By: Matthew Littlefield

A shipwreck from the 1600s was found 28 miles off the coast of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England. It was the HMS Gloucester. The HMS Gloucester sank while carrying the Duke of York, who later became king James II.

The ship was in danger when the duke and the captain started arguing about which route they should take. The duke forced the captain to take the route the captain did not want to.The result was the ship crashing into the sandbanks and around 200 people died. The duke led the dangerous route but accepted no responsibilities for the tragedy. He blamed the pilot for the sinking of the ship and wanted to execute the pilot. The pilot was imprisoned instead.

The ship was discovered by brothers Lincoln and Julian Barnwell in 2007. Lincoln commented “the first thing I saw was a large white cannon laying on the white sand”. Much like the Tudor shipwreck, the HMS Gloucester sank so quickly that nothing was able to be saved. The items that were left on the HMS Gloucester tell us a lot about the social, maritime and political history of the 17th-century.

Professor Claire Jowitt is a leading expert on maritime history. She claimed that the discovery was “the single most significant historic maritime event since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982”.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/world/gloucester-royal-shipwreck-discovery-scn/index.html