Our long-range study of English oak from marine environments allowed both the study of chemical changes in wet and waterlogged wood over 400 years and an assessment of the preservation of the wood chemistry of the Mary Rose after prolonged burial in a marine environment due to the application of a consolidant for conservation purposes. After her keel was laid in 1510, the Mary Rose sailed for over 30 years before sinking to the bottom of the Solent in 1545. Preserved under the seabed for over 400 years, she broke the surface in 1982 and was taken to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for conservation. To compensate for the loss of wood components (typically cellulose and hemicellulose) the ship was sprayed with aqueous solutions of polyethylene glycol (PEG) following methods used on other similar projects (e.g., Vasa (28)). Two PEG solutions with differing chain lengths of PEG were used, PEG 200 followed by PEG 2000. Following consolidation, the ship has been drying in environmentally controlled conditions since 2013 .