefacts. Mary Rose was one of the largest ships in the English navy through more than three decades of intermittent war, and she was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was armed with new types of heavy guns that could fire through the recently invented gun-ports. She was substantially rebuilt in 1536 and was also one of the earliest ships that could fire a broadside, although the line of battle tactics had not yet been developed. Several theories have sought to explain the demise of the Mary Rose, based on historical records, knowledge of 16th-century shipbuilding, and modern experiments. The precise cause of her sinking is subject to conflicting testimonies and a lack of conclusive evidence.
Historical context
In the late 15th century, England was still reeling from its dynastic wars first with France and then among its ruling families back on home soil. The great victories against France in the Hundred Years' War were in the past; only the small exclave of Calais in northern France remained of the vast continental holdings of the English kings. The War of the Roses – the civil war between the houses of York and Lancaster – had ended with Henry VII's establishment of the House of Tudor, the new ruling dynasty of England. The ambitious naval policies of Henry V were not continued by his successors, and from 1422 to 1509 only six ships were built for the crown. The marriage alliance between Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII of France in 1491, and his successor Louis XII in 1499, left England with a weakened strategic position on its southern flank. Despite this, Henry VII managed to maintain a comparatively long period of peace and a small but powerful core of a navy. At the onset of the early modern period, the great European powers were France, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. All three became involved in the War of the League of Cambrai in 1508. The conflict was initially aimed at the Republic of Venice but eventually turned against France. England's close economic relationship with the Low Countries, ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs and any ambition of the young Henry VIII to recover territory in France made Spain the obvious ally. In 1509, six weeks into his reign, Henry married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon and joined the League, intent on certifying his historical claim as king of both England and France. By 1511 Henry was part of an anti-French alliance that included Ferdinand II of Aragon, Pope Julius II and Holy Roman emperor Maximilian. The small navy that Henry VIII inherited from his father had only two sizeable ships, the carracks Regent and Sovereign. Just months after his accession, two large ships were ordered: the Mary Rose and the Peter Pomegranate (later known as Peter after being rebuilt in 1536) of about 500 and 450 tons respectively. Which king ordered the building of the Mary Rose is unclear; although construction began during Henry VIII's reign, the plans for naval expansion could have been in the making earlier. Henry VIII oversaw the project and he ordered additional large ships to be built, most notably the Henry Grace à Dieu ("Henry by the Grace of God"), or Great Harry at more than 1000 tons burthen. By the 1520s the English state had established a de facto permanent "Navy Royal", the organizational ancestor of the modern Royal Navy.
Construction
Construction of Mary Rose began on 29 January 1510 in Portsmouth and she was launched in July 1511. She was then towed to London and fitted with rigging and decking, and supplied with armaments. Other than the structural details needed to sail, stock and arm the Mary Rose, she was also equipped with flags, banners and streamers (extremely elongated flags that were flown from the top of the masts) that were either painted or gilded. Constructing a warship of the size of the Mary Rose was a major undertaking, requiring vast quantities of high-quality material. For a state-of-the-art warship, these materials were primarily oak. The total amount of timber needed for the construction can only be roughly calculated since only about one third of the ship still exists. One estimate for the number of trees is around 600 mostly large oaks, representing about 16 hectares (40 acres) of woodland. The huge trees that had been common in Europe and the British Isles in previous centuries were by the 16th century quite rare, which meant that timbers were brought in from all over southern England. The largest timbers used in the construction were of roughly the same size as those used in the roofs of the largest cathedrals in the High Middle Ages. An unworked hull plank would have weighed over 300 kg (660 lb), and one of the main deck beams would have weighed close to three-quarters of a tonne.
=== Naming === The common explanation for the ship's name was that it was inspired by Henry VIII's favourite sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and the rose as the emblem of the Tudors. According to the historians David Childs, David Loades and Peter Marsden, no direct evidence of naming the ship after the King's sister exists. It was far more common at the time to give ships pious Christian names, a long-standing tradition in Western Europe, or to associate them with their royal patrons. Names like Grace Dieu (Hallelujah) and Holighost (Holy Spirit) had been common since the 15th century and other Tudor navy ships had names like the Regent and Three Ostrich Feathers (referring to the crest of the Prince of Wales). The Virgin Mary is a more likely candidate for a namesake, and she was also associated with the Rosa Mystica (mystic rose). The name of the sister ship of the Mary Rose, the Peter Pomegranate, is believed to have been named in honour of Saint Peter, and the badge of the Queen Catharine of Aragon, a pomegranate. According to Childs, Loades and Marsden, the two ships, which were built around the same time, were named in honour of the king and queen, respectively.
