O n July 19, 1545, Henry VIII lost his beloved. Standing on a shoreline near Portsmouth, he watched in horror as she succumbed to tempestuous waves: a beauty doomed to a watery grave. Never would he cast his eyes on that shapely form again.
This was no queen, but the king’s favourite ship, The Mary Rose, which sank during the Battle of the Solent. With gunports open, water flooded the hull, and the ship was lost. “I have the sort of knaves I cannot rule,” the ship’s commander, Sir George Carew, cried, before perishing along with some 500 crewmates.
Operations to recover the ship were soon under way. Though these failed, Plan B — to bring up the valuable cannons — was a success. This extraordinary feat was largely down to a free diver called Jacques Francis.
He was an expert in his field whose Olympian-level aquatic skills were key to recovering the sunken treasure. Remarkably, he was still a teenager..