title: Mary Rose

text: The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies, and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the "Mary Rose" and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. The remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard since the mid-1980s while undergoing restoration. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the Mary Rose Museum, built to display the remains of the ship and its artefacts.


title: Mary Rose

text: "Mary Rose" was one of the largest ships in the English navy through more than three decades of intermittent war, and she was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was armed with new types of heavy guns that could fire through the recently invented gun-ports. She was substantially rebuilt in 1536 and was also one of the earliest ships that could fire a broadside, although the line of battle tactics had not yet been developed. Several theories have sought to explain the demise of the "Mary Rose", based on historical records, knowledge of 16th-century shipbuilding, and modern experiments. The precise cause of her sinking is subject to conflicting testimonies and a lack of conclusive evidence.


title: Mary Rose

text: In the late 15th century, England was still reeling from its dynastic wars first with France and then among its ruling families back on home soil. The great victories against France in the Hundred Years' War were in the past; only the small enclave of Calais in northern France remained of the vast continental holdings of the English kings. The War of the Rosesthe civil war between the houses of York and Lancasterhad ended with Henry VII's establishment of the House of Tudor, the new ruling dynasty of England. The ambitious naval policies of Henry V were not continued by his successors, and from 1422 to 1509 only six ships were built for the crown. The marriage alliance between Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII of France in 1491, and his successor Louis XII in 1499, left England with a weakened strategic position on its southern flank. Despite this, Henry VII managed to maintain a comparatively long period of peace and a small but powerful core of a navy.


title: Mary Rose

text: At the onset of the early modern period, the great European powers were France, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. All three became involved in the War of the League of Cambrai in 1508. The conflict was initially aimed at the Republic of Venice but eventually turned against France. Through the Spanish possessions in the Low Countries, England had close economic ties with the Spanish Habsburgs, and it was the young Henry VIII's ambition to repeat the glorious martial endeavours of his predecessors. In 1509, six weeks into his reign, Henry married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon and joined the League, intent on certifying his historical claim as king of both England and France. By 1511 Henry was part of an anti-French alliance that included Ferdinand II of Aragon, Pope Julius II and Holy Roman emperor Maximilian.


title: Mary Rose

text: The small navy that Henry VIII inherited from his father had only two sizeable ships, the carracks "Regent" and "Sovereign". Just months after his accession, two large ships were ordered: the "Mary Rose" and the "Peter Pomegranate" (later known as "Peter" after being rebuilt in 1536) of about 500 and 450 tons respectively. Which king ordered the building of the "Mary Rose" is unclear; although construction began during Henry VIII's reign, the plans for naval expansion could have been in the making earlier. Henry VIII oversaw the project and he ordered additional large ships to be built, most notably the "Henry Grace à Dieu" ("Henry by the Grace of God"), or "Great Harry" at more than 1000 tons burthen. By the 1520s the English state had established a "de facto" permanent "Navy Royal", the organizational ancestor of the modern Royal Navy.


title: Mary Rose

text: Construction of "Mary Rose" began on 29 January 1510 in Portsmouth and she was launched in July 1511. She was then towed to London and fitted with rigging and decking, and supplied with armaments. Other than the structural details needed to sail, stock and arm the "Mary Rose", she was also equipped with flags, banners and streamers (extremely elongated flags that were flown from the top of the masts) that were either painted or gilded.


title: Mary Rose

text: Constructing a warship of the size of the "Mary Rose" was a major undertaking, requiring vast quantities of high-quality material. For a state-of-the-art warship, these materials were primarily oak. The total amount of timber needed for the construction can only be roughly calculated since only about one third of the ship still exists. One estimate for the number of trees is around 600 mostly large oaks, representing about 16 hectares (40 acres) of woodland.


title: Mary Rose

text: The huge trees that had been common in Europe and the British Isles in previous centuries were by the 16th century quite rare, which meant that timbers were brought in from all over southern England. The largest timbers used in the construction were of roughly the same size as those used in the roofs of the largest cathedrals in the High Middle Ages. An unworked hull plank would have weighed over 300 kg (660 lb), and one of the main deck beams would have weighed close to three-quarters of a tonne.


title: Mary Rose

text: The common explanation for the ship's name was that it was inspired by Henry VIII's favourite sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and the rose as the emblem of the Tudors. According to the historians David Childs, David Loades and Peter Marsden, no direct evidence of naming the ship after the King's sister exists. It was far more common at the time to give ships pious Christian names, a long-standing tradition in Western Europe, or to associate them with their royal patrons. Names like "Grace Dieu" (Hallelujah) and "Holighost" (Holy Spirit) had been common since the 15th century and other Tudor navy ships had names like the "Regent" and "Three Ostrich Feathers" (referring to the crest of the Prince of Wales).


title: Mary Rose

text: The Virgin Mary is a more likely candidate for a namesake, and she was also associated with the Rosa Mystica (mystic rose). The name of the sister ship of the "Mary Rose", the "Peter Pomegranate", is believed to have been named in honour of Saint Peter, and the badge of the Queen Catharine of Aragon, a pomegranate. According to Childs, Loades and Marsden, the two ships, which were built around the same time, were named in honour of the king and queen, respectively.


title: Mary Rose

text: The "Mary Rose" was substantially rebuilt in 1536. The 1536 rebuilding turned a ship of 500 tons into one of 700 tons, and added an entire extra tier of broadside guns to the old carrack-style structure. By consequence, modern research is based mostly on interpretations of the concrete physical evidence of this version of the "Mary Rose". The construction of the original design from 1509 is less known.


title: Mary Rose

text: The "Mary Rose" was built according to the carrack-style with high "castles" fore and aft with a low waist of open decking in the middle. The hull has what is called a tumblehome shape, which reflects the ship's use as a platform for heavy guns: above the waterline, the hull gradually narrows to center the weight of the higher guns, and to make boarding more difficult. Since only part of the hull has survived, it is not possible to determine many of the basic dimensions with any great accuracy. The moulded breadth, the widest point of the ship roughly above the waterline, was about 12 metres (39 ft) and the keel about 32 metres (105 ft), although the ship's overall length is uncertain.


title: Mary Rose

text: The hull had four levels separated by three decks. Because the terminology for these was not yet standardised in the 16th century, the terms used here are those that were applied by the Mary Rose Trust. The "hold" lay furthest down in the ship, right above the bottom planking and below the waterline. This is where the galley was situated and the food was cooked. Directly aft of the galley was the mast step, a rebate in the centre-most timber of the keelson, right above the keel, which supported the main mast, and next to it the main bilge pump. To increase the stability of the ship, the hold was where the ballast was placed and much of the supplies were kept. Right above the hold was the "orlop", the lowest deck. Like the hold, it was partitioned and was also used as a storage area for everything from food to spare sails.


title: Mary Rose

text: Above the orlop lay the "main deck", which housed the heaviest guns. The side of the hull on the main deck level had seven gunports on each side fitted with heavy lids that would have been watertight when closed. This was also the highest deck that was caulked and waterproof. Along the sides of the main deck there were cabins under the forecastle and aftercastle which have been identified as belonging to the carpenter, barber-surgeon, pilot and possibly also the master gunner and some of the officers.


title: Mary Rose

text: The top deck in the hull structure was the "upper deck" (or weather deck) which was exposed to the elements in the waist. It was a dedicated fighting deck without any known partitions and a mix of heavy and light guns. Over the open waist, the upper deck was entirely covered with a boarding net, a coarse netting that served as a defence measure against boarding. Though very little of the upper deck has survived, it has been suggested that it housed the main living quarters of the crew underneath the aftercastle. A drain located in this area has been identified as a possible "piss-dale", a general urinal to complement the regular toilets which would probably have been located in the bow.


title: Mary Rose

text: The castles of the "Mary Rose" had additional decks, but since almost nothing of them survives, their design has had to be reconstructed from historical records. Contemporary ships of equal size were consistently listed as having three decks in both castles. Although speculative, this layout is supported by the illustration in the Anthony Roll and the gun inventories.


title: Mary Rose

text: During the early stages of excavation of the wreck, it was believed that the ship had originally been built with clinker (or clench) planking, a technique in which the hull consisted of overlapping planks that bore the structural strength of the ship. Cutting gunports into a clinker-built hull would have meant weakening the ship's structural integrity, and it was assumed that she was later rebuilt to accommodate a hull with carvel edge-to-edge planking with a skeletal structure to support a hull perforated with gunports. Later examination indicates that the clinker planking is not present throughout the ship; only the outer structure of the sterncastle is built with overlapping planking, though not with a true clinker technique.


title: Mary Rose

text: Although only the lower fittings of the rigging survive, a 1514 inventory and the only known contemporary depiction of the ship from the Anthony Roll have been used to determine how the propulsion system of the "Mary Rose" was designed. Nine, or possibly ten, sails were flown from four masts and a bowsprit: the foremast had two square sails and the mainmast three; the mizzen mast had a lateen sail and a small square sail; the bonaventure mizzen had at least one lateen sail and possibly also a square sail; and the bowsprit flew a small square spritsail. According to the Anthony Roll illustration (see top of this section), the yards (the spars from which the sails were set) on the foremast and mainmast were also equipped with sheerhooks – twin curved blades sharpened on the inside – that were intended to cut an enemy ship's rigging during boarding actions.


