1545 July 19 Warship Mary Rose sinks

"Mary Rose" Sinks, Recovered 300 Years Later

On this day in 1545, after serving the English navy for 33 years, engaging in several battles against French, Scottish, and Breton warships, and undergoing a substantial reconstruction, the English Tudor warship Mary Rose sank off the coast of Portsmouth, England, while engaged in battle with French galleys. 

Built in Portsmouth between 1509 and 1511, the Mary Rose was one of the largest ships in the English navy and one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was named for Henry VIII's favourite sister, Mary Tudor, later queen of France. A carrack-style, or three- or four-masted sailing ship, the Mary Rose was designed to fight at close range. She was built to close in on her enemies, fire her guns, then come alongside the enemy ship to allow soldiers aboard to invade the enemy ship and capture it by hand-to-hand combat. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, the Mary Rosewas a 700-ton galleon with a tier of broadside guns. Her armament at the time included 15 large bronze guns, 24 wrought-iron carriage guns, 52 smaller anti-personnel guns, plus 50 handguns, 250 longbows, 300 pole arms, and 480 darts employed by a crew of 185 soldiers, 200 seamen, and 30 gunners. The galleon's new emphasis on artillery reflected England's need for significant naval force to defend the kingdom against European rivals, particularly the agile and capable French galleys. 

It was a fleet of advancing French galleys the Mary Rose sailed out of Portsmouth Harbor to meet on the evening of 19 July 1545 in the Battle of Solent. Early in the battle, as the Mary Rose led the English attack, something went wrong. A strong gust of wind blew and the Mary Rose suddenly leaned heavily over to her starboard, or right, side, and water rushed in through her open gunports. Almost immediately, the galleon began to sink. Chaos ensued as equipment, ammunition, supplies, and storage containers came loose and slid across the decks. As for the crew, those not killed by moving objects were trapped in the ship, as boarding netting rigged around the ship to prevent enemy from entering trapped men on the deck. The Mary Rose sank quickly, taking most of her crew down with her. It is estimated that of a crew of at least 400, fewer than 35 men escaped.


The Mary Rose lay at the bottom of the Solent, largely forgotten for almost 300 years until a group of five fisherman caught their nets on her protruding timbers in the summer of 1836. Though some of her treasure—guns, bows, and ammunition—was recovered, she was left to lie in her watery grave. Then in 1971 the Mary Rose was rediscovered and salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in maritime archaeology. The thousands of recovered artefacts were considered a priceless Tudor-era time capsule, lending insight into sailing and warfare technology of the time. An extensive collection of the ship's well-preserved artefacts is on display at the Mary Rose Museum at the Historical Dockyards in Portsmouth.