Royal Anne

Royal Anne was completed at Woolwich in 1709 under the direction of Peregrine Osborne, Marquis of Carmarthen. She combined sails and about 66 oars, allowing her to move in calm weather or confined water, and carried roughly 40 guns. She was the last galley built as a fighting vessel for the Royal Navy and served on convoy, anti-piracy and Jacobite duties. In 1721 she sailed west with Lord Belhaven, appointed governor of Barbados, his family, servants and about 24 other gentlemen. After an early collision and grounding, severe weather in the Bay of Biscay forced the damaged ship back towards England. Some accounts give Jamaica as her destination, but Belhaven's appointment was to Barbados.

On 10 November 1721 a south-westerly gale drove Royal Anne into Mount's Bay. Contemporary reports said she was much closer to the Lizard than a safe westbound course required. She struck the Stag Rocks twice and then broke apart below the cliffs. Damage from the outward voyage may have made her harder to handle, but the surviving evidence does not prove one simple failure by captain or crew. The exposed rocks, heavy Atlantic swell and onshore wind explain why escape was so difficult. Salvage began quickly: a diving machine was reportedly used early in 1722, and official papers also complained that local people had taken material from the wreck.

Only three people are consistently said to have survived, but their names and the death total conflict. Contemporary newspapers named Thomas Goodall, William James and Robert Wilson; a later ballad instead named a boy called Thomas Lawrence and two men called Hain or Ham and Godfrey. One official account gives a crew of 190, while another says 207 crew died along with the captain, officers, Lord Belhaven and 24 gentlemen. A newspaper estimate approached 300 deaths. It is therefore safest to say well over 200 died and three survived. Local tradition says about 200 bodies were buried at Pistol Meadow and tells of ghosts and troubled dogs there, but no excavation has proved that mass grave.

Bristol University divers first found material here in 1969, and Robert Sherratt and local diving groups relocated and studied the site from 1991. It lies in rugged gullies in less than five metres of water, exposed to kelp and Atlantic storms. Almost no wood survives visibly, but divers recorded guns, shot, an anchor and a wide scatter of small objects. Cutlery bearing Lord Belhaven's crest confirmed the name; other finds include an inscribed gold ring, brass dividers, coins, lead shot, bottles and drinking glass. Some guns and the anchor may belong to Royal Anne, but their position alone cannot prove it. The protected area was created in 1993 and enlarged in 2006.

Royal Anne marks the end of a very old kind of warship: a sailing vessel that could still be driven by banks of oars. Her wreck also ties a Cornish headland to Caribbean government, Atlantic travel and the movement of officials and families through empire. The objects give named people to a disaster whose written totals disagree. Around the Lizard, the place also lives through the Pistol Meadow burial story, later ballads and generations of wreck lore. Those traditions deserve recording without turning them into proof. Work by local volunteer divers has recovered the stronger story beneath them and shown how even a battered shallow site can preserve identity, voyage and personal loss.