The wreck of a royal warship which sank in 1682 while carrying the future king James Stuart has been discovered off the coast of Norfolk. The HMS Gloucester ran aground some 28 miles off Great Yarmouth following a dispute between James, then the Duke of York, and the ship’s pilot James Ayres about navigating the treacherous Norfolk sandbanks.
It sank within an hour of the strike, at 5.30am on May 6, killing around 130 to 250 crew and passengers. James barely survived, having delayed abandoning ship until the last minute and needlessly costing the lives of many who, because of protocol, could not abandon the ship before royalty.
He accepted no responsibility for the sinking, instead blaming the pilot and wishing him to be hanged immediately, though Mr Ayres was in fact court-martialled and imprisoned. James went on to reign as King James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland from 1685 until 1688, when he was deposed by the Glorious Revolution.
