Raising a Tudor Rose

By George Russell

A venerable warship once again sees daylight

She was the first man-o'-war of England's fledgling Royal Navy and a special source of pride to Henry VIII, founding genius of that noble institution. In 1509, Bluff King Hal named the 130-ft., 700-ton, four-masted carrack, which became the vice flagship of his royal fleet, Mary Rose, after his favorite sister. But on July 19, 1545, the willful monarch looked on appalled at Southsea Castle, near the historic naval town of Portsmouth, as the top-heavy Mary Rose capsized and sank in 40 ft. of water while repelling the attack of a French armada. "Oh, my gentlemen, oh, my gallant men!" cried Henry, as he watched some 665 seamen and soldiers go down with the ship.

The wreck of the Mary Rose moldered for 437 years in the chilly waters of the Solent, as the nautical avenue between the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth is called. Time and tide did their work: after centuries of erosion, only the starboard half of the warship's timbers remained intact in their silt-laden grave. But those blackened beams were more than enough last week to provide yet another spectacle for royal eyes. Under the anxious gaze of Prince Charles and thousands of ordinary Britons, the remains of the Mary Rose emerged from the Solent in the embrace of a specially molded 217-ton lifting frame and cradle, hoisted by a 10,800-ton floating crane.

For a brief moment, the project hovered near calamity. As the Mary Rose ascended from the sea, part of the lifting frame gave way and dropped about 6 ft. onto the delicate timbers of the ship with an awful crunching sound. Said Prince Charles after the near disaster: "I was slightly horrified, [but] the important thing is to be British and stay calm." Luckily, no serious damage was done. Wrapped in plastic sheeting and constantly sprayed with sea water to prevent further decay, the Mary Rose was soon en route to Portsmouth Harbor, culminating the most expensive ($7 million) underwater archaeological salvage operation in history.

There have been other attempts to recover the bounty of the Mary Rose. In 1836 John Deane, using the first workable underwater diving helmet, teamed with his brother Charles to bring up some of the guns of the famous ship, along with a few timbers that were then made into souvenir inkwells and walking sticks. After four years, the entrepreneurial divers shut down their operation. The exact whereabouts of the Mary Rose was gradually forgotten.

More than a century later, the image of the wreck haunted the imagination of Alexander McKee, a historian who skindived throughout the Solent in order to find the vessel. In 1966 he discovered a 19th century naval chart that marked the site of the sinking. Says McKee: "I was electrified." Using undersea scanning technology developed by Electrical Engineer Harold Edgerton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McKee found the remains of the Mary Rose buried in a watery depression. For four years the historian and a band of amateur divers dug away, sometimes with their bare hands, until they discovered a Tudor cannon. The resulting publicity brought the money, boats and specialized equipment needed for the final salvage.

Before the ultimate lifting, the site of the Mary Rose had yielded a fabulous trove of Tudor memorabilia. Aside from cannons, by 1979 the divers began to bring up boxes of clothing, medicine chests and such objects as carpenters' tools, coins and pocket sundials, the Tudor equivalent of watches. One special find: a shawm, the 16th century forerunner of the oboe. Few other examples of the antique instrument are known to exist. Also recovered were the bones of about 100 drowned men. Scientists are studying them for clues about nutrition and disease in the Tudor era.

The more excavation proceeded around the burial site, however, the more salvagers of the Mary Rose were caught up in a race against time. What remained of the hull of the vessel after cen turies of erosion was a near perfect cross section, but the modern digging exposed Mary Rose's surviving timbers to the destructive scouring of tides and the appetites of marine organisms. In August 1980 the decision was made by the growing legions of Mary Rose salvagers to plan last week's dramatic lift. The salvage attempt had the blessing of Prince Charles, who in 1975 became president of the Mary Rose Trust, a charity dedicated to saving the vessel. The 21st Prince of Wales had made ten dives to inspect the ship in its cold, muddy resting place, an experience he described as similar to "swimming about in lentil soup."

More salvage work remains to be done. In lifting the bulk of the Mary Rose's remains, a 6-ft. section of the warship's bow was deliberately severed as a safety precaution. After the sections are rejoined, the painstaking work of finally preserving the Mary Rose could take several years. Nonetheless, the rescuers of the Mary Rose hope that their precious find can go on display as early as next year in Portsmouth, at a drydock close to Lord Nelson's famous flagship H.M.S. Victory. Says Discoverer McKee: "This is a dream come true." -- By George Russell. Reported by Arthur White/Portsmouth

With reporting by Arthur White/Portsmouth

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