The Ship That Sank France

As it’s found buried in the mud of a British river, how the pride of Henry V’s fleet wrought bloody mayhem in fierce battles at sea

THE fleet came to anchor off the French port of Harfleur in the afternoon of August 14, 1416. With 250 to 300 ships, carrying around 6,500 f i ghting men, the force was commanded by no less a figure than King Henry V’s brother — John, Duke of Bedford.

Bedford’s mission was vital. Since the spring of that year, the French, assisted by the Genoese and the Spanish, had been blockading an English garrison in Harfleur, and mounting regular cross-Channel raids from Normandy on the south coast.

The king wanted his brother to put a stop to it — swiftly and mercilessly. Like Henry, who had won the decisive battle of Agincourt the year before, Bedford was not a man to shy away from the thick of the fighting. His flagship, the mighty Holy Ghost, would be at the heart of the battle.

As one of Henry V’s four formidable warships, about 120ft long, weighing 700 tons and made from overlapping planks of timber hewn from 3,700 trees, she was the awe-inspiring pride of the king’s fleet — a floating symbol of power and prestige, decorated with carvings and huge flags, designed to tower over smaller ships.

She carried around 200 men, armed to the teeth with a ferocious range of weapons including bows and arrows, swords, crossbows, axes, lances, iron spears known as ‘gads’, and even simple stones. Many men also wielded grappling irons, used to haul in and then board an enemy vessel.

And that — as we shall see — was exactly what they planned to do the following day, when the Holy Ghost took part in the first of two of the most significant naval battles of the Hundred Years War, paving the way for the conquest of northern France.

GIVEN her service to her country, you might think the Holy Ghost deserves the kind of fame enjoyed by other mighty fighting ships, Henry Viii’s flagship, the Mary Rose, Nelson’s Victory and the Ark Royal. Yet following the battles against the French she disappeared for nearly six centuries — until a naval historian, Dr ian Friel, spotted a wreck buried deep in mud on the banks of the River Hamble in Hampshire.

This week, Dr Friel spoke of his conviction that they were the remains of the Holy Ghost, laid up in the river after Henry V’s death in 1422. ‘An identifiable medieval ship, that fought in known engagements, would be an incredibly rare thing to find anywhere in the world,’ said Dr Friel, author of a forthcoming book, Henry V’s Navy.

He first spotted the wreck more than 30 years ago while examining aerial photographs of the area where another of Henry’s warships, the Grace Dieu, had been discovered, but lacked the money for a proper investigation.

Historic England has now agreed to explore the wreck, which could be as significant a maritime find as the Mary Rose, raised from the bed of the Solent in 1982.

Remarkably for such a significant part of the king’s fleet, the Holy Ghost was not, originally, an English vessel.

First called the Santa Clara, she had been captured from Spain in late 1413, rebuilt at Southampton t he f oll owing year and t hen renamed.

On that day in August 1416 when the Holy Ghost led the fleet towards Harfleur, numbers were certainly on Bedford’s side.

Facing him was a far smaller force commanded by Guillaume ii, Viscount de Narbonne, with just 38 ships.

As dawn rose the following morning, Bedford may have felt confident but, as an experienced sailor, he knew that anything could happen at sea.

Meanwhile, Narbonne gave a ‘victory or death’ speech to his men, many of whom were doubtless anticipating the latter.

The battle started at around 9 o’clock that morning, although it would take until well after midday for the ships to get close enough to engage. Those engagements proved both brutal and bloody.

The English employed their grappling i rons to haul i n the French and Genoese vessels, whose crews fought back, hurling crossbow bolts, stones and iron weights.

When a ship got close enough to the enemy, ladders would be used to bridge the yawning and pitching gap before soldiers clambered over to mount a ferocious attack.

Sailors were hacked, stabbed and chopped to death, leaving the decks of French ships slippery with blood and human entrails.

But the French and Genoese were equally capable of mounting vicious attacks. it appears that during the afternoon action, the Holy Ghost was boarded, the enemy coming perilously close to chopping down the ship’s single mainmast.

Administrative accounts published later suggest the vessel’s structure was badly damaged.

Even worse for morale, perhaps, the Duke of Bedford was among the wounded. Yet his forces fought back to oust the enemy from their damaged flagship, in a valiant rearguard action.

it would have been a terrible blow for national pride had both the Sailing into battle: An early depiction of an English warship at the time of warrior king Henry V ship and Henry’s brother been captured, and could even have led to a humiliating defeat.

instead, as the light faded that evening, it was clear the English had won. They had killed 1,500 French and Genoese and had taken 400 prisoners. Many of the enemy ships had been captured or sunk.

Victory had come at a heavy price, however. Nearly 3,000 sailors and soliders had been killed or severely wounded, and 20 ships sunk.

The bodies of all the dead would float around the estuary for weeks to come. As Bedford sailed the Holy Ghost into Harfleur that evening, he would have felt more relieved than triumphant.

The Battle of Harfleur may not have been a victory in the same league as Agincourt, but it meant the French could no longer raid with such impunity.

For the next few days, it appears the damaged Holy Ghost patrolled the waters off what is today called Le Havre, but was then known as Chef de Caux. And it was there that the great warship fought its second major battle the following year.

in June 1417, the ship set sail once again as part of a fleet led by the Earl of Huntingdon which consisted of 2,000 men-at-arms and 1,500 ‘good archers’. The French and Genoese had once again blockaded Harfleur, and as before, Henry wanted the problem resolved.

The battle on July 25 was as violent and gory as that which took place the year before.

SHIPS rammed each other at high s peed, in a manoeuvre that must have caused as much damage to the attacking ship as its target. The Genoese seemed particularly adept at lobbing projectiles, killing hundreds of sailors and soldiers in a hail of sharpened metal and stones. Struggling to withstand the brutal onslaught, it looked possible the French might win

Again, the Holy Ghost, with a number of similarly large vessels, saved the day, terrorising the opposition. its size lent it an advantage when its men came to board the smaller Genoese and French ships. But just as happened in 1416, the Holy Ghost was not immune from being boarded, with raiders even removing one of her guns.

By the end of the day, another English victory was secure. Hundreds of their enemies were dead, including 150 Frenchmen who had jumped into the sea rather than fall into the hands of victors who would be sure to slaughter them.

Four captured Genoese ships were sailed back and presented to Henry as trophies. The king was delighted, and awarded Huntingdon £1,000 — worth about £20 million today.

The Battle of Chef de Caux proved to be the last major battle for the Holy Ghost. She appeared to suffer from persistent leaks — astonishingly, records from 1423 show that a ‘dyver’, named Davy Owen, was charged with diving beneath her waterline to plug any cracks. it was the first recorded instance of a diver making underwater repairs, but sadly his efforts were in vain.

in 1426, the Holy Ghost was drydocked at Burlesdon on the Hamble. plans to repair her were abandoned, and the former pride of the fleet was left to rot away. Six centuries on, she may be raised from her final resting-place.