The Gen

[Moggy]

Did a French cannonball scupper the Mary Rose?
TV film sets out theory based on hi-tech mapping and a Tudor engraving

* Maev Kennedy
Tuesday November 18 2008

The remains of the Tudor warship Mary Rose as it sits in an atmospherically controlled dry dock in Portsmouth's historic dockyard

The remains of the Tudor warship Mary Rose as it sits in an atmospherically controlled dry dock in Portsmouth's historic dockyard. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

A new and perhaps blindingly obvious explanation has emerged for the disastrous loss of Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose, which took more than 400 crew and soldiers with it to the bottom of the Solent on July 19 1545: in the middle of a battle between the English and French fleets, the French sank it.

Dominic Fontana, an academic who worked for years with the team conserving the remains of the ship - the recovery of the wreck from the seabed was watched by millions worldwide in live television broadcasts in 1982 - has studied eyewitness accounts and some of the oldest illustrations of the battle to map the scene, and believes he now knows what really happened.

Fontana, who outlines his theory in a documentary to be broadcast next Monday on the History channel, is convinced the Mary Rose was shattered below the waterline by a French cannonball, and sank with its carpenters still struggling desperately in the hull to close the breach. The wreck is of outstanding historical importance because it sank so fast that only 35 of more than 400 men on board were saved: the rest were sealed into the deep silt of the Solent bed with all their possessions.

Apart from the ship's role in maritime history, the 19,000 objects recovered provide a unique snapshot of everyday 16th century life: historian David Starkey has called the wreck England's Pompeii. If Fontana's theory is correct, once the ship was fatally holed many factors already suggested by other scholars would have come into play, including weather, its recent refit with heavier guns, and crucially the fact that the gun ports were open on both sides as it had fired a broadside, turned and was preparing to fire again, all contributing to the speed with which it sank >>>>

Guardian
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Moggy
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[Moggy]

I sort of suspect that if the French even half suspected they'd sunk Henry VIII's flagship right under his nose, we might have heard about it before now.
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Moggy
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