The African crewman aboard the Mary Rose
Was Tudor Britain more diverse than we thought?
HENRY viii’s England has long been seen as an exclusively white society.
But analysis of skeletons recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose has revealed that the Tudor kingdom might have been much more multicultural than experts have previously believed.
scientific tests on eight crew members’ remains found that two of them almost certainly had North African heritage, while two others were of Mediterranean origin.
The year-long investigation commissioned by the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth involved advanced DNA genetic tests which can establish eye, hair and skin colour, and isotope analysis, which can reveal where someone was born and raised by analysing chemical elements within their bones.
The ship sank in 1545 in the solent while leading an attack on a French invasion fleet. its remains were recovered in 1982 and are now housed in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth.
The complete skeleton of a crew member, nicknamed ‘Henry’ by the divers who found it, was among those to be analysed.
isotope tests at Cardiff University found ‘Henry’ was born in England. But DNA analysis by Portsmouth University confirmed his genetic profile is similar to that of the Berbers of Algeria. The findings, which will be detailed in a Channel 4 Tv documentary, suggest ‘Henry’s’ father was North African.
Tests on his skeleton found he was aged 16 to 19 and had lived a life of hard physical work. His job on board the Mary Rose may have involved helping to waterproof it against leaks because his remains were found near barrels of pitch and tar at the bottom of the ship.
The research also allowed the experts to reconstruct his eye, hair and skin colour.
An image of what ‘ Henry’ looked like will feature in the museum’s Many Faces of Tudor England exhibition, which opens on Monday.
Another skeleton tested was that of a man believed to be an
‘Shaped by the Victorians’
‘archer royal’, a member of the King’s personal guard. Analysis of his bones found he was from a far warmer climate than Britain’s and suggests he is also from North Africa.
One of the other skeletons was found to be of spanish origin, and another italian. The other four were British. The Mary Rose would have had a crew of more than 200.
Historian Dr Onyeka Nubia, author of Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their Presence, status, and Origins, said yesterday: ‘To a large extent most people’s idea of Tudor Britain has been shaped by the victorians. it’s also the legacy of the likes of Blackadder ii.
‘My studies of parish, court and prison records have shown that in some areas four of five per cent of the population were from abroad.’
This could be a result of England’s connections with the iberian peninsula at the time. spain had a significant population who were of North and West African descent.
Crew members could also have been enlisted as navigators during voyages in unfamiliar waters, then continued to serve on British ships. They were not slaves.
The documentary also reveals that descendants of a crew member have been tracked down. Genealogist Megan Owens traced the 13 times great-grandchildren of an officer called Roger Grenville, one of only two men on the ship whose names were recorded.
They were Laura Campbell, 46, from Wareham in Dorset, and her sister Lucy Taylor, 38, of Peterborough. The skeletons of the Mary Rose is to be shown on Channel 4 at 8pm on sunday.