Navy Records Society

NRS volumes

The Peter (Pomegranate) ©Copyright Pepys Library

The Anthony Roll of Henry VIII's Navy

NRS Vol OP2, 2000 (Ed Dr C S Knighton, Prof D M Loades)
ISBN-978-0-7546-0094-7
Price code B - how to buy

Here for the first time complete in print is the famous pictorial survey of Henry VIII's navy compiled in 1546 by Anthony Anthony, a clerk in the ordnance office. Originally comprising three rolls of vellum, the MS features paintings of each of the king's 58 ships, below which are set details of their guns, shot, and related equipment. Several of the illustrations have become familiar, especially that of the Mary Rose, herself already a wreck when Anthony presented his work to the king.

The Clowde in the Sonne ©Copyright Pepys Library

The present edition re-assembles the three parts of the Anthony Roll, allowing the document to be seen in its original sequence for the first time in over 300 years. The fleet which Henry VIII created is revealed as the king saw it in the last year of his life. Anthony's paintings at Magdalene and in the British Library are reproduced in full colour from newly commissioned photographs. Adjacent to each ship illustration is the relevant text, given in its original spelling.

The Introduction covers Anthony's personal and professional career and also includes essays by experts in the field of ordnance, art history, heraldry and fabric, and on the oared vessels which were so distinctive a feature of the navy of the time.

Detail of the Peter ©Copyright Pepys Library

Marine archaeologists from the Mary Rose Trust examine the accuracy of Anthony's representation and inventory of the Mary Rose in the light of the excavation of the ship. In the second part there is a transcript of an earlier inventory of Henry VIII's ships, including again the Mary Rose and her sister ship the Peter Pomegranate, both then newly built.

Unlike Anthony's specifically ordnance inventory, this document of 1514 includes the whole range of the ship's equipment, from rigging and weaponry to navigational aids and kitchen utensils. The volume includes a summary of the service careers of all the ships featured in the two documents, and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms.

Ref: WK108