Design
The Mary Rose was substantially rebuilt in 1536. The 1536 rebuilding turned a ship of 500 tons into one of 700 tons, and added an entire extra tier of broadside guns to the old carrack-style structure. By consequence, modern research is based mostly on interpretations of the concrete physical evidence of this version of the Mary Rose. The construction of the original design from 1509 is less known. The Mary Rose was built according to the carrack-style with high "castles" fore and aft with a low waist of open decking in the middle. The hull has tumblehome: above the waterline, the hull gradually narrows. This makes boarding more difficult and reduces the quantity (and so weight) of heavy structural timbers that carry the higher guns. Modern understanding is that tumblehome does not improve stability by positioning the guns closer to the centreline, though that may have been the belief and intention of her builders. Since only part of the hull has survived, it is not possible to determine many of the basic dimensions with any great accuracy. The moulded breadth, the widest point of the ship roughly above the waterline, was about 12 metres (39 feet) and the keel about 32 metres (105 feet), although the ship's overall length is uncertain. The hull had four levels separated by three decks. Because the terminology for these was not yet standardised in the 16th century, the terms used here are those that were applied by the Mary Rose Trust. The hold lay furthest down in the ship, right above the bottom planking and below the waterline. This is where the galley was situated and the food was cooked. Directly aft of the galley was the mast step, a rebate in the centre-most timber of the keelson, right above the keel, which supported the main mast, and next to it the main bilge pump. To increase the stability of the ship, the hold was where the ballast was placed and much of the supplies were kept. Right above the hold was the orlop, the lowest deck. Like the hold, it was partitioned and was also used as a storage area for everything from food to spare sails. Above the orlop lay the main deck, which housed the heaviest guns. The side of the hull on the main deck level had seven gunports on each side fitted with heavy lids that would have been watertight when closed. This was also the highest deck that was caulked and waterproof. Along the sides of the main deck there were cabins under the forecastle and aftercastle which have been identified as belonging to the carpenter, barber-surgeon, pilot and possibly also the master gunner and some of the officers. The top deck in the hull structure was the upper deck (or weather deck) which was exposed to the elements in the waist. It was a dedicated fighting deck without any known partitions and a mix of heavy and light guns. Over the open waist, the upper deck was entirely covered with a boarding net, a coarse netting that served as a defence measure against boarding. Though very little of the upper deck has survived, it has been suggested that it housed the main living quarters of the crew underneath the aftercastle. A drain located in this area has been identified as a possible "piss-dale", a general urinal to complement the regular toilets which would probably have been located in the bow. The castles of the Mary Rose had additional decks, but since almost nothing of them survives, their design has had to be reconstructed from historical records. Contemporary ships of equal size were consistently listed as having three decks in both castles. Although speculative, this layout is supported by the illustration in the Anthony Roll and the gun inventories. During the early stages of excavation of the wreck, it was erroneously believed that the ship had originally been built with clinker (or clench) planking, a technique in which the hull consisted of overlapping planks that bore the structural strength of the ship. Later examination indicates that the clinker planking was never present throughout the ship; only the outer structure of the sterncastle is built with overlapping planking, though not with a true clinker technique.
