An old sea dog who died in the service of her king

Seated on her haunches and with her tail upturned, the skeleton of the oldest known maritime dog suggests an animal of jaunty disposition with a charmed life. Unfortunately for Hatch, her life aboard Henry VIII’s warship Mary Rose was as brutal as it was short: she was not among the 30 crew who survived the vessel’s sinking 465 years ago.

The Mary Rose Trust, which looks after the remains of the ship and the 18,000 objects recovered with her, believes that the two-year-old was a mongrel, but hopes that experts at Crufts Dog Show, where her bones go on display today, may be able to help to identify the breeds she resembles. Her bones were kept in a box until last year, when she was reconstructed for a temporary display at a school. She has not gone on permanent display, for lack of space at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, which has room for just 6 per cent of the objects recovered.

Rear-Admiral John Lippiett, of the trust, said that the dog was probably the ship’s ratter. Sailors “did not like having cats on board, as they thought they would bring bad luck,” he said. “Dogs would have been normal.” Hatch seems to have been good at her job: only partial remains of rats’ skeletons have been found aboard the ship.

Hatch, named after the part of the ship where her remains were found, died on July 19, 1545, in the late afternoon. Her skeleton was found part in the carpenter’s cabin and part outside it. “It leads us to suppose it was trapped in the carpenter’s door, which was ajar when we found it,” the admiral said.

“Analysis of Hatch’s bones suggests that she spent most of her life within the confines of the ship. It is likely that the longest walks she took were along the quayside at Portsmouth.”

Sebastian Payne, chief scientist of English Heritage, said that he was not an expert on Tudor dogs, but that his studies of animal remains allowed him to recognise abnormalities in Hatch’s skeleton. “The narrowness, and the lack of muscle attachment \ suggests that this animal wasn’t very active. It was more of a lapdog than the kind that went down rabbit holes. It is small, at the terrier end of the scale. It was not unusual to have small dogs on boats. The tiny schipperke was kept by Dutch barge masters.” He said that dog experts at Crufts may have difficulty in identifying what type of dog Hatch was because breeds change very quickly. If a significant amount of her DNA can be recovered then science may provide an answer.

After the dog returns from Crufts she will be put on display at the Mary Rose Museum in time for the Easter weekend, Rear-Admiral Lippiett said. “We’re squeezing her into a corner of the museum. In the new museum she will have more kennel space.”