Latest / The Story of Scotland: Clans, Crowns, and the Fight for Identity — Fexingo History / The Great Michael: Scotland's Supership That Sank a Kingdom
Transcript
- Lucas: So, Luna, we've talked a lot about Scotland's land battles—Bannockburn, Pinkie Cleugh, Harlaw. But today I want to take us out onto the water. Because in the early 1500s, Scotland built something truly extraordinary: the largest, most heavily armed warship Europe had ever seen. Luna: Wait, Scotland? The same Scotland that was constantly outspent and outgunned by England? Lucas: Exactly. That's what makes it so surprising. This ship was called the Great Michael—named after the archangel, and it was meant to be an angel of destruction. She was launched in 1511 from the shipyards at Newhaven, near Edinburgh, under the orders of King James IV. And when I say she was enormous, I mean she was over 240 feet long, displaced around 1,000 tons, and carried a crew of over 1,000 men—sailors, gunners, soldiers, the lot. Luna: How does that compare to English ships of the time? Lucas: Well, England's flagship, the Mary Rose, which we all know about from her dramatic sinking in 1545, was about half the size—around 500 tons. The Great Michael was in a completely different league. Contemporary accounts say she carried 300 guns, though some of those were probably small swivel guns. But still, she was a floating fortress. The hull was ten feet thick in places, made from oak felled across the Scottish countryside. It took two years just to bring enough timber. James IV practically deforested parts of Fife and the Lothians to get the wood. Luna: That must have cost a fortune. Scotland wasn't exactly rolling in cash. Lucas: No, it was an enormous strain. The total cost was around £30,000 Scots—which, adjusted for the economy of the time, was a staggering sum. To put it in perspective, that was roughly a third of the entire royal annual income. And James IV had other projects too—he built a new palace at Holyroodhouse, supported the new printing press in Edinburgh, and maintained a fairly lavish court. The ship was part of a wider naval ambition. James IV wanted to make Scotland a maritime power, to protect its trade routes and project force into the North Sea and beyond. He even established a permanent royal navy, which was rare for a Scottish king. Luna: So what happened to the Great Michael? Did she ever see action? Lucas: She did, but not quite in the way James IV imagined. In 1513, with war looming between England and France, James honoured the Auld Alliance and invaded England. That campaign ended in disaster at the Battle of Flodden on September 9, 1513—a devastating defeat where James himself was killed, along with most of his nobility. The Great Michael, meanwhile, had been lent to the French as part of the alliance. She actually sailed to France and served in the French navy for a few years. But after Flodden, Scotland had no money, no king, and no appetite for grand naval projects. The French eventually sold the ship for scrap. By 1525, the greatest warship of its age had been broken up and forgotten. Luna: That's such a sad ending. All that effort, all that timber, all that money—for nothing. Lucas: It's a classic story of overreach. James IV was a Renaissance prince—cultured, ambitious, forward-thinking. He spoke several languages, promoted science and the arts, and genuinely believed Scotland could stand toe to toe with the great powers of Europe. The Great Michael was the physical embodiment of that ambition. But ambition without the economic base to sustain it is a recipe for ruin. And in a way, the ship's fate mirrors Scotland's own trajectory after Flodden—a period of decline and instability that ultimately led to the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Luna: I'm curious about the ship itself—what did she look like? How was she designed? Lucas: We have some descriptions, though no detailed blueprints survive. She was a carrack, the standard ship type of the era—high-sided, with towering castles fore and aft. The mainmast would have been enormous, carrying a huge square sail. But what set her apart were the guns. She carried heavy bronze cannons on the lower deck, firing through gunports cut into the hull—a relatively new innovation at the time. The master shipwright was a Frenchman named Jacques Terrell, who had been brought over to oversee the project. He combined the latest continental techniques with Scottish craftsmanship. The ship's figurehead was a massive gilded carving of Saint Michael slaying a dragon, which must have been quite a sight. Luna: And the crew—over a thousand people on one ship? How did they all fit? Lucas: It was cramped and chaotic. The crew included around 300 sailors to work the sails and rigging, 120 gunners, and over 700 soldiers—the Marine equivalent of a modern naval infantry. There were also carpenters, cooks, barbers, and even priests. Life on board would have been loud, smelly, and dangerous. But conditions were probably better than on English ships because the Great Michael was so large—more space per man, relatively speaking. The galley could produce hot meals, and there were even rudimentary sanitation facilities, which was rare. Luna: I've heard that the Great Michael was so big that it couldn't even enter some harbours. Is that true? Lucas: It's a common story, but the evidence is mixed. She was built at Newhaven, which had deep water, and she could definitely sail the Firth of Forth and the North Sea. But her draft—the depth of her hull below the waterline—was probably around 15 to 18 feet, which would have prevented her from entering many smaller ports and rivers. That was a practical limitation. She was designed for open water combat, not coastal raiding. And in that role, she was formidable—her heavy guns could outrange anything the English had at the time. But she was also slow and unwieldy compared to smaller, more maneuverable ships. Luna: So if she was so impressive, why didn't she make a difference at Flodden? Couldn't she have blockaded English ports? Lucas: That's a great question, and it gets to the heart of the tragedy. The Great Michael was at sea during the Flodden campaign, but she wasn't used effectively. James IV had sent her to carry reinforcements to France—she was actually in