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Mary Rose
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The Mary Rose was an English Tudor carrack warship and one of the first to be able to fire a full broadside of cannons.
The Mary Rose was well equipped with 78 guns (91 after an upgrade in 1536) and was the pride of the English fleet. Built in Portsmouth, England (1509–1510) she was thought to be named after King Henry VIII's sister Mary and the rose, the Tudor emblem. She was one of the earliest purpose-built warships to serve in the Royal Navy; it is thought that she never served as a merchant ship.
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The Mary Rose was an English Tudor carrack warship and one of the first to be able to fire a full broadside of cannons.
The Mary Rose was well equipped with 78 guns (91 after an upgrade in 1536) and was the pride of the English fleet. Built in Portsmouth, England (1509–1510) she was thought to be named after King Henry VIII's sister Mary and the rose, the Tudor emblem. She was one of the earliest purpose-built warships to serve in the Royal Navy; it is thought that she never served as a merchant ship. She displaced 500 tons (700 tons after 1536), was 38.5 m long and 11.7 m beam and her crew consisted of 200 sailors, 185 soldiers, and 30 gunners. After serving for over thirty years, she sank in the Solent during an engagement with the French fleet on 19 July 1545. The surviving section of the ship was raised in 1982 and is now on display in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard along with an extensive collection of well preserved artefacts.
Career
The Mary Rose served as the flagship of Admiral Sir Edward Howard in the Italian Wars and was frequently engaged. On 10 August 1512 she was the flagship of an English fleet of 50 ships that attacked the French at Brest in Brittany. The Mary Rose attacked the French Marie la Cordelière, the flagship of Admiral Ren de Clermont; in the battle the Marie la Cordelière was crippled and the Mary Rose was damaged and ran aground. The Marie la Cordelière then came under fire from the Mary James, the Sovereign, and the Regent, eventually blowing up with the loss of more than a thousand men. Thirty-two French ships were taken or destroyed in the battle. After the death of Edward Howard in 1513, the Mary Rose became the flagship of Lord High Admiral Sir Thomas Howard.
Refittings
In 1528 and again in 1536 the Mary Rose was rebuilt, having her displacement increased from 500 to 700 tons and now mounting 91 guns. The refits are thought to have added an extra deck, making her top-heavy and liable to increased tendencies to roll over steeply in heavy seas.
Additionally, the weight of an extra deck (40% over her original displacement), and the bigger guns with which she was also equipped would have increased her draft adversely—the measure of water displaced between keel bottom and the waterline. Buoyancy is directly proportional to her original keel length and lower hull shape—buoyant force increasing linearly with offsetting depth increases (and resulting in less freeboard) to counteract the increased weight— only increasing as more hull descends below the waterline. That would place her lower deck gun ports significantly closer to the waterline, as it is unlikely the low ceilinged lower gun deck could be altered as well, being in much the same situation as a basement of a house gaining a new story. This extra 200 tons displacement would have lowered her freeboard radically and may have been a direct contributor to her later sinking.
Sinking
In 1545 King Francis I of France launched an invasion of England with 30,000 soldiers in 225 ships. Against this invasion fleet—larger than the Spanish Armada forty-three years later—the English had about 80 ships and 12,000 soldiers, with the Mary Rose the flagship of Vice Admiral Sir George Carew. In early July the French entered the Solent channel, between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. On 19 July 1545 (see Battle of the Solent) the English came out of Portsmouth and engaged the French at long range, little damage being done on either side. The next day was calm, and the French employed their galleys against the immobile English vessels. During this action the ship capsized and sank with the loss of all but 35 of her crew. Long-accepted accounts conclude that the ship sank due to a combination of poor design, open gun ports, bringing the ship about too quickly and bad luck. Other theories have stated the presence of Spanish mercenaries may have caused communications problems in part leading to the gun ports being left open. A more recent theory suggests that her sinking happened, towards the evening as a breeze sprang up and as Mary Rose advanced to battle, because her hull was holed by cannon fire from the French galleys.
