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Commentary
The fate of the Mary Rose passed into history. When John Hooker came to write the life of Sir Peter Carew (Sir George’s brother) in the 1580s, he presented a highly circumstantial account of the event, which seems to have been handed down in the Carew family (82). This is the source of the notorious story about Sir George calling his crew ‘a sort of knaves’, a remark not recorded by anyone else, and savouring of special pleading on the captain’s behalf. Hooker also set the death toll at 700, instead of the 500 which most contemporaries thought. The most accurate account was almost certainly that given by the anonymous Flemish survivor to François van der Delft, and that was also the most generally accepted (62). Nearly eighty years later, Sir Richard Hawkins, writing his memoirs of a voyage he had made in 1593, wrote of ‘the Great Harry’ lost at Portsmouth when her captain and crew were drowned ‘with a little flaw of wind, for that her ports were all open’ (83). Apart from mistaking the name of the ship, it is clear that the warning example to seamen had been taken to heart. Sir William Monson, writing at about the same time, got the name right but mistook the venue of the King’s dinner party (84). William Harrison’s chronology even recorded the sinking as a prime event of 1545, at the cost of the battle of which it was a part. How Monson could have seen any part of the wreck itself, which was covered by some 30 feet of water even at low tide, is an unsolved mystery. Perhaps he saw a piece that had broken away.
The site of the wreck was then forgotten for over 200 years, until it was stumbled upon accidentally by the pioneering diver John Deane in 1836. Deane and his associates recovered several bronze and wrought-iron guns, including a bronze cannon, demi-cannon and bastard culverin, all of which attracted great interest at the time, and led to the wreck being correctly identified. However, the interest did not persist. Deane wrote a book which may never have been published (see Postscript below, p. 206), and his drawings were mostly scattered and lost. At that time wrecks were commonly blown up as hazards to navigation, and that was the fate of another nearby ship at the hands of the Royal Engineers in the 1840s. In fact the Mary Rose barely protruded above the sea floor, and was no hazard to anyone, but it came to be believed that Deane’s discovery had been destroyed. It was not until the Southsea Branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club began a systematic survey of the historic sites of the Solent in 1965, that it began to be suspected that Henry VIII’s Great Ship was still there.
Documents
82. Extract from John Hooker’s ‘The dyscourse and dyscovery of the lyffe of Sir Peter Carewe’. This is the fullest account of the loss of the Mary Rose written within living memory. But Hooker was not an eyewitness, and his loyalty to the Carew family inclined him to blame a disorderly crew rather than a negligent captain.
Linstocks, used to fire the guns by extending a lighted taper. These examples are ornamented with fine carvings, each gunner having a personalized design. (Mary Rose Trust)
Items of sewing equipment. (Mary Rose Trust)
… The King, as soon as his whole fleet was come together, willeth them to set all things in order and to go to the seas; which things being done, and every ship cross sailed, and every captain knowing his charge, it was the King’s pleasure to appoint Sir George Carew to be Vice-Admiral of that journey, and had appointed unto him a ship named the Mary Rose, which was as fair a ship, as strong and as well appointed as none better in the realm. And at their departure the King dined aboard with the lord Admiral in his ship named the Great Henry, and was there served by the lord Admiral, Sir George Carew, this gentleman Peter Carew, and their uncle Sir Gawain Carew, and with such others only as were appointed to that voyage and service. The King, being at dinner, willed someone to go up to the top of the ship and see whether he could see anything at the seas. The word was no sooner spoken but that Peter Carew was as forward, and forthwith climbeth up to the top of the ship, and there sitting the King asked of him what news; who told him that he had sight of three or four ships, but, as he thought, they were merchants; but it was not long but he had escried a great number, and then he cried out to the King that there was as he thought a fleet of men-of-war. The King, supposing them to be the French men-of-war, as they were indeed, willeth the board to be taken up, and every man to go to his ship, as also a longboat to come and carry him on land; and first he hath secret talks with the lord Admiral, and then he hath the like with Sir George Carew, and at his departure from him took his chain from his neck, with a great whistle of gold pendant to the same, and did put it about the neck of the said Sir George, giving him also therewith many good and comfortable words.