title: Mary Rose

text: The sailing capabilities of the "Mary Rose" were commented on by her contemporaries and were once even put to the test. In March 1513 a contest was arranged off The Downs, west of Kent, in which she raced against nine other ships. She won the contest, and Admiral Edward Howard described her enthusiastically as "the noblest ship of sayle [of any] gret ship, at this howr, that I trow [believe] be in Cristendom". Several years later, while sailing between Dover and The Downs, Vice-Admiral William Fitzwilliam noted that both the "Henry Grace à Dieu" and the "Mary Rose" performed very well, riding steadily in rough seas and that it would have been a "hard chose" between the two. Modern experts have been more sceptical of her sailing qualities, believing that ships at this time were almost incapable of sailing close to the wind, and describing the handling of the "Mary Rose" as being like "a wet haystack".


title: Mary Rose

text: The "Mary Rose" represented a transitional ship design in naval warfare. Since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much as on land: with melee weapons and bows and arrows, only on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it only slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to take more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship, closer to the water line. Gunports cut in the hull of ships had been introduced as early as 1501, only about a decade before the "Mary Rose" was built.


title: Mary Rose

text: This made broadsides – coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship – possible, at least in theory, for the first time in history. Naval tactics throughout the 16th century and well into the 17th century focused on countering the oar-powered galleys that were armed with heavy guns in the bow, facing forwards, which were aimed by turning the entire ship against its target. Combined with inefficient gunpowder and the difficulties inherent in firing accurately from moving platforms, this meant that boarding remained the primary tactic for decisive victory throughout the 16th century.


title: Mary Rose

text: As the "Mary Rose" was built and served during a period of rapid development of heavy artillery, her armament was a mix of old designs and innovations. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and cast bronze guns, which differed considerably in size, range and design. The large iron guns were made up of staves or bars welded into cylinders and then reinforced by shrinking iron hoops and breech loaded and equipped with simpler gun-carriages made from hollowed-out elm logs with only one pair of wheels, or without wheels entirely.


title: Mary Rose

text: The bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns. Generally, the bronze guns used cast iron shot and were more suited to penetrate hull sides while the iron guns used stone shot that would shatter on impact and leave large, jagged holes, but both could also fire a variety of ammunition intended to destroy rigging and light structure or injure enemy personnel.


title: Mary Rose

text: The majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person. The two most common are the "bases", breech-loading swivel guns, most likely placed in the castles, and "hailshot pieces", small muzzle-loaders with rectangular bores and fin-like protrusions that were used to support the guns against the railing and allow the ship structure to take the force of the recoil. Though the design is unknown, there were two "top pieces" in a 1546 inventory (finished after the sinking) which were probably similar to a base, but placed in one or more of the fighting tops.


title: Mary Rose

text: The ship went through several changes in her armament throughout her career, most significantly accompanying her "rebuilding" in 1536 (see below), when the number of anti-personnel guns was reduced and a second tier of carriage-mounted long guns fitted. There are three inventories that list her guns, dating to 1514, 1540 and 1546. Together with records from the armoury at the Tower of London, these show how the configuration of guns changed as gun-making technology evolved and new classifications were invented. In 1514, the armament consisted mostly of anti-personnel guns like the larger breech-loading iron "murderers" and the small "serpentines", "demi-slings" and stone guns.


title: Mary Rose

text: Only a handful of guns in the first inventory were powerful enough to hole enemy ships, and most would have been supported by the ship's structure rather than resting on carriages. The inventories of both the "Mary Rose" and the Tower had changed radically by 1540. There were now the new cast bronze "cannons", "demi-cannons", "culverins" and "sakers" and the wrought iron "port pieces" (a name that indicated they fired through ports), all of which required carriages, had longer range and were capable of doing serious damage to other ships. The analysis of the 1514 inventory combined with hints of structural changes in the ship both indicate that the gunports on the main deck were indeed a later addition.


title: Mary Rose

text: Various types of ammunition could be used for different purposes: plain spherical shot of stone or iron smashed hulls, spiked bar shot and shot linked with chains would tear sails or damage rigging, and canister shot packed with sharp flints produced a devastating shotgun effect. Trials made with replicas of culverins and port pieces showed that they could penetrate wood the same thickness of the "Mary Rose's" hull planking, indicating a stand-off range of at least 90 m (295 ft). The port pieces proved particularly efficient at smashing large holes in wood when firing stone shot and were a devastating anti-personnel weapon when loaded with flakes or pebbles.


title: Mary Rose

text: To defend against being boarded, "Mary Rose" carried large stocks of melee weapons, including pikes and bills; 150 of each kind were stocked on the ship according to the Anthony Roll, a figure confirmed roughly by the excavations. Swords and daggers were personal possessions and not listed in the inventories, but the remains of both have been found in great quantities, including the earliest dated example of a British basket-hilted sword.


title: Mary Rose

text: A total of 250 longbows were carried on board, and 172 of these have so far been found, as well as almost 4,000 arrows, bracers (arm guards) and other archery-related equipment. Longbow archery in Tudor England was mandatory for all able adult men, and despite the introduction of field artillery and handguns, they were used alongside new missile weapons in great quantities. On the "Mary Rose", the longbows could only have been drawn and shot properly from behind protective panels in the open waist or from the top of the castles as the lower decks lacked sufficient headroom. There were several types of bows of various size and range. Lighter bows would have been used as "sniper" bows, while the heavier design could possibly have been used to shoot fire arrows.


title: Mary Rose

text: The inventories of both 1514 and 1546 also list several hundred heavy darts and lime pots that were designed to be thrown onto the deck of enemy ships from the fighting tops, although no physical evidence of either of these weapon types has been identified. Of the 50 handguns listed in the Anthony Roll, the complete stocks of five matchlock muskets and fragments of another eleven have been found. They had been manufactured mainly in Italy, with some originating from Germany. Found in storage were several "gunshields", a rare type of firearm consisting of a wooden shield with a small gun fixed in the middle.


title: Mary Rose

text: Throughout her 33-year career, the crew of the "Mary Rose" changed several times and varied considerably in size. It would have a minimal skeleton crew of 17 men or fewer in peacetime and when she was "laid up in ordinary" (in reserve). The average wartime manning would have been about 185 soldiers, 200 sailors, 20–30 gunners and an assortment of other specialists such as surgeons, trumpeters and members of the admiral's staff, for a total of 400–450 men. When taking part in land invasions or raids, such as in the summer of 1512, the number of soldiers could have swelled to just over 400 for a combined total of more than 700. Even with the normal crew size of around 400, the ship was quite crowded, and with additional soldiers would have been extremely cramped.


title: Mary Rose

text: Little is known of the identities of the men who served on the "Mary Rose", even when it comes to the names of the officers, who would have belonged to the gentry. Two admirals and four captains (including Edward and Thomas Howard, who served both positions) are known through records, as well as a few ship masters, pursers, master gunners and other specialists. Forensic science has been used by artists to create reconstructions of faces of eight crew members, and the results were publicised in May 2013. In addition, researchers have extracted DNA from remains in the hopes of identifying origins of crew, and potentially living descendants.


title: Mary Rose

text: Of the vast majority of the crewmen, soldiers, sailors and gunners alike, nothing has been recorded. The only source of information for these men has been through osteological analysis of the human bones found at the wrecksite. An approximate composition of some of the crew has been conjectured based on contemporary records. The "Mary Rose" would have carried a captain, a master responsible for navigation, and deck crew. There would also have been a purser responsible for handling payments, a boatswain, the captain's second in command, at least one carpenter, a pilot in charge of navigation, and a cook, all of whom had one or more assistants (mates). The ship was also staffed by a barber-surgeon who tended to the sick and wounded, along with an apprentice or mate and possibly also a junior surgeon. The only positively identified person who went down with the ship was Vice-Admiral George Carew. McKee, Stirland and several other authors have also named Roger Grenville, father of Richard Grenville of the Elizabethan-era "Revenge", captain during the final battle, although the accuracy of the sourcing for this has been disputed by maritime archaeologist Peter Marsden.


title: Mary Rose

text: The bones of a total of 179 people were found during the excavations of the "Mary Rose", including 92 "fairly complete skeletons", more or less complete collections of bones associated with specific individuals. Analysis of these has shown that crew members were all male, most of them young adults. Some were no more than 11–13 years old, and the majority (81%) under 30. They were mainly of English origin and, according to archaeologist Julie Gardiner, they most likely came from the West Country; many following their aristocratic masters into maritime service. There were also a few people from continental Europe. An eyewitness testimony right after the sinking refers to a survivor who was a Fleming, and the pilot may very well have been French. Analysis of oxygen isotopes in teeth indicates that some were also of southern European origin. At least one crewmember was of African ancestry. In general they were strong, well-fed men, but many of the bones also reveal tell-tale signs of childhood diseases and a life of grinding toil. The bones also showed traces of numerous healed fractures, probably the result of on-board accidents.


title: Mary Rose

text: There are no extant written records of the make-up of the broader categories of soldiers and sailors, but since the "Mary Rose" carried some 300 longbows and several thousand arrows there had to be a considerable proportion of longbow archers. Examination of the skeletal remains has found that there was a disproportionate number of men with a condition known as "os acromiale", affecting their shoulder blades. This condition is known among modern elite archery athletes and is caused by placing considerable stress on the arm and shoulder muscles, particularly of the left arm that is used to hold the bow to brace against the pull on the bowstring. Among the men who died on the ship it was likely that some had practised using the longbow since childhood, and served on board as specialist archers.


title: Mary Rose

text: A group of six skeletons was found grouped close to one of the 2-tonne bronze culverins on the main deck near the bow. Fusing of parts of the spine and ossification, the growth of new bone, on several vertebrae evidenced all but one of these crewmen to have been strong, well-muscled men who had been engaged in heavy pulling and pushing, the exception possibly being a "powder monkey" not involved in heavy work. These have been tentatively classified as members of a complete gun crew, all having died at their battle station.