the English Channel when the battle took place. After Flodden, the new regent, Margaret Tudor—James's widow—was in no position to continue an aggressive naval policy. Scotland needed to rebuild its army and its treasury, not maintain an expensive white elephant. So the ship was essentially mothballed, then sold to France for a fraction of its cost. The French used her for a few years, but by the 1520s she was past her prime. Advances in naval artillery and ship design were already making her obsolete. Luna: Speaking of Margaret Tudor—she was Henry VIII's sister, right? That must have been an awkward peace. Lucas: Very awkward. Margaret was a Tudor, but she was genuinely committed to Scotland—she even served as regent for her infant son, James V, after Flodden. But she had to navigate between her brother's demands and Scottish nationalism. The Great Michael, ironically, became a bargaining chip in that diplomacy. Selling it to France was seen as a way to keep the Auld Alliance alive without the cost of maintaining the ship. But it also sent a message to England that Scotland was still aligned with France. So the ship that was meant to be a symbol of Scottish strength ended up as a pawn in a larger game. Luna: It reminds me of the Darien Scheme—another grand Scottish project that ended in disaster. Lucas: Exactly—there's a pattern. James IV was very much a Renaissance prince, and Scotland had a tradition of big, bold ideas that often outstripped its resources. The Great Michael, Darien, even the Stone of Destiny—all these are symbols of a nation trying to assert itself against larger neighbours. But the interesting thing about the Great Michael is that it wasn't just a vanity project. It was part of a real, coherent naval strategy. James IV established dockyards, built a fleet, and even created a corps of naval gunners. If he had lived, Scotland might have become a genuine naval power. But Flodden killed that dream, and with it, the Great Michael. Luna: Are there any remnants of the ship—wrecks, artefacts, anything? Lucas: Sadly, no. The Great Michael was broken up and the timber likely reused. The only trace we have is in written records—accounts from the Treasurer of Scotland, letters from James IV, and a few chronicles. One of the best descriptions comes from the English ambassador, who reported back to Henry VIII about this terrifying new Scottish ship. But physically, she's gone. There's a model in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, reconstructed from those records, and you can get a sense of her scale. But it's not the same as finding a wreck. Luna: Do you think there's any chance of finding the remains? The Mary Rose was discovered. Lucas: Possible, but unlikely. The Mary Rose sank in a known location, preserved in silt. The Great Michael was deliberately dismantled, probably in a French shipyard. The wood might have been reused in buildings or other ships—somewhere out there, perhaps a beam from the Great Michael is holding up a barn in Brittany. Marine archaeology has found other Scottish wrecks, like the Swan off Duart Castle, but not the Great Michael. Still, you never know. The ship that was once the terror of the seas could be waiting to be found. Luna: It's fascinating how a single ship can tell the story of an entire kingdom's rise and fall. The ambition, the resources, the defeat, the loss. Lucas: And it raises a question that echoes through Scottish history: was the ambition worth the cost? The Great Michael didn't save Scotland from Flodden. It didn't prevent the Union of the Crowns. It didn't create a lasting navy. But it did show that Scotland could dream big, could build something that made Europe take notice. And that, in a way, is its legacy. Not as a warship, but as a statement of what Scotland aspired to be. Luna: You know, it's interesting you mention the cost and the ambition. That's something we talk about a lot on this show—how Scotland's big ideas often required a lot of support, from listeners like you, to keep exploring. Lucas: Absolutely. And we're incredibly grateful that the show is listener-supported. If you've been coming along with us through these stories, from the Lords of the Isles to the Jacobites, and you'd like to help keep it going, you can buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Every little bit helps us research things like the Great Michael, and we really appreciate it. Luna: Yeah, it's a way to say 'I want more stories like this.' And we love bringing them to you. Lucas: So, back to the Great Michael. There's another angle I find fascinating—the human cost. Building a ship like that required an immense workforce: woodcutters, sawyers, shipwrights, blacksmiths, rope-makers. Thousands of men were employed for years. And when the ship was gone, those skills were lost. The shipbuilding industry in Scotland never fully recovered. In a way, the Great Michael is not just a ship—it's a snapshot of an entire economy mobilized for a single purpose. Luna: What happened to the workers? Did they find other work? Lucas: It's hard to say. Some probably found work in the smaller shipyards that continued to operate—building fishing boats, trading vessels. But the Crown never again invested in naval construction on that scale. The skilled shipwrights who had learned from Jacques Terrell may have passed their knowledge on, but without demand, the expertise dwindled. By the 17th century, the Scottish navy was a shadow of what James IV had envisioned. The Great Michael was both a peak and a precipice. Luna: It's like the ship was too big for the country. A symbol of a king who was ahead of his time. Lucas: Exactly. James IV was ahead of his time in many ways—he believed in the power of knowledge, of diplomacy, of projecting strength. But the gap between vision and reality was too wide. And that, I think, is the lesson of the Great Michael: grand ambition needs a solid foundation. Without it, even the mightiest ship can founder. Luna: Well, I'm glad we could salvage this story from the depths of history. Lucas: Me too. There's something profoundly Scottish about the Great Michael—the audacity, the pride, the tragedy. And it's a reminder that history isn't just battles and treaties—it's also about the things we build, and what those things say about who we are.