=== Construction method === The hull of Mary Rose is carvel built. The ship is an early example of this method of construction in England. Her hull shape is now known to have been set out using the three arc method of producing the hull cross section. This geometric process is similar to that known to have been used some two hundred years later, so giving a much earlier date for this technique. This, and studies of other ships specified in the 15th century, is suggestive that the three arc methodology was probably already in existence before the time Mary Rose was built. The construction sequence began with laying the keel and setting up the stem and sternpost. The midships frame and a few other frames (master frames) controlled the shape of the hull, so the floors in those positions were fastened to the top of the keel. Then planking started with the garboards being fastened to the keel and those floors that were already installed. A temporary timber batten (called a ribband) was fastened across the floors that had been fitted and the remaining floors were shaped to fit the curve delineated by the ribbands and the garboards. The keelson was fastened over the top of the floors and planking continued up from the garboards to near the end of the floors. The first futtocks were then installed, again using ribbands to achieve a fair shape relative to the master frames. The hull construction continued with phases of planking and the fitting of second and third futtocks until deck level was reached. Mary Rose does not have the characteristic dove-tailed mortises seen joining the floors and first futtocks in Basque-built ships such as the Red Bay wreck 24M. There is some fastening of floors to timbers in Mary Rose that is less systematic and robust, but there are no treenails connecting frame elements to each other as seen on later vessels. This demonstrates that the hull was not made by first building the hull framework and then adding the planking once that was complete. Instead planking and framing were carried out in alternating steps, with later futtocks being added as planking carried on up to the weather deck level. This is in sharp contrast to the usual way of building a carvel hull today. The construction sequence used for Mary Rose was typical for a ship built during the lengthy transition period during which carvel became established in Northern Europe and the precise detail is one of the milestones in that story.
Sails and rigging
Although only the lower fittings of the rigging survive, a 1514 inventory and the only known contemporary depiction of the ship from the Anthony Roll have been used to determine how the Mary Rose was rigged. Nine, or possibly ten, sails were set from four masts and a bowsprit: the foremast had two square sails and the mainmast three; the mizzen mast had a lateen sail and a small square sail; the bonaventure mizzen had at least one lateen sail and possibly also a square sail; and the bowsprit set a small square spritsail. According to the Anthony Roll illustration (see top of this section), the yards (the spars from which the sails were set) on the foremast and mainmast were also equipped with sheerhooks – twin curved blades sharpened on the inside – that were intended to cut an enemy ship's rigging during boarding actions. The operation of Mary Rose's rig and some of its fitments were substantially different from several phases of later versions of square rig. All the yards were hoisted and lowered as part of the normal processes of setting, handing or reducing sail. The furling of the square sails pulled much of the bulk of the sail into the centre of the yard, so the work aloft did not involve a lot of work on the yards (the foot-rope did not come into use until the early 18th century), with much being done from the tops. Ships of this era generally did not have reefing points (though they existed on boats' sails). Instead a square sail might be equipped with a bonnet – an extra section of sail that is laced onto the foot of a square sail. Instead of reefing, the bonnet was removed. Lacing that would suit a bonnet was found on Mary Rose.
=== Performance === When the wreck of Mary Rose was first recovered, there was surprise that this was not the beamy vessel that was expected. The relatively narrow length to breadth ratio was accompanied by fine lines, particularly in the run (the underwater hull shape abaft the midship section). Even in the full sections in the forward part of the hull there are some hollow lines. Generally, hull shape is a major contributor, in conjunction with the efficiency of the sails, to good sailing performance. This hull shape can certainly explain the reported good sailing qualities that Mary Rose displayed prior to her rebuild. The sailing capabilities of the Mary Rose were commented on by her contemporaries and were once even put to the test. In March 1513 a contest was arranged off The Downs, east of Kent, in which she raced against nine other ships. She won the contest, and Admiral Edward Howard described her enthusiastically as "the noblest ship of sayle [of any] gret ship, at this howr, that I trow [believe] be in Cristendom". Several years later, while sailing between Dover and The Downs, Vice-Admiral William Fitzwilliam noted that both the Henry Grace à Dieu and the Mary Rose performed very well, riding steadily in rough seas and that it would have been a "hard chose" between the two. The reports of good sailing performance early in her career did not continue after successive repairs and the major rebuild altered her characteristics.
Armament
The Mary Rose represented a transitional ship design in naval warfare. Since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much as on land: with melee weapons and bows and arrows, only on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it only slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to take more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship, closer to the water line. Gunports cut in the hull of ships had been introduced as early as 1501, only about a decade before the Mary Rose was built. This made broadsides – coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship – possible, at least in theory, but in practice this was a relatively minor part of the gunnery tactics of the time. Throughout the 16th century and well into the 17th century the focus was on countering the oar-powered galleys that were armed with heavy guns in the bow, facing forwards, which were aimed by turning the entire ship against its target. Sailing warships did this first with their chase guns. Combined with inefficient gunpowder and the difficulties inherent in firing accurately from moving platforms, this meant that boarding remained the primary tactic for decisive victory throughout the 16th century.