title: Mary Rose

text: The "Mary Rose" first saw battle in 1512, in a joint naval operation with the Spanish against the French. The English were to meet the French and Breton fleets in the English Channel while the Spanish attacked them in the Bay of Biscay and then attacked Gascony. The 35-year-old Sir Edward Howard was appointed Lord High Admiral in April and chose the "Mary Rose" as his flagship. His first mission was to clear the seas of French naval forces between England to the northern coast of Spain to allow for the landing of supporting troops near the French border at Fuenterrabia. The fleet consisted of 18 ships, among them the large ships the "Regent" and the "Peter Pomegranate", carrying over 5,000 men. Howard's expedition led to the capture of twelve Breton ships and a four-day raiding tour of Brittany where English forces successfully fought against local forces and burned numerous settlements.


title: Mary Rose

text: The fleet returned to Southampton in June where it was visited by King Henry. In August the fleet sailed for Brest where it encountered a joint, but ill-coordinated, French-Breton fleet at the battle of St. Mathieu. The English with one of the great ships in the lead (according to Marsden the "Mary Rose") battered the French ships with heavy gunfire and forced them to retreat. The Breton flagship "Cordelière" put up a fight and was boarded by the 1,000-ton "Regent". By accident or through the unwillingness of the Breton crew to surrender, the powder magazine of the "Cordelière" caught fire and blew up in a violent explosion, setting fire to the "Regent" and eventually sinking her. About 180 English crew members saved themselves by throwing themselves into the sea; a handful of Bretons survived, only to be captured. The captain of the "Regent", 600 soldiers and sailors, the High Admiral of France and the steward of the town of Morlaix were killed in the incident, making it the focal point of several contemporary chronicles and reports. On , the English burnt 27 French ships, captured another five and landed forces near Brest to raid and take prisoners, but storms forced the fleet back to Dartmouth in Devon and then to Southampton for repairs.


title: Mary Rose

text: In early 1513, the "Mary Rose" was once more chosen by Howard as the flagship for an expedition against the French. Before seeing action, she took part in a race against other ships where she was deemed to be one of the most nimble and the fastest of the great ships in the fleet (see details under "Sails and rigging"). On , Howard's force arrived off Brest only to see a small enemy force join with the larger force in the safety of Brest harbour and its fortifications. The French had recently been reinforced by a force of galleys from the Mediterranean, which sank one English ship and seriously damaged another. Howard landed forces near Brest, but made no headway against the town and was by now getting low on supplies. Attempting to force a victory, he took a small force of small oared vessels on a daring frontal attack on the French galleys on . Howard himself managed to reach the ship of French admiral, Prégent de Bidoux, and led a small party to board it. The French fought back fiercely and cut the cables that attached the two ships, separating Howard from his men. It left him at the mercy of the soldiers aboard the galley, who instantly killed him.


title: Mary Rose

text: Demoralised by the loss of its admiral and seriously short of food, the fleet returned to Plymouth. Thomas Howard, elder brother of Edward, was assigned the new Lord Admiral, and was set to the task of arranging another attack on Brittany. The fleet was not able to mount the planned attack because of adverse winds and great difficulties in supplying the ships adequately and the "Mary Rose" took up winter quarters in Southampton. In August the Scots joined France in war against England, but were dealt a crushing defeat at the Battle of Flodden on 1513. A follow-up attack in early 1514 was supported by a naval force that included the "Mary Rose", but without any known engagements. The French and English mounted raids on each other throughout that summer, but achieved little, and both sides were by then exhausted. By autumn the war was over and a peace treaty was sealed by the marriage of Henry's sister, Mary, to French king Louis XII.


title: Mary Rose

text: After the peace "Mary Rose" was placed in the reserves, "in ordinary". She was laid up for maintenance along with her sister ship the "Peter Pomegranate" in July 1514. In 1518 she received a routine repair and caulking, waterproofing with tar and oakum (old rope fibres) and was then assigned a small skeleton crew who lived on board the ship until 1522. She served briefly on a mission with other warships to "scour the seas" in preparation for Henry VIII's journey across the Channel to the summit with the French king Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520.


title: Mary Rose

text: In 1522, England was once again at war with France because of a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The plan was for an attack on two fronts with an English thrust in northern France. The "Mary Rose" participated in the escort transport of troops in June 1522, and by the Breton port of Morlaix was captured. The fleet sailed home and the "Mary Rose" berthed for the winter in Dartmouth. The war raged on until 1525 and saw the Scots join the French side. Though Charles Brandon came close to capturing Paris in 1523, there was little gained either against France or Scotland throughout the war. With the defeat of the French army and capture of Francis I by Charles V's forces at the Battle of Pavia on 1525, the war was effectively over without any major gains or major victories for the English side.


title: Mary Rose

text: The "Mary Rose" was kept in reserve from 1522 to 1545. She was once more caulked and repaired in 1527 in a newly dug dock at Portsmouth and her longboat was repaired and trimmed. Little documentation about the "Mary Rose" between 1528 and 1539 exists. A document written by Thomas Cromwell in 1536 specifies that the "Mary Rose" and six other ships were "made new" during his service under the king, though it is unclear which years he was referring to and what "made new" actually meant. A later document from January 1536 by an anonymous author states that the "Mary Rose" and other ships were "new made", and dating of timbers from the ship confirms some type of repair being done in 1535 or 1536. This would have coincided with the controversial dissolution of the monasteries that resulted in a major influx of funds into the royal treasury. The nature and extent of this repair is unknown. Many experts, including Margaret Rule, the project leader for the raising of the "Mary Rose", have assumed that it meant a complete rebuilding from clinker planking to carvel planking, and that it was only after 1536 that the ship took on the form that it had when it sank and that was eventually recovered in the 20th century. Marsden has speculated that it could even mean that the "Mary Rose" was originally built in a style that was closer to 15th-century ships, with a rounded, rather than square, stern and without the main deck gunports.


title: Mary Rose

text: Henry's complicated marital situation and his high-handed dissolution of the monasteries angered the Pope and Catholic rulers throughout Europe, which increased England's diplomatic isolation. In 1544 Henry had agreed to attack France together with Emperor Charles V, and English forces captured Boulogne at great cost in September, but soon England was left in the lurch after Charles had achieved his objectives and brokered a separate peace.


title: Mary Rose

text: In May 1545, the French had assembled a large fleet in the estuary of the Seine with the intent to land troops on English soil. The estimates of the size of the fleet varied considerably; between 123 and 300 vessels according to French sources; and up to 226 sailing ships and galleys according to the chronicler Edward Hall. In addition to the massive fleet, 50,000 troops were assembled at Havre de Grâce (modern-day Le Havre). An English force of 160 ships and 12,000 troops under Viscount Lisle was ready at Portsmouth by early June, before the French were ready to set sail, and an ineffective pre-emptive strike was made in the middle of the month. In early July the huge French force under the command of Admiral Claude d'Annebault set sail for England and entered the Solent unopposed with 128 ships on . The English had around 80 ships with which to oppose the French, including the flagship "Mary Rose". But since they had virtually no heavy galleys, the vessels that were at their best in sheltered waters like the Solent, the English fleet promptly retreated into Portsmouth harbour.


title: Mary Rose

text: The English were becalmed in port and unable to manoeuvre. On 1545, the French galleys advanced on the immobilised English fleet, and initially threatened to destroy a force of 13 small galleys, or "rowbarges", the only ships that were able to move against them without a wind. The wind picked up and the sailing ships were able to go on the offensive before the oared vessels were overwhelmed. Two of the largest ships, the "Henry Grace à Dieu" and the "Mary Rose", led the attack on the French galleys in the Solent.


title: Mary Rose

text: Early in the battle something went wrong. While engaging the French galleys the "Mary Rose" suddenly heeled (leaned) heavily over to her starboard (right) side and water rushed in through the open gunports. The crew was powerless to correct the sudden imbalance, and could only scramble for the safety of the upper deck as the ship began to sink rapidly. As she leaned over, equipment, ammunition, supplies and storage containers shifted and came loose, adding to the general chaos. The massive port side brick oven in the galley collapsed completely and the huge 360-litre (90 gallon) copper cauldron was thrown onto the orlop deck above. Heavy guns came free and slammed into the opposite side, impeding escape or crushing men beneath them.


title: Mary Rose

text: For those who were not injured or killed outright by moving objects, there was little time to reach safety, especially for the men who were manning the guns on the main deck or fetching ammunition and supplies in the hold. The companionways that connected the decks with one another would have become bottlenecks for fleeing men, something indicated by the positioning of many of the skeletons recovered from the wreck. What turned the sinking into a major tragedy was the anti-boarding netting that covered the upper decks in the waist (the midsection of the ship) and the sterncastle. With the exception of the men who were stationed in the tops in the masts, most of those who managed to get up from below deck were trapped under the netting; they would have been in view of the surface, and their colleagues above, but with little or no chance to break through, and were dragged down with the ship. Out of a crew of at least 400, fewer than 35 escaped, a casualty rate of over 90%.


