The Mary Rose was a carrack in the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She was launched in 1511 and served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight.
The Solent is a strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland Great Britain; the major historic ports of Southampton and Portsmouth lie inland of its shores. It is about 20 miles long and varies in width between 2+1⁄2 and 5 mi, although the Hurst Spit which projects 1+1⁄2 mi (2.4 km) into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to just over 1 mi (1.6 km).
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the opponent with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage.
The Isle of Wight is rich in historical and archaeological sites, from prehistoric fossil beds with dinosaur remains, to dwellings and artefacts dating back to the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman periods.
The Italian War of 1542–1546 was a conflict late in the Italian Wars, pitting Francis I of France and Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry VIII of England. The course of the war saw extensive fighting in Italy, France, and the Low Countries, as well as attempted invasions of Spain and England. The conflict was inconclusive and ruinously expensive for the major participants.
The Tudor navy was the navy of the Kingdom of England under the ruling Tudor dynasty (1485–1603). The period involved important and critical changes that led to the establishment of a permanent navy and laid the foundations for the future Royal Navy.
Grace Dieu was the flagship of King Henry V of England and one of the largest ships of her time. Launched in 1418, she sailed on only one voyage and was subsequently laid up at anchor in the River Hamble. She burned in 1439 after being struck by lightning. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.
The Anthony Roll is a written record of ships of the English Tudor navy of the 1540s, named after its creator, Anthony Anthony. It originally consisted of three rolls of vellum, depicting 58 naval vessels along with information on their size, crew, armament, and basic equipment. The rolls were presented to King Henry VIII in 1546, and were kept in the royal library. In 1680 King Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys, who had them cut up and bound as a single volume book, which is now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in the royal collection until it was given by King William IV to his daughter Lady Mary Fox, who sold it to the British Museum in 1858; it is now owned by the British Library.
The naval Battle of Saint-Mathieu took place on 10 August 1512 during the War of the League of Cambrai, near Brest, France, between an English fleet of 25 ships commanded by Sir Edward Howard and a Franco-Breton fleet of 22 ships commanded by René de Clermont. It is possibly the first battle between ships using cannon through ports, although this played a minor role in the fighting. This was one of only two full-fledged naval battles fought by King Henry VIII's Tudor navy, along with the later Battle of the Solent. During the battle, each navy's largest and most powerful ship — the Regent and the Marie-la-Cordelière – were destroyed in a large explosion aboard the latter.
The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, join with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.
Sandown Castle was a Device Fort built at Sandown on the Isle of Wight by Henry VIII in 1545 to protect against the threat of French attack. Constructed from stone with angular bastions, its design was a hybrid of Italian military architectural thinking with traditional English military design. The site was raided by a French force that summer while the fortification was still being constructed. The site suffered from coastal erosion and the castle was demolished in 1631.
The Battle of Bonchurch took place in late July 1545 at Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. No source gives the precise date, although 21 July is possible from the sequence of events. The battle was a part of the wider Italian War of 1542–1546, and took place during the French invasion of the Isle of Wight. Several landings were made, including at Bonchurch. Most accounts suggest that England won the battle, and the French advance across the island was halted.
Vice-Admiral, Sir George Carew was an English soldier, admiral and adventurer during the reign of King Henry VIII who died in the sinking of the Royal Navy flagship Mary Rose at the Battle of the Solent during an attempted French invasion in the Italian War of 1542–1546. Scion of a controversial and dramatic family, Carew had a wild youth and explored widely, being arrested several times for associating with rebellious vassals of the king. Carew successfully tamed this nature in his later years, during which he became a trusted advisor and military officer in the King's service.
The French invasion of the Isle of Wight occurred during the Italian Wars in July 1545. The invasion was repulsed.
The Armada of 1779 was a combined Franco-Spanish naval enterprise intended to divert British military assets, primarily of the Royal Navy, from other war theatres by invading the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. This action was a part of the wider Anglo-French War (1778–1783). The proposed plan was to seize the Isle of Wight and then capture the British naval base of Portsmouth. Ultimately, no fleet battles were fought in the Channel and the Franco-Spanish invasion never materialized. This threat to Great Britain prompted comparisons to the earlier Spanish Armada of 1588.
The Battles of La Naval de Manila or Battle of Manila Bay were a series of five naval battles fought in the waters of the Spanish East Indies in the year 1646, in which the forces of the Spanish Empire repelled various attempts by forces of the Dutch Republic to invade Manila, during the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish forces, which included many native volunteers, consisted of two, and later, three Manila galleons, a galley and four brigantines. They neutralized a Dutch fleet of nineteen warships, divided into three separate squadrons. Heavy damage was inflicted upon the Dutch squadrons by the Spanish forces, forcing the Dutch to abandon their invasion of the Philippines.
The Battle of Orbetello, also known as the Battle of Isola del Giglio, was a major naval engagement of the Franco-Spanish War of 1635. It was fought on 14 June 1646 off the Spanish-ruled town of Orbetello, on the coast of Tuscany, Italy, between a French fleet led by Admiral Armand de Maillé, Marquis of Brézé, and a Spanish fleet commanded by Miguel de Noronha, 4th Count of Linhares sent to break the blockade of Orbetello and relieve the town, besieged since 12 May by a French army under the command of Prince Thomas of Savoy. The Battle of Orbetello was tactically very unusual, since it was fought by sailing ships towed by galleys in a light breeze.
Events from the year 1545 in France.
Jesus of Lübeck was a carrack built in the Free City of Lübeck in the early 16th century.
The official history of the Royal Navy began with the establishment of the Navy Royal by Henry VIII in 1546. The modern incarnation of the institution re-emerged as the national naval force of the Kingdom of England in 1660, following the Restoration of King Charles II to the throne. However, for more than a thousand years before that there had been English naval forces varying in type and organisation. In 1707 it became the naval force of the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Union between England and Scotland which merged the English navy with the much smaller Royal Scots Navy, although the two had begun operating together from the time of the Union of the Crowns in 1603.
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