Wharfinger: Henri Grace A Dieu

By Giles Broadbent on February 25, 2010 4:22 PM |

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Although the Mary Rose is now synonymous with Henry VIII's naval ambitions, she had an even larger contemporary - Henry Grace a Dieu (Henry Grace of God, known as Great Harry).

Made in the Woolwich Dockyard between 1512 and 1514, she was one of the first vessels to feature gunports (which would prove so devastating in the Mary Rose) and carried 20 heavy bronze cannon.

She had a forecastle, four decks high, and a stern castle two decks high. She was 50m long and weighed 1,000-1,500tons.

As the first English two-decker, she was the largest and most powerful ship in Europe. However, she saw little service although she was present at the Battle of the Solent against the French in 1545 where, alongside, the Mary Rose took in water and sank swiftly to the bottom of the sea to be rediscovered four centuries later.

Great Harry's fate was equally ignominious. She was renamed after Edward VI and it is believed she was destroyed by fire in Woolwich in 1553 and ended up a discarded hulk on the bank of the Thames.

She lives on in the form of a weathervane on the South Building of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.