Salvaging the Mary Rose
How an African man became one of the first to see the wreck of the Mary Rose
There are many interesting stories to uncover in Kaufmann’s book Black Tudors, but the tale of Jacques Francis is one of the most fascinating. Born in Guinea, West Africa, in the 1520s, it is likely that Francis would have been trained as a pearl diver and, in fact, many Africans were skilled free-divers. In comparison most Tudors, including sailors, couldn’t even swim.
Although we don’t know exactly how he ended up there, Francis found work as a salvage diver in Southampton, working for a Venetian salvage operator named Peter Paulo Corsi when he was around 18 years old.
In July 1545, the Mary Rose – one of the largest ships in the English Navy – sank in the Solent, a tragedy witnessed by King Henry VIII himself from Southsea Castle. The weapons aboard the ship were very expensive and after an initial attempt to raise the ship failed that August, Corsi was hired to recover the weaponry in 1547.
Francis, an expert swimmer and diver, was chosen to lead the team of eight divers. It’s possible that two of the other team members were of
African origin too, and together they succeeded in recovering some of the guns from the wreck.
Following another salvage operation in the Solent, Corsi was accused of theft by Italian merchants and the case was brought to the High Court of Admiralty. Most of what we know about Francis is thanks to the records from this case because he testified on his master’s behalf, becoming the first African to give evidence in an English court of law.