King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose

by Alexander McKee

The rising of the Mary Rose in 1982 made headlines across the globe

The iconic ship was a key vessel in the startlingly rapid evolution of the wooden battleship as a floating gun platform.

After thirty-four years’ military service, Henry VIII’s revolutionary flagship sank at Spithead, taking with it the mysteries of its construction, armament and daily life.

Resisting the efforts of Venetian salvagers in the sixteenth century and pioneering divers in the nineteenth, it seemed the Mary Rose was doomed to pass from memory.

But entombed in mud and invisible to the naked eye, the Mary Rose lay patiently waiting.

In 1965, nearly a century and a half later, Alexander McKee launched his own endeavour, Project Solent Ships , and his revolutionary approach opened up a new gateway of discovery.

Science met adventure as archaeologists risked their lives diving under busy shipping lanes, laden with technology and equipment, to painstakingly explore Portsmouth’s clay plains.

Originally published in 1973, McKee combines a historian’s flair with his seabed discoveries as he pieces together the story of King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose and outlines his vision for this most famous of Tudor ships.



‘Gives an exceptionally vivid and valuable picture’ – Tribune

‘An intriguing report’ – Kirkus

Alexander McKee was selling aviation articles to flying magazines by the age of eighteen. During the Second World War he wrote for a succession of army newspapers and later became a writer/producer for the British Forces Network. Since 1956 he has been researching and writing books on all branches of naval, military and aviation history. He instigated the excavation of the Tudor ship Mary Rose in the seabed off Portsmouth, which he describes in King Henry VIII’s Mary Rose. In all he has written nineteen books.

Genres: History, Tudor Period, Nonfiction, British Literature

392 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 7, 2017

About the author

Alexander McKee was no "yes-man", he dared to criticise many military, political, economic, media and academic icons and he always kept an open mind. He was fanatical about making his works as accurate as he possibly could. He was ever alert to plain-wrong, biased, distorted or sloppy reports and hidden agendas; wickedly delighting (the more so as a self-educated man) in criticising and exposing assertions that did not fit the evidence. Among his targets were those who tended to emphasise media-image-managment, the accumulation of personal wealth and career progression over both personal integrity and respect for other people's contributions. He gleefully highlighted all the many lapses of integrity that he found. Equally, many established experts, often highly educated people and indeed experts regarding the theoretical aspects of their disciplines, but whom he considered scandalously remiss when they complacently failed to complement such theoretical understanding with practical knowledge as a way to test their theories empirically. Consequently, some of them came in for some harsh criticism on occasion. One gets the impression from his work that some of them appeared reluctant to venture outside the academy at all; out into the "real world": let alone to mix with ordinary people. Implicitly, he urged them to converse with the fishermen, the builders, the soldiers, the doctors, the nurses, the shipwrights and the firemen to glean practical understanding from these practical people, who had to be willing and able to carry out the ultimate tests on their theories to provide demonstably working solutions in order to fulfill their typical working roles. Then he urges such experts in the theory to re-test their theories against the empirically derived knowledge gleaned from their excursions among the working classes, and to do so conjunction with their own senses, out in the "real world": rather than limiting themselves and risking their reputations on the results of thought experiments alone. He dug deep into eye-witness testimonies and spent countless hours searching libraries and museums for the documentary evidence surrounding each his-story. One may find this slightly comical that viewed against the background of established caricaturisations, when the elevated "pillars of wisdom", went "building castles in the air" around about the "ivory towers" and he found strong contradictory "real world" evidence he often lambasted them mercilessly, although it does sometimes seem to be overdone. In contrast, he made the point that some of the sloppy documentary historical works such as that of Sir Robert Davis, that temporarily led his own research astray (and much to his annoyance caused him to repeat untruths in public lectures) while causing the propagation of serious errors until he uncovered them, were nevertheless probably a consequence of the pressures of work, owing to the high quality of the rest of the publication.

Reviews

[Alayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been interested in the Mary Rose since it was raised in the early eighties. However, this book was so full of technical detail that I just found it a slog, and started skimming to get through it. Ultimately, the book didn't even get to the raising of the ship, so that was disappointing too. If you want to know about how underwater archaeology developed, read this book. Otherwise, perhaps Wikipedia is the best bet!

[MICHAEL A LOWE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I did enjoy this book, it was not what I expected. It is a very detailed excellent description of the detail of the excavation of the remains of the ship, But it was like reading a mystery book without ever finding out "who dunnit"! Just as I had persevered and got to the point where the final lift could be done, the book abruptly ended! How frustrating! Another problem was that, as I was reading it on my Kindle, there was no sketch of the position of the wreck relative to the compass, or the Isle of Wight, or of the surrounding waterways. This made it difficult to orientate my thinking when the author was describing locations and directions to nearby places. No wonder he was confused as to whether he was excavating the stem or the stern! A few years ago, I visited Portsmouth from New Zealand, and had a day visiting the Victory, the Warrior, and the Mary Rose. The latter was encased in a glass container with liquid preservative flowing over her. How I wish that I had read this book before my visit! As an Engineer with much sailing experience I really would have enjoyed the recovery details, as well as the organisation created and the way finances were arranged. Now I have to seek out a following book for those aspects.

[Bob Rosenbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is two books in one. The first is a fascinating history of warship design, naval strategy and European politics emerging in the Renaissance.
The second is an in-depth - extremely in-depth - account of a difficult project in undersea archeology.
I was more interested in the first part than the second. And while the second part opened my eyes to the nuances, local variations and difficulties that are part of exploring ancient wrecks, it provided far more detail on the subject than I was prepared for or interested in.
It's well researched, thoroughly documented and cleanly written. If both subjects of this book are your cup of tea, I highly recommend it. But I found myself skimming the second half.

[Jane Balke Andersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish.

This is not what I thought it would be. While a very worthwhile report on the findings and science of the Mary Rose, it’s too dry for me. The pages and pages of detail like lists of guns and cannons mean little to me. But they are good to have on record. Worthy. Useful.

I was hoping to learn more about the discoveries and what they meant.