If I talk about a 16th-century “Death Star”, you’ll think I’m taking the Michael. And I am: the Great Michael. 

Great Michael, pride of the Royal Scottish Navy, was the biggest ship in the world. True, she did little more than swagger aboot for a bit. But she was the envy of other countries, not least yonder England, whose big-boned king Henry VIII was so piqued he ordered something bigger for his big fat self. 

Our own King James IV, a laddie well liked by the lieges, with whom he’d happily quaff a flagon of sack, loved ships and wanted for Scotland a right powerful navy. Today, he’d be pilloried in the letters pages for trying to Make Scotland Great Michael Again. 

The Herald:

But, back then, he had a dream and, more importantly, a deep purse (the project cost his entire annual income; millions in today’s money). Money aside, his first problem was finding a shipyard big enough to handle a super-ship. 

No such place existed at the time, so Jimbo and his top seaman, Sir Andrew Wood of Largo (owner of the Flower and Yellow Carvel fighting ships), paid a local fellow to row them up and doon the Firth of Forth in search of an ideal spot. 

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At last, they spied the place now called Newhaven, a natural harbour free from sandbank obstruction and deep enough to take a maritime monster. To introduce a fascinating personal note, Newhaven is where I like to stay when revisiting Embra. Great place between Leith and Trinity. Fab chippy. 

Anyway, here, James and Captain Wood created what historian Louise Yeoman has called “Scotland’s first world-beating shipyard”. Indeed, James had 38 ships built, including Great Michael, completed in 1512. 

So thick that no cannon could go through her

The poet William Dunbar wrote of her construction: “Carpentaris/Beildaris of barkis and ballingaris/Masounis lyand upon the land/And schipwrichtis hewand upone the strand.” I see.

Translated from medieval Scots, it means many people worked on it. These included craftsmen from France, Flanders, yon Netherlands, and Spain. 

The chronicler Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie said construction took “all the woods of Fife”, apart from Falkland Palace’s hunting grounds.

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Arboreal heritage experts today believe this a myth: Fife was itself already short of timber at that time and, indeed, imported most of its wood. 

At any rate, it’s sometimes estimated that constructing Big Mikey took 72 acres of wood, brought from various parts of Scotland, Norway and France.

It wasn’t all wasted. Michael had 10-feet-thick walls, according to the aforementioned chronicler, “so thick that no cannon could go through her”. I propose a new insult: as thick as Michael’s walls. 

Once the last bit of Sellotape was applied, Michael was 240ft long and 33 or 36ft abeam (everybody’s rulers were wonky back then). She weighed 1,000 tonnes.

It’s been said the whole of Christopher Columbus’s fleet that sailed to the New World could fit inside her hull. Her displacement – volume of water displaced when floating – was twice that of English contemporary Mary Rose. 

She had four masts, 92 arrow shields, 24 guns and 30 smaller guns (later increased to 36 main guns) broadside, one basilisk (heavy bronze cannon) forward and two aft.

She’s even said to have carried at one point Mons Meg, the massive cannon still extant at Edinburgh Castle. Her crew capacity was 300 sailors, 120 gunners, and 1,000 soldiers. 

Size matters 

Envious fatso Henry VIII of England ordered his own 1,000-ton ship, Henry Grace à Dieu, later known as Great Harry, which was even larger than Michael. However, size isn’t everything.

Michael, with painted carvings, decorations and lavish fittings, was a breathtaking aesthetic achievement. She had a crown figurehead, and 21 flags andpennants. 

The cloth used for just one of the Saltires was 22 yards long. 

Michael, incidentally, was named after the archangel Michael (patron saint of warriors, sufferers and Linlithgow).

It does feel odd calling a Michael “she”. But, on the maritime-obsessed local paper where I cut my teeth, my feminist editor insisted on “she”, and I still  fear the tawse if I say otherwise. 

Michael was a “carrack”, a man-o-war with a large aftcastle and smaller forecastle, literally a fort at sea. The question arises: what was she for, apart from being right big and putting Scotia top of the maritime league? 

It’s thought that, initially, Oor Jimbo might have wanted her to support a Scottish crusade against the Ottoman Empire to reclaim Palestine for Christendom. Sounds a bit ambitious for us and, in a surprise non-development, it never happened. 

The “Death Star” appellation comes from the idea that he might have wanted to hire her out to other kings as a castle-smasher. Most of the time, though, she seems to have been used as a floating restaurant, of the sort seen latterly in Leith, or for the signing of ententes with the French against yon England. 

Booty call 

In August 1513, she was part of a Scottish invasion force assembled to attack English possessions in France. However, instead of attacking the English directly, the Earl of Arran in command raided Carrickfergus in Ireland and returned with loot before proceeding to France.

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The sad truth is Michael was too big for her booty. And she was costly to maintain. After James was killed at Flodden in September 1513, the ship was sold to France for half the price she cost to build. 

It’s been suggested she took part in the Battle of the Solent between England and France, which saw the sinking of the Mary Rose, fat Henry’s favourite ship. But eyewitness accounts don’t mention such a beast. 

At any rate, with the French experiencing the same problems of cumbersomeness and costly maintenance, “La Grande Nef d’Ecosse”, as she was re-christened, eventually disappeared from view, possibly at Brest, where she just rotted or caught fire or was plundered for house-building timber. 

Right shame really. Still, today, you can see models of her in Leith’s Ocean Terminal shopping mall and in Fife’s Burntisland Kirk.

A picture of Great Michael hangs in Trinity House, Leith, just down from Poundstretcher.