An exciting diving venture and a unique chance to become engaged in a plan to recover Bonnie Prince Charlie's long lost treasure

In an amazing stroke of luck a team of divers working off Anglesey, led by Joe McCormack, uncovered a tiny piece of copper that has led to an astonishing archeological undertaking.
 
The chance find among samples lifted from the seabed Anglesey was the oval copper disc that was dismissed as a "worthless coin".  Considered unremarkable at the time it was left to languish for years in a drawer.
 
Many years later Joe was encouraged to have the disc examined by experts at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.  Microscopic examination showed that the copper disc, or "matrix", is an identical duplicate of the seal on the signet ring worn by Mary Queen of Scots at her execution, which is kept at The British Museum.
 
A leading Scottish historian concluded that the matrix was part of the "working seal" of Mary Queen of Scots and would have been attached to a wooden handle for use in sealing letters and documents. 
 
The fact that this seal was recovered from the coast of Anglesey points to the remote location being the site of an unrecorded wreck. Further research suggests that it may be the wreck of one of several relief vessels sent by Louis XV of France, to Bonnie Prince Charlie, in the aftermath of his defeat at the 1745 Battle of Culloden.
 
King Louis was the chief sponsor and financier of the Jacobite Rebellion - Bonnie Prince Charlie's armed attempt to seize the throne of England.
 
It is known that King Louis XV sent ships laden with supplies to support Charlie. Two are recorded as being damaged in an encounter with the British Navy after which they limped back to France with their valuable cargoes.
 
Whether other relief vessels were sent and what was their fate has long been the subject of speculation, but the Anglesey wreck may hold the key to that mystery.
 
A series of exploratory dives were carried out on the site in the 1990s, from a pontoon attached to a vessel moored close to the coastline. This produced further artifacts pointing to the site being that of a wreck dating from the mid-19th century with connections to France.
 
All vessels of that period would have carried coins in order to buy supplies. How much specie may have been aboard the wreck is also open to speculation. Coins from that era have a value ranging between hundreds and several thousands of pounds.
 
The operations in the 1990s were hampered by the fact that the site is so close to a cliff face and therefore difficult to access from a vessel.
 
Now Joe McCormack is returning to the site, having devised a unique plan to approach the wreck from a scaffolding platform that will be erected down the cliff face, allowing access at all times of the tide and even in adverse weather. 
 
All artifacts recovered will be recorded for posterity and could form the centre of an exhibition that would be mounted locally. Diving operations will be filmed for a television documentary and it is envisaged that the site will become the focus of extensive public and media attention. The scheme has been devised in order to have as little impact as possible on the site which is an area of Special Scientific Interest.