Chapter II - More Documents for the Last Campaign of the Mary Rose

Summary

These papers are supplementary to those published in association with the Mary Rose Trust a decade ago. They are not strictly new discoveries, having come from catalogued collections. It was rather that the cataloguing was inadequate or positively misleading, so that the relevance of the materials to Mary Rose had not been recognised.

Sinking [by Professor Loades]

Mary Rose sank in the context of the so-called ‘Battle of the Solent’ between 18 and 21 July 1545. Claude d’Annebault, the Admiral of France, had assembled a great fleet of over 150 ships and 25 galleys with the objective of taking Portsmouth and immobilising the English fleet. The purpose of this exercise was not so much to take an English port as to secure a bargaining counter for the return of Boulogne, which had been in English hands since the previous year. Taking out the English fleet was likewise designed to cut the lines of supply by which the garrison of Boulogne had been maintained, and thus facilitate its recapture. Having failed to check d’Annebault's preparations by a raid on the Seine a few days earlier, Lord Admiral Lisle with the English fleet was at Spithead or within the harbour of Portsmouth, prepared to withstand the French assault. Meanwhile King Henry with a large army was encamped beside the town, with the same object in view. On 18 July the King dined on the flagship Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) as the guest of the Lord Admiral. However he did not remain on board overnight, so his departure cannot have precipitated the dramatic events the following day.

On Sunday 19 July, the wind then being light and fitful, d’Annebault began the assault by sending in his galleys, with their formidable forwardfiring guns, to attack the becalmed English warships. Lisle had only a few galleasses and rowbarges to withstand this attack, and would probably have been overwhelmed if the wind had not freshened sufficiently to enable the full English fleet to move out against the galleys, which thereupon retreated. But it was in the course of this action that Mary Rose was lost. Having discharged a broadside, an attempted manoeuvre resulted in the open gunports being forced below the waterline on the lee side and the sea rapidly entered.