Name Mary Rose

MARY ROSE was carvel-built with twenty heavy and sixty light guns comprising a mixture of muzzle-loading cast bronze and breech-loading cast iron guns. With a complement of some 500 men, MARY ROSE was built for Henry VIII and named for his sister, Mary. The first of her name in the British fleet, MARY ROSE took part in Henry’s first (1512-1514) and second French Wars (1522-1525), always as the flagship of the Lord High Admiral - his favourite warship. Her tonnage changed from some 600 tons in 1512 to 700 tons at the time of her sinking. The portion of the ship that was recovered is estimated to be equal to some 280 tons. The ship appears to have had a hold and four principal decks, the orlop, the main, the upper and the forecastle, although the latter might have had more than one deck.

The keel is constructed from three pieces of elm, scarfed together and bolted to the oak keelson, also in three sections and which sits on top of the floor timbers, with the main mast step acting as the central sector. Just aft of the mast step, by the keelson, there is a circular hole to make room for the lower end of the pump. The majority of the frames do not appear to be attached to the floor timbers or to each other but are held in place by the longitudinal stringers, and the outer planking of the hull, in oak, is fastened through the frames, stringers and ceiling planking by hand-cut wooden treenails, which have been hammered into pre-drilled holes and might be up to a metre in length. The ship underwent two major refits, the first in Portsmouth in 1527-28 which required the construction of a new dock, and a later one in about 1536, when it is assumed her burden was increased to 700 tons.

The ship was to some extent re-built at this time, to give her a complete lower deck of guns with hinged ports, almost the first British warship to be so equipped. A considerable degree of extra strengthening was added to the vessel and the evidence from dendrochronology strongly suggests that several riders, transom knees, and diagonal and vertical braces were inserted during these two refits, presumably to support new and heavier guns.

In 1544-45, MARY ROSE was active in Henry’s third French war. When leading the advance against a much larger French invasion fleet off Portsmouth on 19 July 1545, possibly arising from a simple ship-handling miscalculation, she appears to have been caught by a flaw of wind. Late in the day she tried to tack and was swamped through her lower deck gun ports, sinking in some forty feet of water in a very short space of time with the loss of virtually her whole ship’s company of nearly 500 men. In the succeeding weeks, efforts were directed to raise the vessel but these proved fruitless. It was 437 years before she was brought to the surface, although in 1836 divers John and Charles Dean found the site and recovered a bronze cannon. In the late 1960s, using modern side-scan sonar and other advanced technologies capable of penetrating the deep silt, the ship was formally identified and steps taken to excavate the site. Trial excavations between 1971 and 1978 showed that the ship was lying on her starboard side in the soft upper sediment at an angle of some 60 degrees. Whilst the originally exposed port side had been extensively eroded by marine organisms and mechanical degradation, the hard grey clay covering the site had effectively sealed the surviving starboard portion and protected it from further erosion. In the years between 1979 and 1982, the site was fully excavated, surveyed and recorded. Over 19,000 artefacts were recovered and the remains of the ship were prepared for recovery, which took place on 11 October 1982. The hull has since undergone a process of conservation and stabilisation, employing the most advanced scientific methods and processes. As time has passed, timbers recovered from the seabed have also been conserved and where possible reinstated. In 2003-2004, further excavations of the site were undertaken using the most modern technologies and, in 2005, a 5 metre long section of the original stem was brought ashore, together with several timbers, smaller artefacts and a 7 metre long anchor. The site was then sealed with a membrane and 100 tons of sand, to be made safe and secure for future generations.

Source; Campbell McMurray, Advisory Committee, March 2009.