In 1682 a royal ship carrying the heir to the English throne ran aground and sank off the Norfolk Coast. The wreck was discovered by two brothers in 2007 and has remained a closely kept secret until now.
At 5:30 am on the morning of May 6, 1682, a ship called the Gloucester ran aground on a sandbank off the coast of Norfolk and sank within the hour. Among the passengers was James Stuart, Duke of York and future King James II of England, who escaped in a small boat just before the ship sank. Had he perished, British history might have played out quite differently. Yesterday we learned that the wreck of the Gloucester was discovered by a pair of brothers in 2007, although it took several more years to verify that the wreck was indeed the Gloucester. Its discovery has been a closely guarded secret until now.
“Because of the circumstances of its sinking, this can be claimed as the single most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose [Henry VIII's favorite warship] in 1982,” said maritime history expert Claire Jowitt of the University of East Anglia (UEA). “The discovery promises to fundamentally change understanding of 17th-century social, maritime and political history." Jowitt is the author of a new paper published in the journal English Historical Review, outlining the significance of the find.
This was a particularly fraught historical period, rife with political intrigue and religious tensions. In January 1649, King Charles I was executed and Oliver Cromwell came into power as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The executed king's sons, Charles (the heir) and James, fled to France where they lived in exile.
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