Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

From the Model in the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich.

THE “PRINCE ROYAL.”

Designed by Phineas Pett.

By permission of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House.

Good sea fighters as the English had proved themselves to be, they yet were behind the Dutch and French as naval architects. Sir Walter Raleigh, an outspoken critic of the King’s ships and of English merchant vessels, comparing the latter with those of the Dutch, nevertheless admitted that some progress had been made in English shipping. “In my own time,” he writes, “the shape of our English ships hath been greatly bettered. It is not long since the striking of the topmast hath been devised. Together with the chain pump, we have lately added the Bonnet and Drabler.... To the courses we have devised studding sails, top-gallant sails, spritsails and topsails. The weighing of anchors by the capstan is also new. We have fallen into consideration of the length of cables, and by it we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can blow. We have also raised our second decks.” The last improvement was one of the most important, for the space between the decks was cramped, and the lower deck was not much above the water level. The raising of the decks gave the ships more freeboard and increased their seaworthiness, rendered the lower tier of guns more effective by enabling them to be used with less danger from water entering the ports, and gave the men working the guns on the lower tier more head room.

A list of the ships of King Charles, dated 1633, is of more than usual interest, says Derrick, “this being the earliest list of the Navy I have met with, wherein any part of the ships’ principal dimensions are inserted.... This is the first list in which any nice regard seems to have been paid to the tonnage of the Ships. Previous to 1663, the tonnage of almost every Ship seems to have been rather estimated than calculated, being inserted in even numbers.”

A natural development of the Prince Royal was the Sovereign of the Seas. These two vessels may be regarded as marking the first and second stages in the final period of transition from the old style of warship to the wooden walls. She was a remarkable vessel in national as well as naval history, for she played not a small part in the agitation over the question of ship-money, which had such a tremendous influence on the nation’s development.

“This famous vessel,” Heywood states in his publication addressed to the King, “was built at Woolwich in 1637. She was in length by the keel 128 feet or thereabout, within some few inches; her main breadth 48 feet; in length, from the fore end of the beak-head to the after end of the stern, a prora ad puppim, 232 feet; and in height, from the bottom of her keel to the top of her lanthorn, 76 feet; bore five lanthorns, the biggest of which would hold ten persons upright; had three flush decks, a forecastle, half-deck, quarter deck, and round house. Her lower tier had thirty ports for cannon and demi-cannon, middle tier thirty for culverines and demi-culverines, third tier twenty-six for other ordnance, forecastle twelve, and two half-decks have thirteen or fourteen ports more within board, for murdering pieces, besides ten pieces of chace-ordnance forward and ten right aft, and many loop-holes in the cabin for musquet-shot. She had eleven anchors, one of 4,400 pounds weight. She was of the burthen of 1,637 tons.... She hath two galleries besides, and all of most curious carved work, and all the sides of the ship carved with trophies of artillery and types of honour, as well belonging to sea as land, with symbols appertaining to navigation; also their two sacred majesties’ badges of honour; arms with several angels holding their letters in compartments, all which works are gilded over and no other colour but gold or black. One tree, or oak, made four of the principal beams, which was 44 feet, of strong serviceable timber, in length, 3 feet diameter at the top and 10 feet at the stub or bottom.

“Upon the stem head a Cupid, or Child bridling a Lion; upon the bulkhead, right forward, stand six statues, in sundry postures; these figures represent Concilium, Cura, Conamen, Vis, Virtus, Victoria. Upon the hamers of the water are four figures, Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Eolus; on the stern, Victory, in the midst of a frontispiece; upon the beak-head sitteth King Edgar on horseback, trampling on seven kings.”