Mary Rose sunk by French cannonball
For almost 500 years, the sinking of the Mary Rose has been blamed on poor seamanship and
the fateful intervention of a freak gust of wind which combined to topple her over.
By Jasper Copping
Last Updated: 15 Nov 2008
Now, academics believe the vessel, the pride of Henry VIII's fleet, was actually sunk by a French warship –
a fact covered up by the Tudors to save face.
The Mary Rose, which was raised from the seabed in 1982 and remains on public display in Portsmouth, was sunk in 1545, as Henry watched from the shore, during the Battle of The Solent, a clash between the English fleet and a French invasion force.
Traditionally, historians have blamed the sinking, not on the intervention of the French, but on a recklessly sharp turn and the failure to close gun ports, allowing water to flood in.
To exacerbate the situation, the craft, already overladen with soldiers on the top decks, was also struck by a strong gust of wind.
But new research, carried out by academics at the University of Portsmouth, suggests the ship was fatally holed by a cannonball fired from a much smaller French galley.
They have analysed a remarkably detailed engraving of the battle, created shortly after the event, and used modern mapping techniques to create a virtual 3D account of the battle.
Calculating the tides on the day, and using primary sources about the prevailing wind patterns and movement of the ships, they have been able to establish the limited manoeuvres that each ship could have taken.
It shows how the Mary Rose would have found herself directly in the firing line of the French galleys.
Dr Dominic Fontana, who led the research, said: "The trigger that made the whole situation uncontrollable was the French getting a cannonball through the side of the ship.
"Those watching onshore would not have known anything about flooding in the hull and it would have appeared as though she had been caught by a freak gust of wind and blown over.
"It would have been embarrassing enough for Henry that the ship sunk in front of him, but it is not unreasonable that if he discovered what had happened he would not have wanted to have it credited to the French."
Dr Fontana believes the ship was holed close to the water line by a cannonball fired from a group of fast, oar-powered French galleys, which mounted a series of raids on the becalmed English fleet.
According to his research, the fatal shot was fired when the Mary Rose was unable to return salvos, either when she was still at anchor, or shortly after that, when she was forced to set sail as the tide turned and threatened to leave the English fleet increasingly exposed to the French fire.
Once she set off, more water flooded into the hull, making the vessel increasingly unstable and low in the water.
"The water in her hold would have had a significant effect on her handling and her stability would have been severely compromised," he said.
"The additional weight of water would also have pushed her open gunports closer to the waterline than they should have been, making disaster inevitable once the sea flowed rapidly in through them."
Dr Fontana, who worked as part of original Mary Rose project as a photographer before becoming an academic geographer, said: "She would have quickly taken quite a quantity of water into her hull before she manoeuvred to bring a broadside of guns to bear on the attacking French galleys."
That manoeuvre, to put her in a position so that her guns could be unleashed on the French, was her undoing because the sudden movement of water in the hold caused her to capsize and sink with the loss of more than 400 lives.