Future king’s advice and a row that led to disaster

HMS Gloucester set sail on its illfated final voyage from Portsmouth in May 1682.

It was a highly sensitive mission with the reigning monarch Charles II in poor health. He wanted to establish his younger brother James Stuart, the Duke of York, as heir to the throne.

The warship was sent to ferry James to Edinburgh to fetch his heavily pregnant wife Mary of Modena and their households.

It was meant to bring them back to London for Mary to produce a legitimate male heir. James and his entourage joined the frigate, part of a convoy of eight vessels, off Margate.

But what happened next is shrouded in controversy.

At 5.30am on May 6, HMS Gloucester ran aground 28 miles off Great Yarmouth following a dispute about navigating the Norfolk sandbanks.

James, a former lord high admiral, had argued with the pilot Captain James Ayres for control over the ship’s course.

The mariner, reputedly ‘one of the best and ablest’ of pilots, ‘very unwillingly’ took James’s recommended course and the ship struck a sandbar. It sank within an hour, after its rudder fell off and water rushed in.

James barely survived and delayed abandoning ship until the last minute – possibly resulting in the deaths of sailors who were forbidden to leave the vessel before royalty.

One account claimed he took ‘particular care of his strongbox, his dogs and his priests’.

James took no responsibility for the disaster – instead blaming the pilot whom he demanded be hanged immediately.

Captain Ayres was instead court-martialled and jailed.