page_title: Mary Rose
section_title: First French war
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Rose / Military career / First French war
caption_attribution_description: English: The French warship Cordelière and the English warship Regent ablaze at the battle of St. Mathieu on August 10 1512. Illustration for an epic poem in Latin written by the court poet Germain de Brie. "The Cordelière in the foreground of the picture and to windward of the Regent has one sloping and two vertical masts with round tops above which are topmasts carrying topsails. The sails are furled but the mainsail and the foresail are loose and are beginning to burn. The sides of the castles are fitted with a pavesade of shields some bearing the ermine of Brittany some white with a black cross. The streamers flying from the masts are of the same colours. The rigging of the Cordelière is correctly shown: we see distinctly the shrouds the lifts and the stays the artist has not forgotten to haul the bowline of the mainsail the upper part of the ports is round and the tops are stored with quarrels. The Regent is almost entirely hidden by the Cordelière however we can distinguish two of her three masts the mainsail and the mizen the foremast ought to be seen. Castles and tops are pavesaded with shields white with a red cross the streamers are similar. A few men are in the shrouds the French mariners wear red jackets and blue or black breeches."&#91;1&#93;
context_page_description: The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight.
  The wreck of the Mary Rose was discovered in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of great value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost to the raising of the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa in 1961.
  The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies, and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments.
context_section_description: The Mary Rose first saw battle in 1512, in a joint naval operation with the Spanish against the French. The English were to meet the French and Breton fleets in the English Channel while the Spanish attacked them in the Bay of Biscay and then attack Gascony. The 35-year-old Sir Edward Howard was appointed Lord High Admiral in April and chose the Mary Rose as his flagship. His first mission was to clear the seas of French naval forces between England to the northern coast of Spain to allow for the landing of supporting troops near the French border at Fuenterrabia. The fleet consisted of 18 ships, among them the large ships the Regent and the Peter Pomegranate, carrying over 5,000 men. Howard's expedition led to the capture of twelve Breton ships and a four-day raiding tour of Brittany where English forces successfully fought against local forces and burned numerous settlements.
  The fleet returned to Southampton in June where it was visited by King Henry. In August the fleet sailed for Brest where it encountered a joint, but ill-coordinated, French-Breton fleet at the battle of St. Mathieu. The English with one of the great ships in the lead (according to Marsden the Mary Rose) battered the French ships with heavy gunfire and forced them to retreat. The Breton flagship Cordelière put up a fight and was boarded by the 1,000-ton Regent. By accident or through the unwillingness of the Breton crew to surrender, the powder magazine of the Cordelière caught fire and blew up in a violent explosion, setting fire to the Regent and eventually sinking her. About 180 English crew members saved themselves by throwing themselves into the sea and only a handful of Bretons survived, only to be captured. The captain of the Regent, 600 soldiers and sailors, the High Admiral of France and the steward of the town of Morlaix were killed in the incident, making it the focal point of several contemporary chronicles and reports. On 11 August, the English burnt 27 French ships, captured another five and landed forces near Brest to raid and take prisoners, but storms forced the fleet back to Dartmouth in Devon and then to Southampton for repairs.
  In early 1513, the Mary Rose was once more chosen by Howard as the flagship for an expedition against the French. Before seeing action, she took part in a race against other ships where she was deemed to be one of the most nimble and the fastest of the great ships in the fleet (see details under "Sails and rigging"). On 11 April, Howard's force arrived off Brest only to see a small enemy force join with the larger force in the safety of Brest harbour and its fortifications. The French had recently been reinforced by a force of galleys from the Mediterranean, which sank one English ship and seriously damaged another. Howard landed forces near Brest, but made no headway against the town and was by now getting low on supplies. Attempting to force a victory, he took a small force of small oared vessels on a daring frontal attack on the French galleys on 25 April. Howard himself managed to reach the ship of French admiral, Prégent de Bidoux, and led a small party to board it. The French fought back fiercely and cut the cables that attached the two ships, separating Howard from his men. It left him at the mercy of the soldiers aboard the galley, who instantly killed him.
  Demoralised by the loss of its admiral and seriously short of food, the fleet returned to Plymouth. Thomas Howard, elder brother of Edward, was assigned the new Lord Admiral, and was set to the task of arranging another attack on Brittany. The fleet was not able to mount the planned attack because of adverse winds and great difficulties in supplying the ships adequately and the Mary Rose took up winter quarters in Southampton. In August the Scots joined France in war against England, but were dealt a crushing defeat at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513. A follow-up attack in early 1514 was supported by a naval force that included the Mary Rose, but without any known engagements. The French and English mounted raids on each other through
caption: A contemporary illustration of Germain de Brie's poem Chordigerae navis conflagratio depicting the Cordelière and Regent ablaze after the explosion on board the former
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