title: Mary Rose

text: Many accounts of the sinking have been preserved, but the only confirmed eyewitness account is the testimony of a surviving Flemish crewman written down by the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador François van der Delft in a letter dated . According to the unnamed Fleming, the ship had fired all of its guns on one side and was turning to present the guns on the other side to the enemy ship, when she was caught in a strong gust of wind, heeled and took in water through the open gunports. In a letter to William Paget dated , former Lord High Admiral John Russel claimed that the ship had been lost because of "rechenes and great negligence". Three years after the sinking, the "Hall's Chronicle" gave the reason for the sinking as being caused by "to[o] much foly ... for she was laden with much ordinaunce, and the portes left open, which were low, & the great ordinaunce unbreached, so that when the ship should turne, the water entered, and sodainly she sanke."


title: Mary Rose

text: Later accounts repeat the explanation that the ship heeled over while going about and that the ship was brought down because of the open gunports. A biography of Peter Carew, brother of George Carew, written by John Hooker sometime after 1575, gives the same reason for the sinking, but adds that insubordination among the crew was to blame. The biography claims that George Carew noted that the "Mary Rose" showed signs of instability as soon as her sails were raised. George's uncle Gawen Carew had passed by with his own ship the "Matthew Gonson" during the battle to inquire about the situation of his nephew's ship. In reply he was told "that he had a sorte of knaves whom he could not rule". Contrary to all other accounts, Martin du Bellay, a French cavalry officer who was present at the battle, stated that the "Mary Rose" had been sunk by French guns.


title: Mary Rose

text: The most common explanation for the sinking among modern historians is that the ship was unstable for a number of reasons. When a strong gust of wind hit the sails at a critical moment, the open gunports proved fatal, the ship flooded and quickly foundered. Coates offered a variant of this hypothesis, which explains why a ship which served for several decades without sinking, and which even fought in actions in the rough seas off Brittany, unexpectedly foundered: the ship had accumulated additional weight over the years in service and finally become unseaworthy. That the ship was turning after firing all the cannons on one side has been questioned by Marsden after examination of guns recovered in both the 19th and 20th centuries; guns from both sides were found still loaded. This has been interpreted to mean that something else could have gone wrong since it is assumed that an experienced crew would not have failed to secure the gunports before making a potentially risky turn.


title: Mary Rose

text: The most recent surveys of the ship indicate that the ship was modified late in her career and have lent support to the idea that the "Mary Rose" was altered too much to be properly seaworthy. Marsden has suggested that the weight of additional heavy guns would have increased her draught so much that the waterline was less than one metre (c. 3 feet) from the gunports on the main deck.


title: Mary Rose

text: Peter Carew's claim of insubordination has been given support by James Watt, former Medical Director-General of the Royal Navy, based on records of an epidemic of dysentery in Portsmouth which could have rendered the crew incapable of handling the ship properly, while historian Richard Barker has suggested that the crew actually knew that the ship was an accident waiting to happen, at which they balked and refused to follow orders. Marsden has noted that the Carew biography is in some details inconsistent with the sequence of events reported by both French and English eyewitnesses. It also reports that there were 700 men on board, an unusually high number. The distance in time to the event it describes may mean that it was embellished to add a dramatic touch. The report of French galleys sinking the "Mary Rose" as stated by Martin du Bellay has been described as "the account of a courtesan" by naval historian Maurice de Brossard. Du Bellay and his two brothers were close to king Francis I and du Bellay had much to gain from portraying the sinking as a French victory. English sources, even if biased, would have nothing to gain from portraying the sinking as the result of crew incompetence rather than conceding a victory to the much-feared gun galleys.


title: Mary Rose

text: Dominic Fontana, a geographer at the University of Portsmouth, has voiced support for du Bellay's version of the sinking based on the battle as it is depicted in the Cowdray Engraving, and modern GIS analysis of the modern scene of the battle. By plotting the fleets and calculating the conjectured final manoeuvres of the "Mary Rose", Fontana reached the conclusion that the ship had been hit low in the hull by the galleys and was destabilised after taking in water. He has interpreted the final heading of the ship straight due north as a failed attempt to reach the shallows at Spitbank only a few hundred metres away. This theory has been given partial support by Alexzandra Hildred, one of the experts who has worked with the "Mary Rose", though she has suggested that the close proximity to Spitbank could also indicate that the sinking occurred while trying to make a hard turn to avoid running aground.


title: Mary Rose

text: In 2000, the Channel 4 television programme "What Sank the Mary Rose?" attempted to investigate the causes suggested for her sinking by means of experiments with scale models of the ship and metal weights to simulate the presence of troops on the upper decks. Initial tests showed that the ship was able to make the turn described by eyewitnesses without capsizing. In later tests, a fan was used to create a breeze similar to the one reported to have suddenly sprung up on the day of the sinking as the "Mary Rose" went to make the turn. As the model made the turn, the breeze in the upper works forced it to heel more than at calm, forcing the main deck gun ports below the waterline and foundering the model within a few seconds. The sequence of events closely followed what eyewitnesses had reported, particularly the suddenness with which the ship sank.


title: Mary Rose

text: A salvage attempt was ordered by Secretary of State William Paget only days after the sinking, and Charles Brandon, the king's brother-in-law, took charge of practical details. The operation followed the standard procedure for raising ships in shallow waters: strong cables were attached to the sunken ship and fastened to two empty ships, or hulks. At low tide, the ropes were pulled taut with capstans. When the high tide came in, the hulks rose and with them the wreck. It would then be towed into shallower water and the procedure repeated until the whole ship could be raised completely.


title: Mary Rose

text: A list of necessary equipment was compiled by 1 August and included, among other things, massive cables, capstans, pulleys, and 40 pounds of tallow for lubrication. The proposed salvage team comprised 30 Venetian mariners and a Venetian carpenter with 60 English sailors to serve them. The two ships to be used as hulks were "Jesus of Lübeck" and "Samson", each of 700 tons burthen and similar in size to the "Mary Rose". Brandon was so confident of success that he reassured the king that it would only be a matter of days before they could raise the "Mary Rose". The optimism proved unfounded. Since the ship had settled at a 60-degree angle to starboard much of it was stuck deep into the clay of the seabed. This made it virtually impossible to pass cables under the hull and required far more lifting power than if the ship had settled on a hard seabed. An attempt to secure cables to the main mast appears only to have resulted in its being snapped off.


title: Mary Rose

text: The project was successful only in raising rigging, some guns and other items. At least two other salvage teams in 1547 and 1549 received payment for raising more guns from the wreck. Despite the failure of the first salvage operation, there was still lingering belief in the possibility of retrieving the "Mary Rose" at least until 1546, when she was presented as part of the illustrated list of English warships called the Anthony Roll. When all hope of raising the complete ship was finally abandoned is not known. It could have been after Henry VIII's death in January 1547 or even as late as 1549, when the last guns were brought up. The "Mary Rose" was remembered well into the reign of Elizabeth I, and according to one of the queen's admirals, William Monson (1569–1643), the wreck was visible from the surface at low tide in the late 16th century.


title: Mary Rose

text: After the sinking, the partially buried wreck created a barrier at a right angle against the currents of the Solent. Two scour pits, large underwater ditches, formed on either side of the wreck while silt and seaweed was deposited inside the ship. A deep but narrow pit formed on the upward tilting port side, while a shallower, broader pit formed on the starboard side, which had been mostly buried by the force of the impact. The abrasive actions of sand and silt carried by the currents and the activity of fungi, bacteria and wood-boring crustaceans and molluscs, such as the "teredo" "shipworm", began to break down the structure of the ship. Eventually the exposed wooden structure was weakened and gradually collapsed. The timbers and contents of the port side were either deposited in the scour pits and remaining ship structure or carried off by the currents. Following the collapse of the exposed parts of the ship, the site was levelled with the seabed and gradually covered by layers of sediment, concealing most of the remaining structure. During the 16th century, a hard layer of compacted clay and crushed shells formed over the ship, stabilising the site and sealing the Tudor-era deposits. Further layers of soft silt covered the site during the 18th and 19th centuries, but frequent changes in the tidal patterns and currents in the Solent occasionally exposed some of the timbers, leading to its accidental rediscovery in 1836 and aiding in locating the wreck in 1971. After the ship had been raised it was determined that about 40% of the original structure had survived.


title: Mary Rose

text: In mid-1836, a group of five fishermen caught their nets on timbers protruding from the bottom of the Solent. They contacted a diver to help them remove the hindrance, and on , Henry Abbinett became the first person to see the "Mary Rose" in almost 300 years. Later, two other professional divers, John Deane and William Edwards, were employed. Using a recently invented rubber suit and metal diving helmet, Deane and Edwards began to examine the wreck and salvage items from it. Along with an assortment of timbers and wooden objects, including several longbows, they brought up several bronze and iron guns, which were sold to the Board of Ordnance for over £220. Initially, this caused a dispute between Deane (who had also brought in his brother Charles into the project), Abbinett and the fishermen who had hired them. The matter was eventually settled by allowing the fishermen a share of the proceeds from the sale of the first salvaged guns, while Deane received exclusive salvage rights at the expense of Abbinett. The wreck was soon identified as the "Mary Rose" from the inscriptions of one of the bronze guns manufactured in 1537.


