Speaker was a 50-gun third-rate

Third-rate

In the British Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks . Years of experience proved that the third rate ships embodied the best compromise between sailing ability , firepower, and cost...

 frigate and the name ship of the , built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England

Commonwealth of England

The Commonwealth of England was the republic which ruled first England, and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660. Between 1653–1659 it was known as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland...

 by Christopher Pett at Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard founded by King Henry VIII in 1512 to build his flagship Henri Grâce à Dieu , the largest ship of its day....

 and launched in 1650. At the Restoration she was renamed HMS Mary. By 1677 her armament had been increased to 62 guns.

In 1688 Mary was rebuilt by Thomas Shish at Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard founded by King Henry VIII in 1512 to build his flagship Henri Grâce à Dieu , the largest ship of its day....

 as a 62-gun third-rate ship of the line

Ship of the line

A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...

. Mary was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands

Goodwin Sands

The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile-long sand bank in the English Channel, lying six miles east off Deal in Kent, England. The Brake Bank lying shorewards is part of the same geological unit. As the shoals lie close to major shipping channels, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked...

 in the Great Storm of 1703

Great Storm of 1703

The Great Storm of 1703 was the most severe storm or natural disaster ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain. It affected southern England and the English Channel in the Kingdom of Great Britain...

.

Wreck site

Local divers found the wreck site in 1980. The initial designation was of 50  around what is now known as the South Mound; the North Mound was discovered in 1999 and the area was amended under Statutory Instrument number 2004/2395 as a 300 m radius around 51º 15.6302' N, 01º 30.0262' E.

It is believed that the Mary lies under the South Mound and the North Mound is the third rate HMS Restoration

HMS Restoration (1678)

HMS Restoration was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, named after the English Restoration. She was built by Betts of Harwich and launched in 1678.She took part in the Battle of Barfleur on 19 May 1692...

 wrecked in the same storm, but this is not known for certain. The site lies 100 m to the west of the Goodwin Sands off Deal, between the wrecks of HMS Stirling Castle and HMS Northumberland

HMS Northumberland (1679)

HMS Northumberland was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Bristol in 1679.-Service:She fought in the War of the Grand Alliance....

, which also sank in the storm.

The site was investigated by Wessex Archaeology on 25 June 2006. The South Mound measures 28 m x 12 m but has not been studied in detail.