Proponents of this novel theory state that for political reasons, especially to avoid conceding victory to the French, it was originally maintained that the ship sank as the result of an unfortunate combination of poor design and tidal forces. This version of events was accepted until 2008, when a new analysis of the wreck was performed. Sources that said that the ship had fired from the port side and made a sharp turn so she could fire from the starboard side. The turn was so sharp that the ship heeled sufficiently to submerge the open gun ports, allowing enough water to enter to sink the ship. Sources also suggest that the Mary Rose had the gunports too near the waterline, increasing the risk of an influx of water. Furthermore, the ship was carrying a large number of soldiers in full armour on her upper decks, with the possible result of further raising her centre of gravity and making her even more unstable. As was common in warships of the time the upper decks were covered with netting to prevent soldiers from enemy ships from boarding and damaged rigging falling onto the crew. Furthermore many sailors could not swim: being superstitious they regarded this as tempting fate. This and the netting made losses particularly severe.
Experiments
Researchers for a television programme used an exact scale model of the Mary Rose to investigate the causes suggested for her sinking. In the third stage, the wreck will be slowly dried. This preservation technique is the same as that begun in 1961 for the Vasa, a Swedish ship of the line which capsized in 1628 and is now on display in Stockholm. The Vasa is virtually intact while the Mary Rose is an almost perfect longitudinal vertical cross-section, due to marine worms such as the shipworm Teredo navalis destroying the port side above the seabed.
The expertise and facilities developed for the preservation of the Mary Rose has benefited many other archaeological projects. Experts from the Mary Rose Trust helped conserve the Dover Bronze Age Boat and the timbers from Seahenge.
Finds
Along with remains of around half the crew, a great number of artefacts were uncovered during excavation, including navigational and medical equipment, carpentry tools, guns, longbows, arrows with traces of copper-rich binding glue still remaining on the tips, cooking and eating utensils, lanterns, backgammon boards, playing dice, logs for the galley's ovens, and even a well-preserved shawm, a long lost predecessor of the oboe, from which a fully functioning model has since been replicated.
Display
These artefacts, and the wreck itself, are displayed at the Mary Rose museum located on the Royal Naval base in Portsmouth, England. A £20 million appeal for funds for The Final Voyage - the co-location of the hull of the Mary Rose with her artefacts in a new museum - was launched locally in Portsmouth on the evening of 10th March 2006. Leading local businesses, members of Portsmouth City Council and the Lord Mayor attended presentations in the current museum. Intended to attract 500,000 visitors and opening by 2012 (with spraying of the hull intended to be complete around 2009/10), this new co-located museum will create a world-leading museum in Portsmouth for the Mary Rose and the Tudor Navy, an international centre for maritime archaeology and provide better facilities for education and outreach. This was originally denied a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2006 , but in January 2008, the Fund announced that they would award £21 million grant to the Mary Rose trust .
Further excavation
On 11 October 2005, the 23rd anniversary of the original wreck lift, the anchor and parts of her bow were raised from the seabed in a delicate operation sponsored by the Ministry of Defence. These parts will also eventually go on display.
Mary Rose Museum
On 25th January 2008 it was revealed that a secondary appeal for funds to create the new museum had been successful.The Heritage Lottery Fund grant will be used to complete its conservation and build a museum around the vessel.
The overall cost of the project will total £20.5m.
Over 19,000 artefacts recovered from the ship will be on display at the museum, which is currently a temporary structure.
Admiral John Lippiett, of the Mary Rose Trust, said: "[It] paves the way to complete the long conservation process and display the majority of amazing artefacts in a magnificent museum. The learning facilities will be world class and able to meet the huge demand placed upon them by school children and students."
Dame Liz Forgan, chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), said: "The Mary Rose is an amazing time-capsule and one of our most precious heritage icons."
The Mary Rose is the only 16th century warship in the world to be recovered and put on display.
See also
External links
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