Free A Journey Through Tudor England by Suzannah Lipscomb

and the lead casing burst, leaking putrefied matter onto the floor, and stray dogs wandered in to lick up the fluids. It may be true — after two weeks, his decomposed body would have been swollen and could theoretically have exploded — but this rumour also circulated after the deaths of William the Conqueror, Pope Alexander VI and Elizabeth I.

    Other Tudor treasures to see at Windsor Castle: the quire aisle chantries have notable fifteenth-century panel paintings. In the State Apartments of the castle, look out for paintings by sixteenth-century artists including Pieter Brueghel and Lucas Cranach, and portraits of Henry VIII (by Joos van Cleve), Mary I (by Antonis Mor), Edward VI and Elizabeth I as a girl (by William Scrots). In the Lantern Lobby, you can see Henry VIII’s stout 1540 field and tilt armour, made at Greenwich. Look carefully to see the fine engraving and note the space for a codpiece. (German tourists standing behind me when I visited remarked, ‘ Das ist nicht von Weight Watchers. ’)

‘The Great Harry sailed as well as any ship that was in the fleet, and rather better, and weathered them all save the Mary Rose. And if she go by the wind, I assure your grace, there will be a hard choice between the Mary Rose and her.’
    Letter from royal servant William Fitzwilliam to Henry VIII, comparing the flagship Great Harry to the Mary Rose
    I n 1982, the world watched as the hulk of the Mary Rose was lifted, in the world’s largest underwater excavation, from the seabed 437 years after she sank in the Solent during an encounter with an invading French fleet on 19 July 1545. Buried in the silt, the Mary Rose proved to be an invaluable time capsule of over 1,000 preserved artefacts that now give insight into the lives of the ordinary soldiers and sailors on board. Her surviving starboard side, which will be housed from autumn 2012 in a brand new museum in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard, also reminds us that she was an English flagship, a symbol and example of Henry VIII’s innovative standing navy. It is for this reason that Henry VIII isconsidered the founding father of the Royal Navy, whose later rule of the waves was a key factor in establishing Britain’s global empire. The Mary Rose is also testament to Henry’s great desire for martial glory.
    The Mary Rose was built between 1509 and 1511, and was one of two ships that Henry ordered at the very start of his reign, signalling the new King’s intentions with regards to naval warfare and to defeating the French, England’s traditional enemy. Although Henry VIII had only inherited a small number of ships (between five and seven) from his father, when he died he left a navy of 57 ships of the 106 that had served during his reign.
    There are two myths about the Mary Rose: the first is that she sunk on her maiden voyage, and the second is that she was named after Henry VIII’s younger sister [see S T M ARY ’ S , B URY S T E DMUNDS ]. The first is an injustice, simple to disprove: Henry’s Mary Rose put in thirty-four years of active service after she was launched in 1511, while the clue to the real origins of her name can be found in the fact that the Mary Rose was built at the same time as the ship Peter Pomegranate . The rose and the pomegranate were the emblems of Henry and his new wife, Katherine of Aragon; the names Peter and Mary are likely to have been allusions to the saints, especially as Henry’s visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in January 1511 shows his allegiance to the Virgin Mary at this time.
    The Mary Rose , built from elm and oak, was a carrack: a four-masted ship with a high forecastle and aftercastle and a low waist, which meant she was excellent for hand-to-hand fighting alongside an enemy vessel. Besides her surviving hulk, we have a good idea of what she looked like in her prime because she is included in a set of depictions known as the Cowdray Engravings, which was the roll of Henry’s fleet made by Anthony