Bronze and iron guns
Mary Rose served during a period of both the development of ship-borne guns and the design features of ships that deployed these weapons. By the time of her sinking, the number of heavy guns had roughly doubled. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and more modern cast bronze guns, which differed considerably in size, range and design. The large iron guns were made up of staves or bars welded into cylinders and then reinforced by shrinking iron hoops and breech loaded and equipped with simpler gun-carriages made from hollowed-out elm logs with only one pair of wheels, or without wheels entirely. The bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns. Generally, the bronze guns used cast iron shot and were more suited to penetrate hull sides while the iron guns used stone shot that would shatter on impact and leave large, jagged holes, but both could also fire a variety of ammunition intended to destroy rigging and light structure or injure enemy personnel. The majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person. The two most common are the bases, breech-loading swivel guns, most likely placed in the castles, and hailshot pieces, small muzzle-loaders with rectangular bores and fin-like protrusions that were used to support the guns against the railing and allow the ship structure to take the force of the recoil. Though the design is unknown, there were two top pieces in a 1546 inventory (finished after the sinking) which were probably similar to a base, but placed in one or more of the fighting tops.
The ship went through several changes in her armament throughout her career, most significantly accompanying her "rebuilding" in 1536 (see below), when the number of anti-personnel guns was reduced and a second tier of carriage-mounted long guns fitted. There are three inventories that list her guns, dating to 1514, 1540 and 1546. Together with records from the armoury at the Tower of London, these show how the configuration of guns changed as gun-making technology evolved and new classifications were invented. In 1514, the armament consisted mostly of anti-personnel guns like the larger breech-loading iron murderers and the small serpentines, demi-slings and stone guns. Only a handful of guns in the first inventory were powerful enough to hole enemy ships, and most would have been supported by the ship's structure rather than resting on carriages. The inventories of both the Mary Rose and the Tower had changed radically by 1540. There were now the new cast bronze cannons, demi-cannons, culverins and sakers and the wrought iron port pieces (a name that indicated they fired through ports), all of which required carriages, had longer range and were capable of doing serious damage to other ships. The analysis of the 1514 inventory combined with hints of structural changes in the ship both indicate that the gunports on the main deck were indeed a later addition.
Various types of ammunition could be used for different purposes: plain spherical shot of stone or iron smashed hulls, spiked bar shot and shot linked with chains would tear sails or damage rigging, and canister shot packed with sharp flints produced a devastating shotgun effect. Trials made with replicas of culverins and port pieces showed that they could penetrate wood the same thickness of the Mary Rose's hull planking, indicating a stand-off range of at least 90 m (300 ft). The port pieces proved particularly efficient at smashing large holes in wood when firing stone shot and were a devastating anti-personnel weapon when loaded with flakes or pebbles.
Hand-held weapons
To defend against being boarded, Mary Rose carried large stocks of melee weapons, including pikes and bills; 150 of each kind were stocked on the ship according to the Anthony Roll, a figure confirmed roughly by the excavations. Swords and daggers were personal possessions and not listed in the inventories, but the remains of both have been found in great quantities, including the earliest dated example of a British basket-hilted sword. A total of 250 longbows were carried on board, and 172 of these have so far been found, as well as almost 4,000 arrows, bracers (arm guards) and other archery-related equipment. Longbow archery in Tudor England was mandatory for all able adult men, and despite the introduction of field artillery and handguns, they were used alongside new missile weapons in great quantities. On the Mary Rose, the longbows could only have been drawn and shot properly from behind protective panels in the open waist or from the top of the castles as the lower decks lacked sufficient headroom. There were several types of bows of various size and range. Lighter bows would have been used as "sniper" bows, while the heavier design could possibly have been used to shoot fire arrows. The inventories of both 1514 and 1546 also list several hundred heavy darts and lime pots that were designed to be thrown onto the deck of enemy ships from the fighting tops, although no physical evidence of either of these weapon types has been identified. Of the 50 handguns listed in the Anthony Roll, the complete stocks of five matchlock muskets and fragments of another eleven have been found. They had been manufactured mainly in Italy, with some originating from Germany. Found in storage were several gunshields, a rare type of firearm consisting of a wooden shield with a small gun fixed in the middle.
