Mary Rose & the Battle of the Solent

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before the Spanish Armada threatened England in 1588, an even more dangerous invasion loomed, just across the Channel in France. The Battle of the Solent—470 years ago in July 1545—is chiefly known for the sinking of Henry VIII's beloved warship Mary Rose. But this epic confrontation between the Royal Navy and the French invasion fleet of more than 200 ships and 30,000 troops could have changed England’s future. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Dominic Fontana to explore this pivotal moment in Tudor military history and address the still unsolved mystery: why did the Mary Rose sink?

MORE:

The Sinking of the Mary Rose >

The Spanish Armada >

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Max Wintle, edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
0:02.6	If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:10.5	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week.
0:25.2	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise.
0:46.8	Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
1:06.8	Most of us probably know something about the Spanish Armada of 1888, when 130 Iberian ships set off to pick up 30,000 soldiers from Flanders in order to invade Elizabeth I,000 England.
1:20.6	We've covered their failure to do so in great depth on not just the Judas before with Professor Geoffrey Parker.
1:25.6	I'd highly recommend you check out that episode.
1:28.4	But in 1545, England faced an invasion threat that was potentially much more serious than the
1:35.3	Spanish Armada, from a much larger fleet, coming a much shorter distance, with armies twice
1:40.8	the size of those that Henry VIII could mount against them already on board.
1:46.1	This was the Battle of the Solent, which we remember chiefly for the fact that one of Henry
1:50.9	the Eighth's warships, the Mary Rose, sank.
1:55.1	Amazingly, the hull of the Mary Rose was preserved by the silt of the Solent seabed,
1:59.8	along with the skeletons of many of her doomed
2:01.8	crew and their personal possessions. But 480 years after she sank, let us dig a little deeper.
2:10.4	Listener Charles Taylor Stokes, who lives near Portsmouth, wrote to me saying we all know
2:15.0	that the Mary Rose sank, but what happened in the rest of the Battle of the Solent,
2:19.6	particularly what was its outcome?
2:22.2	Here's how one contemporary French observer,
	...

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