title: Mary Rose

text: The identification of the ship led to high public interest in the salvage operation and caused a great demand for the objects that were brought up. Though many of the objects could not be properly conserved at the time and subsequently deteriorated, many were documented with pencil sketches and watercolour drawings, which survive to this day. John Deane ceased working on the wreck in 1836, but returned in 1840 with new, more destructive methods. With the help of condemned bomb shells filled with gunpowder acquired from the Ordnance Board, he blasted his way into parts of the wreck. Fragments of bombs and traces of blasting craters were found during the modern excavations, but there was no evidence that Deane managed to penetrate the hard layer that had sealed off the Tudor levels. Deane reported retrieving a bilge pump and the lower part of the main mast, both of which would have been located inside the ship. The recovery of small wooden objects like longbows suggests that Deane did manage to penetrate the Tudor levels at some point, though this has been disputed by the excavation project leader Margaret Rule. Newspaper reports on Deane's diving operations in October 1840 report that the ship was clinker built, but since the sterncastle is the only part of the ship with this feature, an alternative explanation has been suggested: Deane did not penetrate the hard shelly layer that covered most of the ship, but managed only to get into remains of the sterncastle that today no longer exist. Despite the rough handling by Deane, the "Mary Rose" escaped the wholesale destruction by giant rakes and explosives that was the fate of other wrecks in the Solent (such as ).


title: Mary Rose

text: The modern search for the "Mary Rose" was initiated by the Southsea branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club in 1965 as part of a project to locate shipwrecks in the Solent. The project was under the leadership of historian, journalist and amateur diver Alexander McKee. Another group led by Lieutenant-Commander Alan Bax of the Royal Navy, sponsored by the Committee for Nautical Archaeology in London, also formed a search team. Initially the two teams had differing views on where to find the wreck, but eventually joined forces. In February 1966 a chart from 1841 was found that marked the positions of the "Mary Rose" and several other wrecks. The charted position coincided with a trench (one of the scour pits) that had already been located by McKee's team, and a definite location was finally established at a position 3 km (1.9 mi) south of the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour () in water with a depth of (36 feet) at low tide. Diving on the site began in 1966 and a sonar scan by Harold Edgerton in 1967–68 revealed some type of buried feature. In 1970 a loose timber was located and on 1971, the first structural details of the buried hull were identified after they were partially uncovered by winter storms.


title: Mary Rose

text: A major problem for the team from the start was that wreck sites in the UK lacked any legal protection from plunderers and treasure hunters. Sunken ships, once being moving objects, were legally treated as chattel and were awarded to those who could first raise them. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 also stipulated that any objects raised from a wreck should be auctioned off to finance the salvage operations, and there was nothing preventing anyone from "stealing" the wreck and making a profit. The problem was handled by forming an organisation, the Mary Rose Committee, aiming "to find, excavate, raise and preserve for all time such remains of the ship "Mary Rose" as may be of historical or archaeological interest".


title: Mary Rose

text: To keep intruders at bay, the Committee arranged a lease of the seabed where the wreck lay from the Portsmouth authorities, thereby discouraging anyone from trespassing on the underwater property. In hindsight this was only a legalistic charade which had little chance of holding up in a court of law. In combination with secrecy as to the exact location of the wreck, it saved the project from interference. It was not until the passing of the Protection of Wrecks Act on 1973 that the "Mary Rose" was declared to be of national historic interest that enjoyed full legal protection from any disturbance by commercial salvage teams. Despite this, years after the passing of the 1973 act and the excavation of the ship, lingering conflicts with salvage legislation remained a threat to the "Mary Rose" project as "personal" finds such as chests, clothing and cooking utensils risked being confiscated and auctioned off.


title: Mary Rose

text: Following the discovery of the wreck in 1971, the project became known to the general public and received increasing media attention. This helped bring in more donations and equipment, primarily from private sources. By 1974 the committee had representatives from the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Navy, the BBC and local organisations. In 1974 the project received royal patronage from Prince Charles, who participated in dives on the site. This attracted yet more publicity, and also more funding and assistance. The initial aims of the Mary Rose Committee were now more officially and definitely confirmed. The committee had become a registered charity in 1974, which made it easier to raise funds, and the application for excavation and raising of the ship had been officially approved by the UK government.


title: Mary Rose

text: By 1978 the initial excavation work had uncovered a complete and coherent site with an intact ship structure and the orientation of the hull had been positively identified as being on an almost straight northerly heading with a 60-degree heel to starboard and a slight downward tilt towards the bow. As no records of English shipbuilding techniques used in vessels like the "Mary Rose" survive, excavation of the ship would allow for a detailed survey of her design and shed new light on the construction of ships of the era. A full excavation also meant removing the protective layers of silt that prevented the remaining ship structure from being destroyed through biological decay and the scouring of the currents; the operation had to be completed within a predetermined timespan of a few years or it risked irreversible damage. It was also considered desirable to recover and preserve the remains of the hull if possible. For the first time, the project was faced with the practical difficulties of actually raising, conserving and preparing the hull for public display.


title: Mary Rose

text: To handle this new, considerably more complex and expensive task, it was decided that a new organisation was needed. The Mary Rose Trust, a limited charitable trust, with representatives from many organisations would handle the need for a larger operation and a large infusion of funds. In 1979 a new diving vessel was purchased to replace the previous 12 m (40 ft) catamaran "Roger Greenville" which had been used from 1971. The choice fell on the salvage vessel "Sleipner", the same craft that had been used as a platform for diving operations on the "Vasa". The project went from a team of only twelve volunteers working four months a year to over 50 individuals working almost around the clock nine months a year. In addition, there were over 500 volunteer divers and a laboratory staff of about 70 that ran the shore base and conservation facilities. During the four diving seasons from 1979 to 1982 over 22,000 diving hours were spent on the site, an effort that amounted to 11.8 man-years.


title: Mary Rose

text: Raising the "Mary Rose" meant overcoming delicate problems that had never been encountered before. The raising of the Swedish warship "Vasa" during 1959–61 was the only comparable precedent, but it had been a relatively straightforward operation since the hull was completely intact and rested upright on the seabed. It had been raised with basically the same methods as were in use in Tudor England: cables were slung under the hull and attached to two pontoons on either side of the ship which was then gradually raised and towed into shallower waters. Only one-third of the "Mary Rose" was intact and she lay deeply embedded in mud. If the hull were raised in the conventional way, there was no guarantee that it would have enough structural strength to hold together out of water. Many suggestions for raising the ship were discarded, including the construction of a cofferdam around the wreck site, filling the ship with small buoyant objects (such as ping-pong balls) or even pumping brine into the seabed and freezing it so that it would float and take the hull with it. After lengthy discussions it was decided in February 1980 that the hull would first be emptied of all its contents and strengthened with steel braces and frames. It would then be lifted to the surface with floating sheerlegs attached to nylon strops passing under the hull and transferred to a cradle. It was also decided that the ship would be recovered before the end of the diving season in 1982. If the wreck stayed uncovered any longer it risked irreversible damage from biological decay and tidal scouring.


title: Mary Rose

text: During the last year of the operation, the massive scope of full excavation and raising was beginning to take its toll on those closely involved in the project. In May 1981, Alexander McKee voiced concerns about the method chosen for raising the timbers and openly questioned Margaret Rule's position as excavation leader. McKee felt ignored in what he viewed as a project where he had always played a central role, both as the initiator of the search for the "Mary Rose" and other ships in the Solent, and as an active member throughout the diving operations. He had several supporters who all pointed to the risk of the project's turning into an embarrassing failure if the ship were damaged during raising operations. To address these concerns it was suggested that the hull should be placed on top of a supporting steel cradle underwater. This would avoid the inherent risks of damaging the wooden structure if it were lifted out of the water without appropriate support. The idea of using nylon strops was also discarded in favour of drilling holes through the hull at 170 points and passing iron bolts through them to allow the attachment of wires connected to a lifting frame.


title: Mary Rose

text: In the spring of 1982, after three intense seasons of archaeological underwater work, preparations began for raising the ship. The operation soon ran into problems: early on there were difficulties with the custom-made lifting equipment; the method of lifting the hull had to be considerably altered as late as June. After the frame was properly attached to the hull, it was slowly jacked up on four legs to pull the ship off the seabed. The massive crane of the barge "Tog Mor" then moved the frame and hull, transferring them underwater to the specially designed cradle, which was padded with water-filled bags. On the morning of 1982, the final lift of the entire package of cradle, hull and lifting frame began. It was watched by the team, Prince Charles and other spectators in boats around the site. At 9:03 am, the first timbers of the "Mary Rose" broke the surface. A second set of bags under the hull was inflated with air, to cushion the waterlogged wood. Finally, the whole package was placed on a barge and taken to the shore. Though eventually successful, the operation was close to foundering on two occasions; first when one of the supporting legs of the lifting frame was bent and had to be removed and later when a corner of the frame, with "an unforgettable crunch", slipped more than a metre (3 feet) and came close to crushing part of the hull.


title: Mary Rose

text: As one of the most ambitious and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology, the "Mary Rose" project broke new ground within this field in the UK. Besides becoming one of the first wrecks to be protected under the new Protection of Wrecks Act in 1973 it also created several new precedents. It was the first time that a British privately funded project was able to apply modern scientific standards fully and without having to auction off part of the findings to finance its activities; where previous projects often had to settle for just a partial recovery of finds, everything found in connection with the "Mary Rose" was recovered and recorded. The raising of the vessel made it possible to establish the first historic shipwreck museum in the UK to receive government accreditation and funding. The excavation of the "Mary Rose" wreck site proved that it was possible to achieve a level of exactness in underwater excavations comparable to those on dry land.


