Historic Royal Battleship Wreck Discovered

Approximately 130-250 people lost their lives in a shipwreck that occurred three years before James II became king of England. It was supposed to be a quick, celebratory trip to Edinburgh, but the H.M.S. Gloucester ran aground off the North Sea coast on May 6, 1682.

James Stuart - the Duke of York's refusal to board Gloucester's sole lifeboat until the last possible moment led to political controversy, with critics pointing out that his refusal to board the lifeboat until the last possible moment caused many lives to be lost. (According to protocol the seafarers can leave the ship after royalty had disembarked.)

According to Claire Jowitt, a maritime history expert, “This was a wreck that helped to change history.”

According to the university, "the Gloucester represents an important "almost" moment in British political history: a royal shipwreck which brought the Catholic heir to the Protestant throne very close to death at a time of great political and religious tension.

The wrecks of this ill-fated ship have recently been discovered some 350 years after the incident. The exposed parts of the wooden warship, which was almost entirely buried under the seabed, have eroded, leaving around a third of the warship still standing.

Items such as cooking pots, scalpels, leather book covers, syringes, fiddles, whistles, weapons, navigation devices, and furniture were retrieved from the Mary Rose, providing historians with the most comprehensive collection of genuine Tudor artefacts to date.