Named after Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Rose was strongly build, with wooden diagonal braces in her hull, a 32 m long keel and a wide of 11,4m. She had four masts : fore, main, mizzen and bonaventure mizzen; and six decks: hold, orlop, main, upper and two castle decks, with guns on the top four decks, firing through ports on the main, upper and the two castle decks
The Mary Rose in the Anthony Roll
1546
She had two main types of guns, as well as hand guns: larger wrought iron breech-loading guns, mounted on wooden beds or stocks which could be moved about the ships on a pair of wheels fitted on a single axle; and newer bronze muzzle- loading guns, firing iron shots, fitted on elm carriages, which could be run back for cleaning and reloading. All in all, she had between 78-91 guns onboard, besides another six in her castles. This number results from the so-called Anthony Roll. But if everything on this list was really on board is questionable, because only a fraction of it was found.
Culverins (left) and demi-cannons
(right)
Both types of guns together – iron and bronze, in front is a cannon, the second behind it is a port piece
According to this, there are 30 bronze guns of different types, such as demi-cannon and cannon (they shot iron shots with 45 lbs.), culverins and demi-culverins (they shot 9 lbs. but had a greater range than the guns), falcons shot 2 ½ lbs. and were found in the castles) and falconets (the smallest class, they shot 1 1/1 lbs. and were also found in the castles.
Two of the 32 swivel guns
The iron guns class was already bigger, and among them were 12 so-called port pieces (these shot 9 and 10 lib. stone shots), slings, demi-slings and quater slings, (these guns belonged to the serpent class and shot between 6 ½ lb. and 3 ¼ lbs. shots), the smaller fowlers warning with six pieces on board (their shots weighed 6 lbs.), then 32 swivel guns and 20 hailshot pieces (a kind of handgun) In addition there was a large arsenal of longbows, spikes, bills, swords and muskets.
A hailshot piece
Watercolour painting of two perspectives of a sling, a wrought iron gun
She had a crew of 30 gunners, 180 soldiers and 200 mariners. An eye witness account says that she had 700 men on board as she sank. And it was said that seh was an excellent sailer and could steer up closer to the wind than any other ship in Henry VIII’s fleet.
What makes her so interesting is the fact that she is a hybrid. She has been assigned both a large number of soldiers At the same time her large number of different weapons shows that she was on the way to rely on her cannons. She was the transition from old to new.