title: Mary Rose

text: Throughout the 1970s, the "Mary Rose" was meticulously surveyed, excavated and recorded with the latest methods within the field of maritime archaeology. Working in an underwater environment meant that principles of land-based archaeology did not always apply. Mechanical excavators, airlifts and suction dredges were used in the process of locating the wreck, but as soon as it began to be uncovered in earnest, more delicate techniques were employed. Many objects from the "Mary Rose" had been well preserved in form and shape, but many were quite delicate, requiring careful handling. Artefacts of all sizes were supported with soft packing material, such as old plastic ice cream containers, and some of the arrows that were "soft like cream cheese" had to be brought up in special styrofoam containers. The airlifts that sucked up clay, sand and dirt off-site or to the surface were still used, but with much greater precision since they could potentially disrupt the site. The many layers of sediment that had accumulated on the site could be used to date artefacts in which they were found, and had to be recorded properly. The various types of accretions and remnants of chemicals with artefacts were essential clues to objects that had long since broken down and disappeared, and needed to be treated with considerable care.


title: Mary Rose

text: The excavation and raising of the ship in the 1970s and early 1980s meant that diving operations ceased, even though modern scaffolding and part of the bow were left on the seabed. The pressure on conservators to treat tens of thousands of artefacts and the high costs of conserving, storing and displaying the finds and the ship meant that there were no funds available for diving. In 2002, the UK Ministry of Defence announced plans to build two new aircraft carriers. Because of the great size of the new vessels, the outlet from Portsmouth needed to be surveyed to make sure that they could sail no matter the tide. The planned route for the underwater channel ran close to the "Mary Rose" wrecksite, which meant that funding was supplied to survey and excavate the site once more. Even though the planned carriers were downsized enough to not require alteration of Portsmouth outlet, the excavations had already exposed timbers and were completed in 2005. Among the most important finds was the ten-metre (32 feet) stem, the forward continuation of the keel, which provided more exact details about the original profile of the ship.


title: Mary Rose

text: Over 26,000 artefacts and pieces of timber were raised along with remains of about half the crew members. The faces of some crew members have been reconstructed. Analysis of the crew skeletons shows many had suffered malnutrition, and had evidence of rickets, scurvy, and other deficiency diseases. Crew members also developed arthritis through the stresses on their joints from heavy lifting and maritime life generally, and suffered bone fractures.


title: Mary Rose

text: As the ship was intended to function as a floating, self-contained community, it was stocked with victuals (food and drink) that could sustain its inhabitants for extended periods of time. The casks used for storage on the "Mary Rose" have been compared with those from a wreck of a trade vessel from the 1560s and have revealed that they were of better quality, more robust and reliable, an indication that supplies for the Tudor navy were given high priority, and their requirements set a high standard for cask manufacturing at the time.


title: Mary Rose

text: As a miniature society at sea, the wreck of the "Mary Rose" held personal objects belonging to individual crew members. This included clothing, games, various items for spiritual or recreational use, and objects related to mundane everyday tasks such as personal hygiene, fishing, and sewing. The master carpenter's chest, for example, contained an early backgammon set, a book, three plates, a sundial, and a tankard, goods suggesting he was relatively wealthy.


title: Mary Rose

text: The ship carried several skilled craftsmen and was equipped for handling both routine maintenance and repairing extensive battle damage. In and around one of the cabins on the main deck under the sterncastle, archaeologists found a "collection of woodworking tools ... unprecedented in its range and size", consisting of eight chests of carpentry tools. Along with loose mallets and tar pots used for caulking, this variety of tools belonged to one or several of the carpenters employed on the "Mary Rose".


title: Mary Rose

text: Many of the cannons and other weapons from the "Mary Rose" have provided invaluable physical evidence about 16th-century weapon technology. The surviving gunshields are almost all from the "Mary Rose", and the four small cast iron hailshot pieces are the only known examples of this type of weapon.


title: Mary Rose

text: Animal remains have been found in the wreck of the "Mary Rose". These include the skeletons of a rat, a frog and a dog. The dog, an English Toy Terrier (Black & Tan), was between eighteen months and two years in age, was found near the hatch to the ship's carpenter's cabin and is presumed to have been brought aboard as a ratter. Nine barrels have been found to contain bones of cattle, indicating that they contained pieces of beef butchered and stored as ship's rations. The bones of pigs and fish, stored in baskets, have also been found.


title: Mary Rose

text: Two fiddles, a bow, a still shawm or "douçaine", three three-hole pipes, and a tabor drum with a drumstick were found throughout the wreck. These would have been used for the personal enjoyment of the crew and to provide a rhythm to work on the rigging and turning the capstans on the upper decks. The tabor drum is the earliest known example of its kind and the drumstick is of a previously unknown design. The tabor pipes are considerably longer than any known examples from the period. Their discovery proved that contemporary illustrations, previously viewed with some suspicion, were accurate depictions of the instruments. Before the discovery of the "Mary Rose" shawm, an early predecessor to the oboe, instrument historians had been puzzled by references to "still shawms", or "soft" shawms, that were said to have a sound that was less shrill than earlier shawms. The still shawm disappeared from the musical scene in the 16th century, and the instrument found on the "Mary Rose" is the only surviving example. A reproduction has been made and played. Combined with a pipe and tabor, it provides a "very effective bass part" that would have produced "rich and full sound, which would have provided excellent music for dancing on board ship". Only a few other fiddle-type instruments from the 16th century exist, but none of them of the type found on the "Mary Rose". Reproductions of both fiddles have been made, though less is known of their design than the shawm since the neck and strings were missing.


title: Mary Rose

text: In the remains of a small cabin in the bow of the ship and in a few other locations around the wreck was found the earliest dated set of navigation instruments in Europe found so far: compasses, divider calipers, a stick used for charting, protractors, sounding leads, tide calculators and a logreel, an instrument for calculating speed. Several of these objects are not only unique in having such an early, definite dating, but also because they pre-date written records of their use; protractors would have reasonably been used to measure bearings and courses on maps, but sea charts are not known to have been used by English navigators during the first half of the 16th century, compasses were not depicted on English ships until the 1560s, and the first mention of a logreel is from 1574.


title: Mary Rose

text: The cabin located on the main deck underneath the sterncastle is thought to have belonged to the barber-surgeon. He was a trained professional who saw to the health and welfare of the crew and acted as the medical expert on board. The most important of these finds were found in an intact wooden chest which contained over 60 objects relating to the barber-surgeon's medical practice: the wooden handles of a complete set of surgical tools and several shaving razors (although none of the steel blades had survived), a copper syringe for wound irrigation and treatment of gonorrhoea, and even a skilfully crafted feeding bottle for feeding incapacitated patients. More objects were found around the cabin, such as earscoops, shaving bowls and combs. With this wide selection of tools and medicaments the barber-surgeon, along with one or more assistants, could set bone fractures, perform amputations and deal with other acute injuries, treat a number of diseases and provide crew members with a minimal standard of personal hygiene.


title: Mary Rose

text: One of the first scientifically confirmed ratters was a terrier and whippet dog crossbreed who spent his short life on the Mary Rose. The dog, named Hatch by researchers, was discovered in 1981 during the underwater excavation of the ship. Hatch's main duty was to kill rats on board the ship. Based on the DNA work performed on Hatch's teeth, he was a young adult male, 18–24 months old, with a brown coat. Hatch's skeleton is on display in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.


title: Mary Rose

text: Preservation of the "Mary Rose" and her contents was an essential part of the project from the start. Though many artefacts, especially those that were buried in silt, had been preserved, the long exposure to an underwater environment had rendered most of them sensitive to exposure to air after recovery. Archaeologists and conservators had to work in tandem from the start to prevent deterioration of the artefacts. After recovery, finds were placed in so-called passive storage, which would prevent any immediate deterioration before the active conservation which would allow them to be stored in an open-air environment. Passive storage depended on the type of material that the object was made of, and could vary considerably. Smaller objects from the most common material, wood, were sealed in polyethylene bags to preserve moisture. Timbers and other objects that were too large to be wrapped were stored in unsealed water tanks. Growth of fungi and microbes that could degrade wood were controlled by various techniques, including low-temperature storage, chemicals, and in the case of large objects, common pond snails that consumed wood-degrading organisms but not the wood itself.


title: Mary Rose

text: Other organic materials such as leather, skin and textiles were treated similarly, by keeping them moist in tanks or sealed plastic containers. Bone and ivory was desalinated to prevent damage from salt crystallisation, as were glass, ceramic and stone. Iron, copper and copper alloy objects were kept moist in a sodium sesquicarbonate solution to prevent oxidisation and reaction with the chlorides that had penetrated the surface. Alloys of lead and pewter are inherently stable in the atmosphere and generally require no special treatment. Silver and gold were the only materials that required no special passive storage.


title: Mary Rose

text: Conserving the hull of the "Mary Rose" was the most complicated and expensive task for the project. In 2002 a donation of from the Heritage Lottery Fund and equivalent monetary support from the Portsmouth City and Hampshire County Councils was needed to keep the work with conservation on schedule. During passive conservation, the ship structure could for practical reasons not be completely sealed, so instead it was regularly sprayed with filtered, recycled water that was kept at a temperature of 2 to 5 °C (35 to 41 °F) to keep it from drying out. Drying waterlogged wood that has been submerged for several centuries without appropriate conservation causes considerable shrinkage (20–50%) and leads to severe warping and cracking as water evaporates from the cellular structure of the wood. The substance polyethylene glycol (PEG) had been used before on archaeological wood, and was during the 1980s being used to conserve the "Vasa". After almost ten years of small-scale trials on timbers, an active three-phase conservation programme of the hull of the "Mary Rose" began in 1994. During the first phase, which lasted from 1994 to 2003, the wood was sprayed with low-molecular-weight PEG to replace the water in the cellular structure of the wood. From 2003 to 2010, a higher-molecular-weight PEG was used to strengthen the mechanical properties of the outer surface layers. The third phase consisted of a controlled air drying ending in 2016. Researchers are planning on using magnetic nanoparticles to remove iron in the ship's wood to reduce the production of harmful sulfuric acid that is causing deterioration.