=== Crew === Throughout her 33-year career, the crew of the Mary Rose changed several times and varied considerably in size. It would have a minimal skeleton crew of 17 men or fewer in peacetime and when she was "laid up in ordinary" (in reserve). The average wartime manning would have been about 185 soldiers, 200 sailors, 20–30 gunners and an assortment of other specialists such as surgeons, trumpeters and members of the admiral's staff, for a total of 400–450 men. When taking part in land invasions or raids, such as in the summer of 1512, the number of soldiers could have swelled to just over 400 for a combined total of more than 700. Even with the normal crew size of around 400, the ship was quite crowded, and with additional soldiers would have been extremely cramped.
Little is known of the identities of the men who served on the Mary Rose, even when it comes to the names of the officers, who would have belonged to the gentry. Two admirals and four captains (including Edward and Thomas Howard, who served both positions) are known through records, as well as a few ship masters, pursers, master gunners and other specialists. Forensic science has been used by artists to create reconstructions of faces of eight crew members, and the results were publicised in May 2013. In addition, researchers have extracted DNA from remains in the hopes of identifying origins of crew, and potentially living descendants. Of the vast majority of the crewmen, soldiers, sailors and gunners alike, nothing has been recorded. The only source of information for these men has been through osteological analysis of the human bones found at the wrecksite. An approximate composition of some of the crew has been conjectured based on contemporary records. The Mary Rose would have carried a captain, a master responsible for navigation, and deck crew. There would also have been a purser responsible for handling payments, a boatswain, the captain's second in command, at least one carpenter, a pilot in charge of navigation, and a cook, all of whom had one or more assistants (mates). The ship was also staffed by a barber-surgeon who tended to the sick and wounded, along with an apprentice or mate and possibly also a junior surgeon. The only positively identified person who went down with the ship was Vice-Admiral George Carew. McKee, Stirland and several other authors have also named Roger Grenville, father of Richard Grenville of the Elizabethan-era Revenge, captain during the final battle, although the accuracy of the sourcing for this has been disputed by maritime archaeologist Peter Marsden.
The bones of a total of 179 people were found during the excavations of the Mary Rose, including 92 "fairly complete skeletons", more or less complete collections of bones associated with specific individuals. Analysis of these has shown that crew members were all male, most of them young adults. Some were no more than 11–13 years old, and the majority (81%) under 30. They were mainly of English origin and, according to archaeologist Julie Gardiner, they most likely came from the West Country; many following their aristocratic masters into maritime service. There were also a few people from continental Europe. An eyewitness testimony right after the sinking refers to a survivor who was a Fleming, and the pilot may very well have been French. Analysis of oxygen isotopes in teeth indicates that some were also of southern European origin. At least one crewmember was of North African ancestry. In general they were strong, well-fed men, but many of the bones also reveal tell-tale signs of childhood diseases and a life of grinding toil. The bones also showed traces of numerous healed fractures, probably the result of on-board accidents. There are no extant written records of the make-up of the broader categories of soldiers and sailors, but since the Mary Rose carried some 300 longbows and several thousand arrows there had to be a considerable proportion of longbow archers. Examination of the skeletal remains has found that there was a disproportionate number of men with a condition known as os acromiale, affecting their shoulder blades. This condition is known among modern elite archery athletes and is caused by placing considerable stress on the arm and shoulder muscles, particularly of the left arm that is used to hold the bow to brace against the pull on the bowstring. Among the men who died on the ship it was likely that some had practised using the longbow since childhood, and served on board as specialist archers. A group of six skeletons was found close to one of the 2-tonne bronze culverins on the main deck near the bow. Fusing of parts of the spine and ossification, the growth of new bone, on several vertebrae evidenced all but one of these crewmen to have been strong, well-muscled men who had been engaged in heavy pulling and pushing, the exception possibly being a "powder monkey" not involved in heavy work. These have been tentatively classified as members of a complete gun crew, all having died at their battle station.
