num_pages: 198
description: On 19 July 1545, Henry VIII's favourite warship was moving out into the Solent with the rest of the fleet to thwart a French invasion. The wind had only just begun to stir, and she discharged a broadside at the French galleys. As she came about to discharge the other broadside, all her gunports being open, she was caught by a sudden gust, and the pride of the Tudor Navy heeled over, flooded and sank. In spite of determined attempts to raise her over the following weeks, she was to remain on the seabed for over four hundred years, until she was raised in 1982 and brought into dry dock at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where she is now on display to the public. The museum houses a collection of everyday items retrieved from the hull during the world's largest underwater archaeological excavation. These help to bring alive the Tudor period and tell the story of life on board the ship that is also reflected in these letters from the Mary Rose. The raising of the Mary Rose has made her one of the most famous ships in history but what was she actually like in her heyday? This book, based around letters from her days of active service, brings her story vividly to life. The letters, most of which have not been published before, give an impression of what it was like to serve on her, or to be involved with her supply and maintenance, between her launch in 1511 and that fateful day in 1545.
language: English
title: Letters from the Mary Rose
publisher: Sutton Publishing Ltd