The air was hot and still as Henry VIII stood on the walls of Southsea Castle on 19 July 1545, looking out over the Solent. England was on the brink of disaster. A massive French invasion fleet lurked only miles away. That was when Henry saw it: his great warship, the Mary Rose, lurched onto its starboard side and quickly descended into the depths, taking with it the lives of almost 500 men.
The Mary Rose had been Henry’s pride and joy. It was one of the first ships he had commissioned as king in 1510 and the ship’s captain, Vice Admiral George Carew, was a favourite of Henry’s – they had even dined together the night before.
The Mary Rose’s lifetime almost entirely mapped Henry’s dramatic reign. From the moment he assumed the throne in 1509, Henry had harboured ambitions to grow English power on the international stage. He soon sent out a message of aggressive intent by ordering the construction of two huge warships: the Peter Pomegranate and the Mary Rose.
The following three decades were marked by bloodshed and diplomatic spats as Henry jostled with his European neighbours. Then, in 1542–43, tensions reached boiling point when he made a pact with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to go to war with France. In 1544 Henry amassed a huge invasion fleet. But then came a setback: at the last moment, Charles backed out. Henry’s troops were left abandoned at Calais, with little hope of taking Paris, so instead they successfully laid siege to Boulogne. It wasn’t long before King Francis I of France sought to avenge this defeat. And his attempts to exact that revenge would have fatal consequences for the Mary Rose.
By 1545, the French ruler had assembled a 225-strong fleet of ships on the eastern end of the Isle of Wight, ready to invade England – and he planned to take Portsmouth first. With most of Henry’s men away