Military career
First French war
The Mary Rose first saw battle in 1512, in a joint naval operation with the Spanish against the French. The English were to meet the French and Breton fleets in the English Channel while the Spanish attacked them in the Bay of Biscay and then attacked Gascony. The 35-year-old Sir Edward Howard was appointed Lord High Admiral in April and chose the Mary Rose as his flagship. His first mission was to clear the seas of French naval forces between England to the northern coast of Spain to allow for the landing of supporting troops near the French border at Fuenterrabia. The fleet consisted of 18 ships, among them the large ships the Regent and the Peter Pomegranate, carrying over 5,000 men. Howard's expedition led to the capture of twelve Breton ships and a four-day raiding tour of Brittany where English forces successfully fought against local forces and burned numerous settlements. The fleet returned to Southampton in June where it was visited by King Henry. In August the fleet sailed for Brest where it encountered a joint, but ill-coordinated, French-Breton fleet at the battle of St. Mathieu. The English with one of the great ships in the lead (according to Marsden the Mary Rose) battered the French ships with heavy gunfire and forced them to retreat. The Breton flagship Cordelière put up a fight and was boarded by the 1,000-ton Regent. By accident or through the unwillingness of the Breton crew to surrender, the powder magazine of the Cordelière caught fire and blew up in a violent explosion, setting fire to the Regent and eventually sinking her. About 180 English crew members saved themselves by throwing themselves into the sea; a handful of Bretons survived, only to be captured. The captain of the Regent, 600 soldiers and sailors, the High Admiral of France and the steward of the town of Morlaix were killed in the incident, making it the focal point of several contemporary chronicles and reports. On 11 August, the English burnt 27 French ships, captured another five and landed forces near Brest to raid and take prisoners, but storms forced the fleet back to Dartmouth in Devon and then to Southampton for repairs.
In early 1513, the Mary Rose was once more chosen by Howard as the flagship for an expedition against the French. Before seeing action, she took part in a race against other ships where she was deemed to be one of the most nimble and the fastest of the great ships in the fleet (see details under "Sails and rigging"). On 11 April, Howard's force arrived off Brest only to see a small enemy force join with the larger force in the safety of Brest harbour and its fortifications. The French had recently been reinforced by a force of galleys from the Mediterranean, which sank one English ship and seriously damaged another. Howard landed forces near Brest, but made no headway against the town and was by now getting low on supplies. Attempting to force a victory, he took a small force of small oared vessels on a daring frontal attack on the French galleys on 25 April. Howard himself managed to reach the ship of French admiral, Prégent de Bidoux, and led a small party to board her. The French fought back fiercely and cut the cables that attached the two ships, separating Howard from his men. It left him at the mercy of the soldiers aboard the galley, who instantly killed him. Demoralised by the loss of its admiral and seriously short of food, the fleet returned to Plymouth. Thomas Howard, elder brother of Edward, was assigned the new Lord Admiral, and was set to the task of arranging another attack on Brittany. The fleet was not able to mount the planned attack because of adverse winds and great difficulties in supplying the ships adequately and the Mary Rose took up winter quarters in Southampton. In August the Scots joined France in war against England, but were dealt a crushing defeat at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513. A follow-up attack in early 1514 was supported by a naval force that included the Mary Rose, but without any known engagements. The French and English mounted raids on each other throughout that summer, but achieved little, and both sides were by then exhausted. By autumn the war was over and a peace treaty was sealed by the marriage of Henry's sister, Mary, to French king Louis XII. After the peace Mary Rose was placed in the reserves, "in ordinary". She was laid up for maintenance along with her sister ship the Peter Pomegranate in July 1514. In 1518 she received a routine repair and caulking, waterproofing with tar and oakum (old rope fibres) and was then assigned a small skeleton crew who lived on board the ship until 1522. She served briefly on a mission with other warships to "scour the seas" in preparation for Henry VIII's journey across the Channel to the summit with the French king Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520.
Second French war
In 1522, England was once again at war with France because of a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The plan was for an attack on two fronts with an English thrust in northern France. The Mary Rose participated in the escort transport of troops in June 1522, and by 1 July the Breton port of Morlaix was captured. The fleet sailed home and the Mary Rose berthed for the winter in Dartmouth. The war raged on until 1525 and saw the Scots join the French side. Though Charles Brandon came close to capturing Paris in 1523, there was little gained either against France or Scotland throughout the war. With the defeat of the French army and capture of Francis I by Charles V's forces at the Battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525, the war was effectively over without any major gains or major victories for the English side.
