THE CAUSE of Mary Rose

THE CAUSE of Mary Rose’s death re­mained in doubt over the next four centuries. French naval authorities of the time claimed that the ship had been sunk by French gunfire, but there was no ev­idence to support the claim. Sir George Ca­rew’s remark about knaves he could not rule suggests mishandling as the tragedy’s cause.

The first wrought-iron gun recovered from Mary Rose in 1970 revealed an unexpected innovation—a new kind of barrel. Unlike others made from several long iron bars forge-welded into a cylinder, this barrel was formed from a single wrapped sheet of iron. Reinforced with heat-shrunk hoops and rings (right, inset), this strong barrel, more gas-tight than earlier models, was probably part of a high-velocity gun used to hit the superstructure of enemy ships from a distance. Other wrought-iron cannon, by contrast, were normally short-range weapons. All were breech-loaded with removable powder chambers (right), firing cast-iron or lead shot or stone shot that shattered on impact, hurling shrapnel-like pieces across a deck.

 

Mary Rose’s wrought-iron guns were also the earliest found aboard ship on wheeled carriages. These allowed the guns to be run back from the lidded gunports when they had to be closed.

Indeed, Sir George’s younger brother, Peter Carew, later described Mary Rose’s crew as among the finest mariners in all England. But, Carew added, there was such dissen­sion among them that “contending in envy, [they] perished in frowardness.”

 

Finally, the extra weight of armored sol­diers and heavy ordnance above deck had rendered Mary Rose dangerously top-heavy. Even a disciplined crew might have failed to avoid the tragedy that befell her.

 

Fortunately for Henry, the loss of Mary Rose had no apparent effect on the Battle of Portsmouth. After an inconclusive ex­change the French fleet landed troops on the neighboring Isle of Wight, where they wreaked havoc for several days. They then briefly attacked the English coast to the east before sailing back across the Channel.

 

The English made several attempts to sal­vage Mary Rose, the first one immediately after the sinking. Guns were salvaged as late as the 19th century. From the outset, sal­vage was hampered by the nature of The So­lent, as the channel off Portsmouth is called. The bottom of The Solent consists of banks of sand, fine mud, and silt constantly stirred by tidal action. Hitting the soft seabed with tremendous momentum, Mary Rose began to dig her own grave, much as a pebble slow­ly buries itself on a wave-swept beach.

 

After the recovery of several cannon in the 1830s, attempts to salvage Mary Rose were abandoned. The silt that engulfed the re­mains of her hull was left undisturbed, and she lay entombed at 40-foot depth in The Solent. There she might lie to this day, but for the vision and energy of a man named Alexander McKee.

 

He is a journalist, a scuba diver, and a military historian with a lifelong interest in historic ships. In 1965 McKee organized a search for underwater wrecks called Project Solent Ships, focusing on the coastal area off Portsmouth. Although I was strictly a land archaeologist at the time, I gladly accepted Alex McKee’s invitation to join the group.

 

Over the next six years we spent every available summer weekend exploring the bottom of The Solent for historic wrecks, us­ing scuba divers and underwater detection gear such as magnetometers. Perhaps the greatest help in pinpointing the location of wrecks was use of Dr. Harold Edgerton’s sub-bottom and side-scan sonar to survey wide areas of the seafloor.

Although the search initially was aimed at wrecks of all kinds, the project gradually narrowed to finding Mary Rose. For one thing, she represented a key stage in evolu­tion of the warship in northern Europe, be­ing one of the earliest vessels built there to carry heavy ordnance and to be equipped with gunports so that her main batteries could be housed belowdecks.

 

Moreover, Alex and I both believed that the massive buildup of silt around and with­in Mary Rose would have preserved her to a remarkable degree. If we could excavate the ship, along with her ordnance, stores, tools, and the personal possessions of her crew, we would shed valuable new light on the Tudor period of England, an era that has left far too few tangible remains of everyday life.

 

We had a series of winter storms to thank for our first actual glimpse of Mary Rose. In the fall of 1970 a team led by Alex McKee dredged up a 16th-century iron cannon near the point where our underwater detection instruments told us the wreck must lie.

The following spring our divers went down and discovered that winter storms had laid bare the ends of several massive ship’s timbers, which resembled a row of great blackened teeth. In all my years of archaeo­logical exploration I can recall no more beautiful sight. The long search for Mary Rose was over.

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