History | |
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England | |
Name: | Mary Willoughby |
In service: | Listed from 1535 |
Captured: |
|
Fate: | Sold in 1573 |
Scotland | |
Name: | Mary Willoughby |
Acquired: | 1536 |
In service: | 1536 |
Captured: | 1547 |
Fate: | returned to English navy |
General characteristics | |
Tons burthen: |
|
Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
Complement: | 146 sailors 14 gunners |
Armament: | in 1548; a serpentine; 3 port pieces; 4 slings; a quarter sling; 13 bases; a hagbut. |
Mary Willoughby was a ship of the English Tudor navy. She appears in the navy lists from 1535, during the reign of Henry VIII. She was named after Maria Willoughby, a lady-in-waiting and close friend of Catherine of Aragon. The ship was taken by the Scots in 1536 and was included in the Royal Scots Navy, The English recaptured her in 1547. The ship was rebuilt in 1551, increasing in size from 140 bm to 160 bm.
Mary Willoughby was used by James V in his voyages to the Isles. The ship had major re-fit between November 1539 and June 1540, by Florence Cornetoun costing £2566-18s-8d Scots.Cardinal Beaton paid £6 for painting her in July 1541. In December 1542, Mary Willoughby, Salamander and Lion blockaded a London merchant ship called Antony of Bruges in a creek on the coast of Brittany. Willoughby fired on Anthony, and the crew abandoned ship. The French authority at "Poldavy Haven" accepted a Scottish warrant shown to them by her Captain, named Kerr.
An English spy Thomas Forster saw Mary Willoughby "coming in" at Leith in July 1545 with six other ships bringing wine, brass field guns and arquebuses from France. They had passed by the Irish seas. In March 1547 Mary Willoughby and another Scottish ship, reportedly Great Spaniard of 200 tons, were blockading the New Haven by Dieppe.William Patten believed that Mary Willoughby was captured on the Forth near Blackness Castle by Edward Clinton on 15 September 1547.