Royal insider recalls shocking moment Charles narrowly escaped death during Mary Rose excavation

It was one of the most ambitious and expensive maritime salvage operations in history.

While 60 million people were watching television on the morning of October 11, 1982, the hull of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose emerged from The Solent.

Two men watched as the ship was towed to Portsmouth’s naval dockyard: King Charles, then Prince of Wales, who was one of the last divers on Henry VIII’s flagship, and Albert Granville, who owned the Tog Mor barge and faucet that lifted the hull from the soup water.

Now on its 40th birthday, a new television documentary, Raising The Mary Rose: The Lost Tapes, has revealed that Charles narrowly avoided being injured on live TV when a corner of the frame slipped more than three feet, causing a massive crash. , and nearly breaking the fuselage.

The king was on his way to get a closer look at the wreckage when the ship crashed.

Former Royal Engineer Jack Frost, who was involved in the salvage operation, recalled: ‘You know, the future King of England could have died on live TV, which I think would have changed the whole aspect of the recovery, to be honest.

A corner of the frame broke off as it was lifted into the air, slamming the fuselage close to where then-Prince Charles stood

King Charles was nearly killed on live TV during the excavation of the Mary Rose (pictured October 11, 1982, moments before the ship was lifted into the air)

‘Everything fell silent. There was no whisper. No one spoke for what felt like minutes, was probably ten seconds, but just no one moved.

“And that was Prince Charles’ credit for getting her, because from then on it wouldn’t happen again.”

What is the Mary Rose?

The Mary Rose was a warship of Henry VIII’s ‘Army by Sea’, built in Portsmouth.

Launched in 1511, the Mary Rose would go on to fight in wars against France and Scotland in a career spanning 34 years.

On July 19, 1545, during the Battle of the Solent, the Mary Rose sank with the loss of about 500 soldiers and sailors.

In 1982, a committee was formed to look at many different methods of hull lifting. They decided to use a purpose-built lifting frame that would be attached with wires to steel bolts that would pass through the hull at carefully selected points.

These points were evenly distributed over the part of the nave, mainly in the main structural beams.

Henry VIII’s flagship was put on display at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth exactly 471 years after it was killed.

The recovered ship was put on display at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth 471 years after it sank

Afterwards, Charles said: ‘I will never forget the almighty crash when the chains came down and I thought it was all my fault.

“The most important thing is to be British and not to panic. So we didn’t and all was well. Awesome.’

The program also found that without the King’s involvement, the £4 million operation would not have gone ahead.

The Mary Rose sank just two miles from the entrance to Portsmouth harbor in 1545, after spending 34 years as Henry VIII’s flagship.

When the Mary Rose Trust was established in 1979, the king became the president.

“I have very strong maritime traditions in my own family and I often think that when this ship healed and sank so quickly, I could have easily been in command,” he later explained.

He dived a total of nine times on the wreck between 1974 and 1982 before it was lifted from the seabed.

And now the program has revealed that it was Charles, as patron of the Mary Rose Trust, who personally persuaded the multi-millionaire chairman of Howard Doris Engineering and his wife Jocelyn to lend them his floating crane, which at the time was worth £25,000 each. day took. time to rent.

Ian Dahl, then director of fundraising development at the Mary Rose Trust, recalls: “We had an event and we carefully selected the key people to be invited that evening.

“And one of those people happened to be in charge of the company that owned the ideal faucet to raise Mary Rose.

“The Prince of Wales walked right up to him, extended his hand in his wonderful way of relaxing people and said, ‘Oh, how wonderful. I believe you have the crane for us to lift the Mary Rose.’

“And the chairman’s wife looked at her husband and said, ‘Oh, honey, that’s absolutely wonderful.’

“So basically he was there and said, ‘Yes, sir, you know, we’d really like to help.'”

King Charles brought his own wetsuit to inspect the wreckage of the Tudor warship Mary Rose. Pictured moments before the dive in August 1979

Charles photographed the emergence of his last dive on the sunken Tudor warship in April 1982

The ship was then salvaged on the pulley block, which was presented to him when he opened the Mary Rose Exhibition in 1984.

He later introduced the Queen Consort to the Tudor ship when they visited the new £35 million museum, which houses the remains of the hull and 14,000 artifacts in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, in Hampshire.

A skeleton, representing 300 found at the time, was buried in Portsmouth Cathedral.

Charles told fundraisers and volunteers, “I remember my days of diving on the ship in the Solent in the most impossible conditions. It was like swimming in some kind of lentil soup.

‘You couldn’t see anything, or so I thought, until it was right under your nose.

‘What I never got over was the enormous expertise of the archaeologists operating underwater. I think it was worth taking the risk because we have this truly remarkable example of a Tudor warship that is unique.”

Raising The Mary Rose will be screened on Channel 4 on Sunday 9 October at 7pm