HMS Gloucester ran aground about 28 miles from Great Yarmouth following an altercation between Stewart, then Duke of York, and pilot James Ayers over navigation on the Norfolk sands. It sank within an hour of the strike, at 5.30 p.m. on May 6, killing about 130 to 250 crew members and passengers. James Stewart continued to reign as King James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland from 1685 to 1688, when he was deposed in the glorious Revolution. The wreckage was found by brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell, who worked with their late father Michael and two friends, including James Little, a former submarine and Royal Navy diver. The brothers found the site in 2007, but due to the time it took to confirm the ship’s identity and the need to protect an “endangered” site in international waters, its discovery can only now be made public. Image: Julian and Lincoln Barnwell count a cannon found along with the wreck The ship sank in the keel and the wreckage of the hull sank in the sand. Lincoln Barnwell said that during the team’s fourth dive season, looking for a shift, they doubted they would find HMS Gloucester, but things soon changed. He said: “On my descent to the bottom, the first thing I spotted was a large cannon paved with white sand, it was impressive and really beautiful. Image: The brothers with objects from HMS Gloucester “I immediately felt privileged to be there, it was so exciting. “We were the only people in the world at the time who knew where the wreck was. This was special and I will never forget it.” It has been described by one historian as the most important naval discovery since Mary Rose, the warship from King Henry VIII’s Tudor navy, which sank in 1545 and was built in 1982. “The discovery promises to fundamentally change the understanding of 17th-century social, maritime and political history,” said Claire Jowitt, a professor of maritime history at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He added that teams would also try to determine who else died when the ship sank. James Stewart barely survived being late to leave the ship that cost the lives of many, who due to protocol could not leave the ship before the rights.
