Carrack (4m)
L/B/D:
105 (keel) × 38.3 × 15.1 (32m × 11.97m × 4.6m) Tons:
600 burthen; after 1536, 700 Hull:
wood Comp:
415 Arm:
78; after 1536, 91 Built:
Portsmouth Dockyard, Eng.; 1510.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, ships were used primarily for moving troops and sea fights consisted of pitched battles at close quarters where crew and soldiers fought for the capture of the enemy ship. Even after the development of cannon in the fourteenth century, naval guns were essentially for use against opposing soldiers and sailors massed in preparation for a boarding action. Fighting ships tended to have towering "castles" fore and aft, from which gunners and archers could fire down onto their opponents. The evolution of antiship gunnery became possible with the development of guns of increased range and weight of shot. Because of stability requirements, these could only be mounted low down in the ship, and this only after watertight gunports were developed in the early 1500s.
The oldest extant ship in which these converging technologies is seen is Mary Rose, Henry VIII's carvel-built flagship (named for his younger sister), and one of the first English purpose-built warships. Constructed at Portsmouth, she was armed at London with guns manufactured by the Belgian Hans Poppenreuter, among others. One indication of the increasing importance of antiship gunnery is the fact that Mary Rose carried 200 sailors, 185 soldiers, and 30 gunners, while her predecessors generally carried more soldiers; the larger Sovereign, for instance, carried 300 sailors and 400 soldiers. Mary Rose was not just an impressive gun platform, but she also handled well. In 1513, Admiral Sir Edward Howard reported to the king, "Sir, she is the noblest shipp of sayle and grett shipp at this hour that I trow be in Christendom. A shipp of 100 tonne wyl not be soner ... abowt then she."
In 1511, Mary Rose sailed as flagship of Howard's fleet of twenty ships patrolling, with a Spanish fleet, between Brest and the then-English port of Calais. The next year, Henry joined the Holy League of the Papal States and Venice in an effort to contain France's Louis XII. On August 10, 1512, Howard attacked the French fleet at Brest where he took or destroyed thirty-two French ships and captured 800 prisoners. The French flagship,
La Cordelière, lost all but six of her 1,500 crew when she and the English Regent caught fire, the latter losing all but 180 of her 700 crew. In April 1513, Howard was killed at the blockade of Brest, and Henry named his older brother Sir Thomas Howard as his replacement. That summer, Mary Rose helped bring an English army to Calais (later victorious at the Battle of the Spurs) and then sailed north to Scotland, where Howard took part in the defeat of James IV at the Battle of Flodden Field. Mary Rose continued in service until 1536 when Henry embarked on a rebuilding program. She emerged from this armed with ninety-one guns—some newly made—including bronze culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, and falcons.
In 1544, Mary Rose was used in Henry's operations against France. In 1545, Francis I mounted an invasion of Portsmouth with a force of 30,000 troops carried in 235 ships. Henry's defensive fleet consisted of only sixty ships at Portsmouth, with forty more en route, manned by a total of 12,000 crew. On July 18, the French fleet arrived between the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, and the English fleet weighed anchor. Mary Rose came under Vice Admiral Sir George Carew, who had been appointed that same day. Although Admiral Claude d'Annebault's flagship, La Maîtresse, sprang a leak and sank off St. Helen's, the French fleet was tactically well positioned. The following morning, French galleys advanced on the English fleet, taking Great Harry under fire. Then the wind sprang up from the north and the English fleet advanced. Unfortunately, her undisciplined crew—Carew's last known words, to a passing ship: "I have the sort of knaves I cannot rule"—had neither secured the guns nor closed the gunports. Suddenly Mary Rose heeled, flooded, and sank, with the loss of all but 35 of her complement. Despite the loss, and the fact that the French landed troops both on the Isle of Wight and on the coast of Sussex four days later, the French campaigning was indecisive, and by August 17 d'Annebault's fleet was back at Le Havre. That the French force was equal in determination and superior in execution to the Spanish Armada of 1588 is a fact little known today.
Efforts to salvage Mary Rose started immediately, but resulted only in the salvage of some guns. In 1836, the pioneering divers John and Charles Deane investigated the wreck. They recovered four bronze and four complete wrought-iron guns (and broken pieces of several others) before they stopped work in 1840. After this, the site of Mary Rose was again forgotten. In 1965, military historian Alexander McKee began Project Solent Ships to investigate the wrecks of HMS Boyne,
Royal George, and Mary Rose, the last being the chief object of his search. The ship was positively identified in 1970, lying in 50°45N, 1°06W. Twelve years later, after careful excavation and preparation under the guidance of Margaret Rule and with the active participation of Prince Charles, the remaining starboard portion of her hull was raised and housed at Portsmouth Naval Base where it is on public display. Among the chief points of archaeological interest is the fact that, in McKee's words, "The Mary Rose represents a day in the life of Tudor England. You cannot get that sort of information from libraries; you cannot get it from excavating a land site.... What you have in the Mary Rose is a four- or five-storey structure complete with everything it contained on that day in 1545." This includes artifacts used by surgeons, archers, and navigators as well as clothing and other objects in daily use. (Certain organic material, such as linen and horn, does not survive.) The ship is also important to the study of naval architecture, as her construction antedates the use of drawn plans. The surviving pictorial and written record of Tudor-era ships is otherwise scarce.
Bradford, Story of the "Mary Rose." McKee, King Henry VIII's "Mary Rose." Rule, "Mary Rose."
