1545: Who sank the Mary Rose?

by Peter Marsden. Seaforth. 2019.

The raising of the Mary Rose in 1982 has revealed much about the ship and the Tudor navy, but the circumstances of her sinking on a calm summer’s day in July have remained something of a mystery that has intrigued historians.

In this book Peter Marsden, an expert on the ship, updates his original commission by the Mary Rose Trust to reconstruct the history of the ship and what she was like. For the first time he gives a full description of the sea battle in which she was sunk, when the French tried to seize the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth. He shows conclusively, also for the first time, when the French fleet arrived, and demonstrates that the ship had one more deck than was previously thought, so was more top-heavy. He also shows that the sizes of the masts followed the hull’s proportions, and therefore can be reconstructed. After describing the terrible last-minute events on board, deck by deck, he concludes that the King whose favourite ship she was, was responsible for her loss.

Available on Amazon.