title: Mary Rose

text: The wreck site is legally protected. Under the "Protection of Wrecks Act 1973" (1973 c. 33) any interference with the site requires a licence. The site is listed as being of "historical, archaeological or artistic importance" by Historic England.


title: Mary Rose

text: After the decision to raise the "Mary Rose," discussions ensued as to where she would eventually go on permanent display. The east end of Portsea Island at Eastney emerged as an early alternative, but was rejected because of parking problems and the distance from the dockyard where she was originally built. Placing the ship next to the famous flagship of Horatio Nelson, HMS "Victory", at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard was proposed in July 1981. A group called the Maritime Preservation Society even suggested Southsea Castle, where Henry VIII had witnessed the sinking, as a final resting place and there was widespread scepticism to the dockyard location. At one point a county councillor even threatened to withdraw promised funds if the dockyard site became more than an interim solution. As costs for the project mounted, there was a debate in the Council chamber and in the local paper "The News" as to whether the money could be spent more appropriately. Although author David Childs writes that in the early 1980s "the debate was as a fiery one", the project was never seriously threatened because of the great symbolic importance of the "Mary Rose" to the naval history of both Portsmouth and England.


title: Mary Rose

text: Since the mid-1980s, the hull of the "Mary Rose" has been kept in a covered dry dock while undergoing conservation. Although the hull has been open to the public for viewing, the need for keeping the ship saturated first with water and later a polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution meant that, before 2013, visitors were separated from the hull by a glass barrier. By 2007, the specially built ship hall had been visited by over seven million visitors since it first opened on 1983, just under a year after it was successfully raised.


title: Mary Rose

text: A separate Mary Rose Museum was housed in a structure called No. 5 Boathouse near the ship hall and was opened to the public on 1984, containing displays explaining the history of the ship and a small number of conserved artefacts, from entire bronze cannons to household items. In September 2009 the temporary "Mary Rose" display hall was closed to visitors to facilitate construction of the new museum building, which opened to the public on 31 May 2013.


title: Mary Rose

text: The new Mary Rose Museum was designed by architects Wilkinson Eyre, Perkins+Will and built by construction firm Warings. The construction has been challenging because the museum has been built over the ship in the dry dock which is a listed monument. During construction of the museum, conservation of the hull continued inside a sealed "hotbox". In April 2013 the polyethylene glycol sprays were turned off and the process of controlled airdrying began. In 2016 the "hotbox" was removed and for the first time since 1545, the ship was revealed dry. This new museum displays most of the artefacts recovered from within the ship in context with the conserved hull. As of 2018, the new museum has been visited by over 1.8 million people and saw 189,702 visitors in 2019.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: Andrew Myles Cockburn ( ; born 7 January 1947) is a British journalist and the Washington, D.C., editor of "Harper's Magazine".


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: Born in the London suburb of Willesden in 1947, Cockburn grew up in County Cork, Ireland. His father was Communist author and journalist Claud Cockburn. His mother, Patricia Evangeline Anne (née Arbuthnot), was the granddaughter of British colonial administrator Henry Arthur Blake and British politician George Arbuthnot. . The Cockburns are related to Sir George Cockburn, 10th Baronet, who ordered the Burning of Washington in 1814.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: He has two brothers, Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) and Patrick Cockburn, also journalists, and two half-sisters. One sister, Sarah, was best known as the mystery writer Sarah Caudwell. The other sister, Claudia, was a disability activist and married Michael Flanders, half of the well-known performance double-act Flanders and Swann; the two children of this marriage are the journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders, Cockburn's half-nieces.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: Cockburn has written numerous books and articles, principally about national security. He has also produced numerous documentary films, principally in partnership with his wife Leslie Cockburn, as well as co-produced the 1997 thriller "The Peacemaker", starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, for DreamWorks. After an early career in British newspapers and television, he moved to the United States in 1979.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: His film "The Red Army", produced for PBS in 1981, was the first in-depth report on the serious deficiencies of Soviet military power and won a Peabody Award. In 1982, his book "The Threat – Inside the Soviet Military Machine" was published by Random House; it examined the same topic in greater depth. He subsequently published many articles on the subject of US and Soviet military power as well as lecturing at numerous military bases, foreign policy forums, and colleges and innumerable television shows. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he began covering Middle Eastern subjects, including the 1991 documentary on the after-effects of the first Gulf war, "The War We Left Behind", which he co-produced for PBS with Leslie Cockburn.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: In 1988, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn wrote, produced and directed the PBS "Frontline" documentary "Guns, Drugs and the CIA" about the CIA's role in international drug dealings.


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: In 2009 he and Leslie Cockburn produced "American Casino", a feature-length documentary on the financial crisis of 2007–2008. "New Yorker" critic David Denby called it "A terrific documentary... Everything is connected: the movie embodies chaos theory for social pessimists." Apart from his books he has written for "National Geographic", the "Los Angeles Times", the "London Review of Books", "Smithsonian", "Vanity Fair", "Harper's Magazine", "CounterPunch", "Condé Nast Traveler", "The New York Times", and the "Dungarvan Observer". He is Washington Editor of "Harper's Magazine".


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: In 2007, Cockburn wrote "Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy" (subtitled "An American Disaster" in the UK edition). In "The New York Times", reviewer Jacob Heilbrunn called it "perceptive and engrossing."


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: He wrote "21st Century Slaves" for "National Geographic", which reported on the practice of modern-day slavery. He authored "Kill Chain – The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins" (2015), which details the evolution of drone warfare, and the shift to assassination as the principal US military strategy. "Kirkus Review" called it "sharp-eyed and disturbing."


title: Andrew Cockburn

text: In 1977, he married Leslie Corkhill Redlich in San Francisco. They have three children: Chloe Frances, the actress Olivia Wilde, and Charles Philip.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Fright Night is a 2011 American supernatural horror comedy film directed by Craig Gillespie and produced by Michael De Luca and Alison Rosenzweig. A remake of Tom Holland's 1985 film, the film's screenplay was adapted by Marti Noxon. It stars Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and David Tennant. The plot follows a teenaged boy who discovers that his neighbor is actually a vampire, which culminates in a battle between the two. The film held its world premiere at The O2 in London on August 14, 2011. It was released in the United States by Touchstone Pictures on August 19, 2011, in RealD 3D.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Upon its release, "Fright Night" grossed $41 million against a production budget of $30 million. It received generally positive reviews, with many praising its humor and performances, notably Farrell.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Charley Brewster is a teenager living in a suburb of Las Vegas, Nevada, who discovers that a new neighbor has moved in next door. Charley's old best friend, Edward "Evil Ed" Lee, informs him that many students have gone missing, including their other childhood friend, Adam Johnson. When Charley goes home after school, his mother, Jane, introduces him to Jerry Dandrige, their new neighbor. Fed-up and angry with Ed after he claims that Jerry is a vampire, Charley tells him that he is crazy and that he does not want to be friends anymore.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: On his way home, Ed is confronted by Jerry, who claims that he has been watching Ed and has been aware of Ed watching him. Jerry soon chases Ed into a nearby pool and convinces him into believing that his life would be much better if he were a vampire. Ed succumbs and willingly allows Jerry to bite him. The next day, Charley realizes that Ed is missing and decides to investigate, starting to believe Ed's claims when he discovers video recordings of objects moving on their own, with Ed's voiceover revealing that he is recording Jerry to prove that his reflection does not show up in recordings. As Jerry begins to attack more people throughout the neighborhood, Charley sneaks into Jerry's house and finds out that he keeps his victims in secret rooms. Charley goes to Las Vegas magician Peter Vincent, a supposed expert on vampires. Peter, however, does not take him seriously and kicks him out.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Jerry comes to Charley's house and sets fire to it. Charley, Jane, and his girlfriend, Amy Peterson, flee through the desert in their minivan. Jerry catches up with them but is wounded by Jane with a real estate sign stake. Jane is admitted to a hospital, where Charley is summoned by Peter who recognized the sigil from Jerry's house. Upon arriving at Peter's penthouse, they are informed that the species of vampire Jerry belongs to is cannibalistic when Ed turns up. By now, Ed has been fully transformed into a vampire and he aids Jerry in attacking Charley, Amy, and Peter. As they fight, Ed let's all of his anger out on his opponent and Charley reluctantly kills Ed. Meanwhile, Amy shoots Jerry with silver bullets, which are rather ineffective, but then injures Jerry with holy water. They then run into a club, where they get separated in the crowd. Amy is kissed, bitten, and possessed by Jerry, who proceeds to take her.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Peter refuses to help Charley and reveals that both of his parents were killed by a vampire (later revealed to be Jerry himself). He does, however, give Charley a stake blessed by Saint Michael that will kill Jerry and turn all of his victims back into humans. Charley goes to Jerry's house, where Peter decides to join him after all.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: They are led into Jerry's basement, where they are attacked by many of Jerry's victims, including Amy. Charley confronts Amy and she explains how they can be with each other forever. Just as she is about to bite Charley, he stabs her, intentionally missing her heart, and then escaping. Meanwhile, Peter is ambushed by Jerry and many of his victims. Peter is able to kill a few before his weapon backfires. Charley returns to the basement, only to see Peter being fed on by the remaining vampires. He decides to shoot holes in the roof, from which sunlight shines in and kills them. The patch of sunlight guards both Charley and Peter from the vampires who had not been destroyed. Jerry appears, explaining that Charley's quest is, in fact, over. Charley, having outfitted himself in a flame-retardant suit, has Peter light him on fire and tackles Jerry just as Amy is feeding on him. A struggle between the two ensues while the other vampires watch. Peter assists him by shooting another hole in the floor above to allow more sunlight in. This burns Jerry, and Peter tosses Charley the stake he had dropped. Charley quickly stabs Jerry in his visible heart, killing him, and returning his victims to their human form. Afterwards, Charley's mother recovers in the hospital and goes to shop for a new house as Charley and Amy have sex in Peter's penthouse.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Chris Sarandon, who portrayed Jerry in the original film, makes a cameo appearance as a motorist killed by the vampire (his character is credited as "Jay Dee", after the initials of his original character).


