But in 1965, military historian and amateur diver Alexander McKee, in conjunction with the British Sub-Aqua Club, initiated a project called ‘Solent Ships’. The Mary Rose then faded into obscurity for another hundred years. Deane continued diving on the site intermittently until 1840, recovering several more guns, two bows, various timbers, part of a pump and various other small finds. Exploring further, he uncovered several other timbers and a bronze gun. Deane dived down, and found the equipment caught on a timber protruding slightly from the seabed.
Then, on 16 June 1836, some fishermen in the Solent found that their equipment was caught on an underwater obstruction, which turned out to be the Mary Rose. Diver John Deane happened to be exploring another sunken ship nearby, and the fishermen approached him, asking him to free their gear. As a result, the starboard side filled rapidly, leaving the exposed port (left) side to be eroded by marine organisms and mechanical degradation. Because of the way the ship sank, nearly all of the starboard half survived intact.ĭuring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the entire site became covered with a layer of hard grey clay, which minimised further erosion. The Mary Rose came to rest on the seabed, lying on her starboard (right) side at an angle of approximately 60 degrees. The hull (the body of the ship) acted as a trap for the sand and mud carried by Solent currents. After the battle, attempts were made to recover the ship, but these failed. What is undisputed, however, is that the Mary Rose sank into the Solent that day, taking at least 500 men with her. Accounts of what happened to the ship vary: while witnesses agree that she was not hit by the French, some maintain that she was outdated, overladen and sailing too low in the water, others that she was mishandled by undisciplined crew.
Built in Portsmouth some 35 years earlier, she had had a long and successful fighting career, and was a favourite of King Henry VIII. On 19 July 1545, English and French fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in the area of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.Īmong the English vessels was a warship by the name of Mary Rose. How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed
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