The King then took his boat and rowed to the land, and every other captain went to his ship appointed unto him. Sir George Carew, being entered into his ship, commanded every man to take his place, and the sails to be hoisted; but the same was no sooner done but that the Mary Rose began to heel, that is, to lean on the one side. Sir Gawain Carew, being then in his own ship and seeing the same, called for the master of his ship and told him thereof, and asked him what it meant; who answered that [if she did heel inserted], she was like to be cast away. Then the said Sir Gawain, passing by the Mary Rose, called out to Sir George Carew, asking him how he did; who answered that he had a sort of knaves, whom he could not rule. And it was not long after, but that the said Mary Rose, thus heeling more and more, was drowned with 700 men which were in her, whereof very few escaped. It chanced unto this gentleman, as the common proverb is, the more cooks the worse pottage. He had in his ship a hundred mariners, the worst of them being able to be a master in the best ship within the realm, and these so maligned and disdained one the other, that, refusing to do that which they should do, were careless [also inserted] to doth that [they ought to do deleted] which was most needful and necessary, and so contending in envy, perished in frowardness.
The King this meanwhile stood on the land and saw this tragedy; as also the lady, the wife to Sir George, who with that sight fell into a sounding. The King, being oppressed with sorrow of every side, comforted her and thanked God for the other, hoping that of a hard beginning there would follow a better ending. And notwithstanding this loss, the service appointed went forthward as soon as wind and weather would serve, and the residue of the fleet, being about the number of one hundred and five sails, took the seas …
83. Extract from the Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, 1593.
The writer identifies the Mary Rose as the Henry Grace à Dieu alias Great Harry. He also perhaps refers to the Grand Guy, taken when Drake captured San Domingo on 1 January 1586 and renamed New Year’s Gift, and abandoned elsewhere when, overloaded with spoil, she began to ship water.
… the eight of April 1593, I caused the pilot to set sail from Blackwall … and coming to Barking, we might see my ship at an anchor, in the midst of the channel, where ships are not wont to moor themselves; this bred in me some alteration. And coming aboard her, one and other began to recant the peril they had past of loss of ship and goods, which was not little; for the wind being at East-North-East, when they set sail and veered out Southerly, it forced them for the doubling of a point to bring their tackle aboard, and luffing up, the wind freshing, suddenly the ship began to make a little heel, and for that she was very deep loaden and her ports open, the water began to enter in at them; which nobody having regard unto, thinking themselves safe in the River, it augmented in such manner as the weight of the water began to press down the side more than the wind. At length, when it was seen and the sheet flown, she could hardly be brought upright. But God was pleased that, with the diligence and travail of the company, she was freed of that danger; which may be a gentle warning to all such as take charge of shipping, even before they set sail, either in river or harbour, or other part, to have an eye to their ports, and to see those shut and caulked which may cause danger, for avoiding the many mishaps which daily chance for the neglect thereof, and have been most lamentable spectacles and examples unto us. Experiments in the Great Harry [sic], admiral of England, which was over-set and sunk at Portsmouth with her captain, Carew, and the most part of his company drowned in a goodly summer’s day, with a little flaw of wind; for that her ports were all open, and making a small heel, by them entered their destruction; where, if they had been shut, no wind could have hurt her, especially in that place.
In the River of Thames, Master Thomas Cavendish had a small ship over-set through the same negligence. And one of the fleet of Sir Francis Drake, in San Domingo harbour, turned her keel upward likewise, upon the same occasion; with many others, which we never have knowledge of.
And when this cometh to pass, many times negligence is cloaked with the fury of the wind, which is a double fault; for the truth being known, others would be warned to shun the like neglects. For it is a very bad ship whose masts cracked not asunder, whose sails and tackling fly not in pieces, before she over-set, especially if she be English-built. And that which over-setteth the ship is the weight of the water that presseth down the side, which, as it entereth more and more, increaseth the weight, and the impossibility of the remedy. For the water not entering, with easing of the sheet or striking the sails, or putting the ship before the wind or sea, or other diligences, as occasion is offered (and all expert mariners know), remedy is easily found.
84. Extract from the Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson, 1623.
Another inaccurate recollection: it was the Henry Grace à Dieu aboard which the King dined (82).
The Mary Rose, next to the Regent in bigness and goodness, after this was cast away betwixt Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, the very same day King Henry boarded her, and dined in her. Parts of the ribs of this ship I have seen with my own eyes; there perished in her four hundred persons.