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Principal photography of Charley, Ed and Jerry's houses and neighborhood began in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, a suburb Northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the scenes of Peter Vincent on stage were shot at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the scenes involving the Hard Rock Casino, Las Vegas were actually shot at the now defunct Hard Rock Casino, Isleta, New Mexico, with Las Vegas set as the backdrop on July 26, 2010, and wrapped on October 1, 2010. "Fright Night" was produced by DreamWorks Pictures and distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Touchstone Pictures label. The film was the first of two collaborations between Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots, with the second and final being "Green Room".


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Steven Spielberg provided a great deal of input in the making of the film, such as storyboarding scenes and assistance with editing.<ref name="http://io9.com/5831992/buffy-the-vampire-slayers-marti-noxon-gives-us-a-tutorial-on-how-to-do-horror+comedy-right"></ref>


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Although the film received a wide release in the United States on August 19, 2011, an advance screening took place at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22, 2011.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: The film was released by Touchstone Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and digital download on December 13, 2011. The release was produced in three different physical packages: a 3-disc combo pack (Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, and DVD with Digital Copy); a 2-disc combo pack (Blu-ray Disc and DVD); and a one-disc DVD. The film was also released digitally in 3D, high definition, and standard definition. The DVD version will include the "Gag Reel" and "Squid Man – Extended and Uncut" bonus features, as well as an uncensored music video for Kid Cudi's song "No One Believes Me". The digital download version will include the same features as the DVD version, plus "Live in Las Vegas: An Interview with Peter Vincent" and "The Official 'How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie' Guide" bonus features. Both the 2-disc and 3-disc combo packs will include five deleted scenes with introductions by director Gillespie, a gag reel, an uncensored music video for "No One Believes Me", "Squid Man – Extended & Uncut", "Peter Vincent: Swim Inside My Mind", "The Official 'How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie' Guide" and "Frightful Facts & Terrifying Trivia" bonus features.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 72% based on 178 reviews, and an average rating of 6.28/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It may not have been necessary to remake the 1985 cult classic, but the new "Fright Night" benefits from terrific performances by Colin Farrell and David Tennant – and it's smart, funny, and stylishly gory to boot." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: Robert Koehler of "Variety" writes, "Fright Night" has "a cleverly balanced mix of scares and laughs".


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: "Fright Night" opened in number six in the box office. The film grossed $7,714,388 in its opening weekend and finished with a domestic grossing of $18,302,607 and $22,700,000 in other countries, giving a worldwide total of $41,002,607 against its $30 million budget.


title: Fright Night (2011 film)

text: A straight-to-video homage sequel titled "" was filmed in Romania. It stars Will Payne, Jaime Murray, Sean Power, Sacha Parkinson, and Chris Waller. The film was released direct to DVD on October 1, 2013. Though billed as a sequel, the film repeats the plot of the original and remake, with none of the 2011 cast, and no reference is made to events in the previous film (for example, the character of Evil Ed, killed in "Fright Night", is alive in the "sequel").


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: The 2016 United States Senate elections were held on November 8, 2016. The presidential election, House elections, 14 gubernatorial elections, and many state and local elections were held on the same date.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: In the elections, 34 of the 100 seats—all Class 3 Senate seats—were contested in regular elections; the winners will serve six-year terms until January 3, 2023. Class 3 was last up for election in 2010, when Republicans won a net gain of six seats.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: In 2016, Democrats defended 10 seats, while Republicans defended 24 seats. Republicans, having won a majority of seats in the Senate in 2014, held the Senate majority with 54 seats before this election. Although Democrats made a net gain of two seats and did not lose any of their seats, Republicans retained control of the Senate for the 115th United States Congress. The two Democratic gains came from the defeats of incumbents Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire and Mark Kirk in Illinois by Democrats Maggie Hassan and Tammy Duckworth, respectively.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Despite Republicans retaining control of the Senate, 2016 marked the first time since 1986 where Democrats made a net gain of seats in Class 3. This is also the only election cycle since the popular-vote election of senators was mandated by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 that the winning party in every Senate election mirrored the winning party for their state in the presidential election. This feat had nearly been accomplished earlier in 1920, which also involved the Class 3 Senate seats, and nearly repeated in 2020; in both cases, every state, with the exception of Kentucky in 1920 and Maine in 2020, voted for the same party in the presidential election and their Senate election. In addition, this election marked the first time since 2000 in which the party in opposition to the elected or reelected presidential candidate made net gains in the Senate; both cases involved the election of a Republican president and the Democrats making gains in the Senate.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: With the retirement of Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer became the Democratic leader after the elections, while Mitch McConnell retained his position as Senate Majority Leader.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: As of 2022, this is the most recent election cycle in which Republicans won Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, or Pennsylvania. It is also the most recent election cycle where there were no special elections.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: All 34 Class 3 senators were up for election in 2016; Class 3 consisted of 10 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Of the senators not up for election, 34 of the senators not up for election were Democrats, 30 senators were Republicans, and two senators were independents who caucused with the Senate Democrats.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Several sites and individuals publish predictions of competitive seats. These predictions look at factors such as the strength of the incumbent (if the incumbent is running for reelection) and the other candidates, and the state's partisan lean (reflected in part by the state's Cook Partisan Voting Index rating). The predictions assign ratings to each seat, indicating the predicted advantage that a party has in winning that seat.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Where a site gives a percentage probability as its primary indicator of expected outcome, the chart below classifies a race as follows:


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: The New York Times's "Upshot" gave the Democrats a 60% chance of winning the Senate on August 24, 2016; on September 23, their model gave Republicans a 58% chance to maintain control.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: This table shows the primary dates for regularly-scheduled elections. It also shows the type of primary.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 2017; ordered by state.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Richard Shelby won re-election to a sixth term in office. The primaries were held on March 1. Ron Crumpton, a marijuana legalization activist, was the Democratic nominee. Shelby won re-election with 63.9% of the vote.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Shelby was first elected to the Senate in 1986 as a Democrat and was easily re-elected in 1992 as such. He switched his party affiliation to Republican on November 9, 1994, one day after the Republicans won control of both houses in the midterm elections. He won his first full term as a Republican in 1998 by a large margin and faced no significant opposition in 2004 or 2010.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Following the divisive Republican primary in Mississippi ahead of the 2014 election in which Senator Thad Cochran was almost defeated, it had been speculated that Shelby could also face a Tea Party primary challenger, due to his lengthy tenure and support for federal largesse. However, that didn't happen, in part due to his large campaign war chest, which stood at $19.4 million as of September 2015. If Shelby had decided to retire, numerous high-profile Alabama Republicans were speculated to run, including U.S. Representatives Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Bradley Byrne, Gary Palmer, Martha Roby, and Mike Rogers, State Treasurer Young Boozer, State Speaker Mike Hubbard, Lieutenant Governor Kay Ivey, State Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh, Secretary of State John Merrill, U.S. Appeals Court Judge William H. Pryor Jr., former Governor Bob Riley, and Attorney General Luther Strange. Shelby announced in January 2015 that he would run for re-election.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Two-term Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican) was appointed in 2002 and elected to a full term in 2004. She was defeated in the Republican primary in 2010 by Joe Miller. She later ran as a write-in candidate in the 2010 general election and was re-elected to a second full term with 40% of the vote, making her one of two senators in US history to win election via write-in votes. She was 59 years old in 2016. She ran for re-election.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Thomas Lamb, a candidate for the State House in 2006, and Bob Lochner filed to run against Murkowski. Other potential Republican primary challengers included 2010 nominee and 2014 candidate Joe Miller, State Senator Mike J. Dunleavy, former Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, and former Mayor of Anchorage Dan Sullivan.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: The only person to file for the Democratic primary as of May 20 was writer and satirist Richard Grayson, who previously sought election to Wyoming's House seat in 2014. Potential Democratic candidates included State Senator Dennis Egan, State Representative Andy Josephson, State Senator Bill Wielechowski, State Senator Hollis French and State Senate Minority Leader Johnny Ellis. Former Senator Mark Begich was mentioned as a possible candidate, but he declined to run.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Murkowski won her primary on August 16, 2016 with 72 percent of the vote. Joe Miller received the Libertarian nomination and ran against Murkowski in the general election. Anchorage attorney and veteran Margaret Stock ran as an Independent candidate.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Murkowski won re-election with 44% of the vote compared to Miller with 30% and Metcalfe with 11%. 15% went to other candidates. Murkowski has been re-elected three times now with 48% in 2004, 39.5% in 2010 and 44% in 2016, never having won a majority.


title: 2016 United States Senate elections

text: Five-term Senator and Republican presidential candidate in 2008 John McCain was re-elected with 59% of the vote in 2010. He was 80 years old in 2016. Despite speculation that he might retire, McCain ran for re-election.