The White Elephant, 1482 tons.
Golden Lion, 1477 tons.
The former was 131 feet long on the keel, the latter 130 feet. Both had 46·9 feet beam, drew 19 feet 8 inches of water, and carried three decks.
English
The Royal Charles, “with the girdling of 10 inches measure,” was 1531 tons.
The Prince (says Pepys) “is full as big now girdled and as long on the gun-deck as the Charles, but having a long rake they measure short on the keel or she would be 1520 tons.”
It must be observed in reference to the above figures that the Dutch ships had a greater rake forward and would measure much bigger, being very beamy. Pepys mentions that “the excellent French and Dutch ships with two decks are more in number and much larger than our third-rates.”
The Soleil Royal mentioned above was a fine three-masted ship of the line, carrying 108 guns. She was a worthy example of the high state of excellence reached by the French naval architects of this period. She was lost, however, when the combined English and Dutch fleets in 1692 defeated the French off Cape La Hogue. This was a decisive blow to another of those plans for the invasion of England, and the naval battle in which the French fleet was utterly destroyed has been regarded by historians as the greatest naval victory won by the English between the defeat of the Armada and the battle of Trafalgar.
Fig. 63. The “Royal Charles.” Built in 1672.