Grace Dieu

Grace Dieu was King Henry V’s flagship, one of the largest wooden ships of the 15th century. Built near Southampton, she measured over sixty metres long with a beam of fifteen metres. Her hull was clinker-built with thousands of oak, beech and ash trees. Two smaller escort ships, Valentine and Falcon, were constructed alongside her. The Florentine sea captain Luca di Masa degli Albizzi called her the largest and most beautiful vessel he had ever seen. She sailed only once, in 1420, under the Earl of Devon. The crew mutinied before departure, refusing to let soldiers board. After a second mutiny at sea, the ship was abandoned at St Helen’s on the Isle of Wight. By 1439 she lay stripped and dismasted in the River Hamble, where lightning set her ablaze. Henry V’s death in 1422 left his ships treated as private property, hastening their neglect. Today the wreck lies in the Hamble near Bursledon, protected under law. Archaeologists from the National Maritime Museum and the University of Southampton have surveyed the site. Fifty metres away rests the remains of Holigost, another ship from the same fleet. Visitors can view the protected remains from the riverbank, imagining the vast vessel that once carried archers high above the decks of Genoese carracks.