HMS SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
                         The 17th Century
The SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS was ordered as a 90-guns first-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, but at launch was armed with 102 bronze guns at the insistence of the king Charles I. She was later renamed Sovereign, and then Royal Sovereign.
The ship was launched on 13 October 1637 and served from 1638 until 1697, when a fire burned the ship to the waterline at Chatham.
She was not so much built because of tactical considerations, but as a deliberate attempt to bolster the reputation of the English crown. Her name was, in itself, a political statement as Charles tried to revive the perceived ancient right of the English kings to be recognised as the ‘lords of the seas’. In her honour, naval tradition has kept the name of this ship afloat, and several subsequent ships have been named HMS Royal Sovereign.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet