Mary Rose

Type

Carrack

Period

16th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: The Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII, one of the earliest purpose-built sailing warships and one of the first English ships able to fire a broadside through gun-ports after her 1536 rebuild. She is famous both for her long career as a Tudor flagship and for the extraordinary 1982 salvage of her hull, which turned her into an unrivalled Tudor-era time capsule for historians and modelers alike. Specifications: Built at Portsmouth and launched in 1511, she was originally rated around 500 tons burthen, growing to 700-800 tons after her 1536 rebuild. Sources vary, but she is generally given a keel length near 105 ft (32 m) and an overall length estimated between 110 and 148 ft, with a complement of roughly 200 sailors, 185 soldiers and 30 gunners, and an armament that grew to 78-91 guns of mixed types (including many anti-personnel weapons) by the time of her loss. Service History: 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. While leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, she sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight. Notable Facts: The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971 and salvaged in 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology, and the surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule. Since the mid-1980s, while undergoing conservation, the remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, and an extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the nearby Mary Rose Museum. Image Note: The submitted image is the Mary Rose's entry from the Anthony Roll, a 1546 illustrated inventory of Henry VIII's fleet compiled by Anthony Anthony, now held at the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. It is the only known contemporary illustration of the ship from her active service, making it a valuable primary-source reference for her rig, hull decoration, and gunport arrangement despite the Roll's somewhat formulaic drafting style; the Wikimedia Commons file is tagged public domain (PD-old-100, PD-Art).