Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > 1545: Who Sank the Mary Rose? > Status Update

‘After seventeen years of spraying the vessel with water and chemicals to preserve her, the sprays were finally turned off in 2013, allowed the Mary Rose to begin the long process of drying out. By 2015 about 100 tons of water had evaporated from her timbers, enabling the waterproof barriers around the ship to be removed. In 2016 visitors at long last saw the Mary Rose properly’

‘Corsi salvaged the Mary Rose intermittently from 1546 until 1549 and managed to recover some guns, for which he was paid £20 in 1547 and £50 in 1549. But then it was discovered that he had fiddled his reports, for in September 1549, he was arrested for taking ‘certain of his stuff out of the sea’ in Portsmouth and was imprisoned in the Tower of London by the Duke of Somerset.’

‘At least eight teenage boys were working in the hold and on the orlop deck when the shop sank... Most of them had noticeably strained spines, arms and legs, and the heights of three of them, 1.63 metres (5ft 4in) [FCS 2 (H4/O4)], 1.68 metres (5ft 6in) [FCS 21 (H7)], and 1.80 metres (5ft 9in) [FCS 36 (O8)], show that their ages were nearer eighteen than thirteen.’

‘Henry was so anxious to equip his ships and land-based fortifications with guns of quality that he employed Humphrey Walker, his ‘King’s gunfounder’ to cast so many bronze guns that the price of tin in Europe increased considerably in 1510. Lorenzo Pasqualigo reported to the Venetian Senate that Henry had bought enough to cast one hundred guns.’

‘The story of the battle had not been told in full because the Mary Rose was at the centre of the research. But now that it has been possible to affirm that the French fleet arrived off the Isle of Wight on the afternoon of Sunday 18 July, we are better able to reconstruct the battle. Previously, dates of the arrival have varied from the 17 to 19 July, but this has been based on records written years after’