=== Maintenance and "in ordinary" === The Mary Rose was kept in reserve from 1522 to 1545. She was once more caulked and repaired in 1527 in a newly dug dock at Portsmouth and her longboat was repaired and trimmed. Little documentation about the Mary Rose between 1528 and 1539 exists. A document written by Thomas Cromwell in 1536 specifies that the Mary Rose and six other ships were "made new" during his service under the king, though it is unclear which years he was referring to and what "made new" actually meant. A later document from January 1536 by an anonymous author states that the Mary Rose and other ships were "new made", and dating of timbers from the ship confirms some type of repair being done in 1535 or 1536. This would have coincided with the controversial dissolution of the monasteries that resulted in a major influx of funds into the royal treasury. The nature and extent of this repair is unknown. Many experts, including Margaret Rule, the project leader for the raising of the Mary Rose, wrongly presumed that it meant a complete rebuilding from clinker planking to carvel planking, and that it was only after 1536 that the ship took on the form that it had when it sank and that was eventually recovered in the 20th century. Marsden has speculated that it could even mean that the Mary Rose was originally built in a style that was closer to 15th-century ships, with a rounded, rather than square, stern and without the main deck gunports.
Third French war
Henry's complicated marital situation and his dissolution of the monasteries angered the Pope and Catholic rulers throughout Europe, which increased England's diplomatic isolation. In 1544 Henry had agreed to attack France together with Emperor Charles V, and English forces captured Boulogne at great cost in September, but soon England was left in the lurch after Charles had achieved his objectives and brokered a separate peace. In May 1545, the French had assembled a large fleet in the estuary of the Seine with the intent to land troops on English soil. The estimates of the size of the fleet varied considerably; between 123 and 300 vessels according to French sources; and up to 226 sailing ships and galleys according to the chronicler Edward Hall. In addition to the massive fleet, 50,000 troops were assembled at Havre de Grâce (modern-day Le Havre). An English force of 160 ships and 12,000 troops under Viscount Lisle was ready at Portsmouth by early June, before the French were ready to set sail, and an ineffective pre-emptive strike was made in the middle of the month. In early July the huge French force under the command of Admiral Claude d'Annebault set sail for England and entered the Solent unopposed with 128 ships on 16 July. The English had around 80 ships with which to oppose the French, including the flagship Mary Rose but since they had virtually no heavy galleys, the vessels that were at their best in sheltered waters like the Solent, the English fleet promptly retreated into Portsmouth harbour.
Battle of the Solent
The English were becalmed in port and unable to manoeuvre. On 19 July 1545, the French galleys advanced on the immobilised English fleet, and initially threatened to destroy a force of 13 small galleys, or "rowbarges", the only ships that were able to move against them without a wind. The wind picked up and the sailing ships were able to go on the offensive before the oared vessels were overwhelmed. Two of the largest ships, the Henry Grace à Dieu and the Mary Rose, led the attack on the French galleys in the Solent.
Early in the battle something went wrong. While engaging the French galleys the Mary Rose suddenly heeled (leaned) heavily over to her starboard (right) side and water rushed in through the open gunports. The crew was powerless to correct the sudden imbalance, and could only scramble for the safety of the upper deck as the ship began to sink rapidly. As she leaned over, equipment, ammunition, supplies and storage containers shifted and came loose, adding to the general chaos. The massive port side brick oven in the galley collapsed completely and the huge 360-litre (90 gallon) copper cauldron was thrown onto the orlop deck above. Heavy guns came free and slammed into the opposite side, impeding escape or crushing men beneath them. 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. The companionways that connected the decks with one another would have become bottlenecks for fleeing men, something indicated by the positioning of many of the skeletons recovered from the wreck. What turned the sinking into a major tragedy was the anti-boarding netting that covered the upper decks in the waist (the midsection of the ship) and the sterncastle. With the exception of the men who were stationed in the tops in 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 at least 400, fewer than 35 escaped, a casualty rate of over 90%.
