David Loades - Letters From the Mary Rose

But one day of all other, the whole navy of the Englishmen made out, and purposed to set on the Frenchmen; but in their setting forward, a goodly ship of England, called the Mary Rose, was by too much folly, drowned in the midst of the haven, for she was laden with much ordnance, and the ports left open, which were very low, and the great ordnance unbreached, so that when the ship should turn, the water entered, and suddenly she sank.

Edward Hall, Chronicle, 1548

Cover Illustrations: The Mary Rose in the Anthony Roll (The Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge); Pen and inkpot from the Mary Rose (The Mary Rose Trust); Letter from Lord Admiral Howard to Thomas Wolsey, 14 May 1513. (Public Record Office)

First published 2002

This new paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St Georges Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

C.S. Knighton and David Loades, 2002, 2022

Published in association with The Mary Rose Trust

The rights of C.S. Knighton and David Loades to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9074 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Bold figures in the Introduction and the commentaries in each chapter refer to the numbered documents that form the second part of each chapter.

Henry VIIIs warship the Mary Rose had served for over thirty years when she sank before the Kings eyes in 1545. This book presents a selection from the many documents which log the ships career; chiefly, we print all the surviving dispatches written aboard during her first two periods of active service. The texts have been set within a continuing narrative which explains specific circumstances and fills in gaps for which there is no documentary coverage. The written record is accompanied by photographs of material from the wreck recovered and conserved by the Mary Rose Trust.

The project would have been impossible without the collaboration of Alexzandra Hildred and Christopher Dobbs. We are greatly indebted to them for their advice and assistance and to Andrew Elkerton and the Mary Rose Trust for providing many of the illustrations. The map has very kindly been provided by Dominic Fontana of Portsmouth University. We are very grateful to Jane Crompton and Christopher Feeney, and their colleagues at Sutton Publishing, for accepting the book and bringing it into being. For additional help we must thank Simon Adams, Lisa Barber, Aude Fitzsimons, Ian Friel and Judith Loades.

Portraits in the Royal Collection are reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty The Queen. The portrait of Lord Paget at Plas Newydd is reproduced by kind permission of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Anglesey. The portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk at Woburn Abbey is reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Tavistock and the Bedford Settled Estates. Lord Lisles dispatch of 1545 is printed by kind permission of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury. We are grateful to Dr H.G. Wayment for supplying a print of his photograph of the window in Fairford church which he has identified as a portrait of Wolsey. Dr M.H. Rule, CBE, has kindly allowed us to use her photograph of the raising of the hull of the Mary Rose. For help with the documents and illustrations we are also grateful to Messrs P. Barber, S. Roper and N. Spencer (British Library), Miss S. Burdett (National Trust), Mr R. Harcourt-Williams (Hatfield House), Messrs P. Johnson and A.H. Lawes (Public Record Office), Miss L. Nicol (Cambridge University Press), Dr E. Springer (sterreichisches Staastsarchiv), Miss S. Smith (Royal Collection) and Miss L. Wellicome (Woburn Abbey).

The documentary texts and editorial apparatus have been the responsibility of Dr Knighton; the commentary was written by Professor Loades.

C.S.K.

D.M.L.

London, August 2001

Professor Loades died before this paperback edition was in prospect. His introduction and commentaries remain as originally published; I have merely appended a brief note of subsequent developments. The opportunity has, however, been taken to correct some errors. It is particularly regretted that a misprint in one text was transmitted to Dr Robert Hardy and reproduced in his and M. Stricklands The Great Warbow (2005) (p. 4 there). Needless to say the responsibility for remaining errors is now vested in the surviving author. The central section of colour photographs has been substantially revised, showing some items recovered since 2002. Many thanks are again owed to Alexzandra Hildred and her colleagues at the Mary Rose Trust for producing these striking new images. With the collaboration of Dr Dominic Fontana, the papers printed here were supplemented by More Documents for the last campaign of the Mary Rose, in The Naval Miscellany, Volume VIII, ed. B. Vale (Navy Records Society, vol. XLXIV, pp. 4984).

C.S.K.

Clifton, May 2022

These are in an unpaginated section between pp. 156 and 157.

In the transcribed documents Roman numerals have been rendered as Arabic, and the conventional abbreviations applied as standard; otherwise measures are given as nearly as possible to the format of the original MSS.

Currency

The pound sterling () of 20 shillings, the shilling (s) of 12 pence (d). The mark (13s 4d) was a term of an account, not an actual coin.

Weight

The pound avoirdupois (lb) of 16 ounces (oz); 112lb making 1 hundredweight (cwt), and 20 cwt 1 ton (although the cwt may sometimes have still been calculated at 100lb as its name implies).

Linear

The league was generally accepted as 3 miles. The modern nautical mile was not yet established, and mile is to be understood as the standard 1,760 yards.

Dates

The year of grace is reckoned from 1 January (and not 25 March as was usual in the sixteenth century), but dates are otherwise in the Old Style (i.e. not adjusted to the Gregorian calendar). The regnal years of Henry VIII are frequently used in the documents; the Kings accession day was 22 April, and the regnal year was calculated from that date, until 21 April following: