15th April 2015
It is with much regret that I learned of the death of Dr Margaret Rule. She was an inspiring historian and archaeologist who raised the Mary Rose, the flagship of Henry VIII's fleet. I met Margaret when I was a journalist at Portsmouth and she was an incredibly determined, fiercely intelligent woman on a mission to do the impossible. Later, after the ship had been raised and the wonderful museum established, she showed me round the thousands of artefacts that they had on site, the fantastic little detailed objects recovered from the warship. She was a great talent and will be much missed. I was thinking of her only recently when I was describing the sinking of the Mary Rose in my new book on Kateryn Parr.
The roar of the cannon goes on, the battle itself goes on. Nobody but us has frozen in horror to watch as the keel rolls a little more to the sky, as the sails fill with water, not wind, and billow and swell in their strange submerged beauty, and then drag the ship down to the green depths.
Images of Margaret Rule from Portsmouth News, The Mary Rose and BBC News.