Causes of sinking
=== Contemporary accounts === Many accounts of the sinking have been preserved, but the only confirmed eyewitness account is the testimony of a surviving Flemish crewman written down by the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador François van der Delft in a letter dated 24 July. According to the unnamed Fleming, the ship had fired all of her guns on one side and was turning to present the guns on the other side to the enemy ship, when she was caught in a strong gust of wind, heeled and took in water through the open gunports. In a letter to William Paget dated 23 July, former Lord High Admiral John Russel claimed that the ship had been lost because of "rechenes and great negligence". Three years after the sinking, Hall's Chronicle gave the reason for the sinking as being caused by "to[o] much foly ... for she was laden with much ordinaunce, and the portes left open, which were low, & the great ordinaunce unbreached, so that when the ship should turne, the water entered, and sodainly she sanke." Later accounts repeat the explanation that the ship heeled over while going about and that the ship was brought down because of the open gunports. A biography of Peter Carew, brother of George Carew, written by John Hooker sometime after 1575, gives the same reason for the sinking, but adds that insubordination among the crew was to blame. The biography claims that George Carew noted that the Mary Rose showed signs of instability as soon as her sails were raised. George's uncle Gawen Carew had passed by with his own ship the Matthew Gonson during the battle to inquire about the situation of his nephew's ship. In reply he was told "that he had a sorte of knaves whom he could not rule". Contrary to all other accounts, Martin du Bellay, a French cavalry officer who was present at the battle, stated that the Mary Rose had been sunk by French guns.
=== Modern theories === The most common explanation for the sinking among modern historians is that the ship was unstable for a number of reasons. A strong gust of wind hit the sails at a critical moment and the open gunports proved fatal, causing the ship to flood and quickly founder. Coates offered a variant of this hypothesis, which explains why a ship unexpectedly foundered after serving for several decades without sinking, even fighting in actions in the rough seas off Brittany: the ship had accumulated additional weight over the years in service and finally become unseaworthy. Marsden has questioned whether the ship was turning after firing all the guns on one side, after examination of guns recovered in the 19th and 20th centuries; guns from both sides were found still loaded. This has been interpreted to mean that something else could have gone wrong, since it is assumed that an experienced crew would not have failed to secure the gunports before making a potentially risky turn. The most recent surveys of the ship indicate that she was modified late in her career, lending support to the idea that the Mary Rose was altered too much to be properly seaworthy. Marsden has suggested that the weight of additional heavy guns would have increased her draught so much that the waterline was less than one metre (c. 3 feet) from the gunports on the main deck. Peter Carew's claim of insubordination has been reinterpreted by James Watt, former Medical Director-General of the Royal Navy, based on records of an epidemic of dysentery in Portsmouth which could have rendered the crew incapable of handling the ship properly. Historian Richard Barker has suggested that the crew actually knew that the ship was an accident waiting to happen, at which they balked and refused to follow orders. Marsden has noted that the Carew biography is in some details inconsistent with the sequence of events reported by both French and English eyewitnesses. It also reports that there were 700 men on board, an unusually high number. The distance in time to the event it describes may mean that it was embellished to add a dramatic touch. The report of French galleys sinking the Mary Rose as stated by Martin du Bellay has been described as "the account of a courtesan" by naval historian Maurice de Brossard. Du Bellay and his two brothers were close to king Francis I and du Bellay had much to gain from portraying the sinking as a French victory. English sources, even if biased, would have nothing to gain from portraying the sinking as the result of crew incompetence rather than conceding a victory to the much-feared gun galleys. Dominic Fontana, a geographer at the University of Portsmouth, has voiced support for du Bellay's version of the sinking, based on the battle as it is depicted in the Cowdray Engraving and modern GIS analysis of the scene of the battle. By plotting the fleets and calculating the conjectured final manoeuvres of the Mary Rose, Fontana reached the conclusion that the ship had been hit low in the hull by the galleys and was destabilised after taking in water. He has interpreted the final heading of the ship straight due north as a failed attempt to reach the shallows at Spitbank only a few hundred metres away. This theory has been given partial support by Alexzandra Hildred, one of the experts who has worked with the Mary Rose, though she has suggested that the close proximity to Spitbank could also indicate that the sinking occurred while trying to make a hard turn to avoid running aground.
=== Experiments === In 2000, the Channel 4 television programme What Sank the Mary Rose? attempted to investigate the causes suggested for her sinking by means of experiments with scale models of the ship and metal weights to simulate the presence of troops on the upper decks. Initial tests showed that the ship was able to make the turn described by eyewitnesses without capsizing. In later tests, a fan was used to create a breeze similar to the one reported to have suddenly sprung up on the day of the sinking as the Mary Rose went to make the turn. As the model made the turn, the breeze in the upper works forced it to heel more than at calm, forcing the main deck gun ports below the waterline and foundering the model within a few seconds. The sequence of events closely followed what eyewitnesses had reported, particularly the suddenness with which the ship sank.
.jpg?width=500)