Historically, the Royal Navy has played a pivotal role in the defence of the
United Kingdom and the formation and defence of the British Empire.
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No point in the United Kingdom is more than 120 km (74 miles) from the sea and any enemy power that achieved naval superiority would place the nation in great peril. A strong navy was vital in maintaining supply and communication links with distant locations in the far-flung British Empire and, for over two centuries between 1690 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Royal Navy was the uncontested military power throughout the world's oceans, losing only one major battle.
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Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep:
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep . . . |
| - Thomas Campbell, Ye Mariners of England |
England's first navy was established by king Alfred the Great
(c.871-c.901) to combat
the threat posed by sea-borne Viking raiders and the settlers of the Danelaw who sought to extend their influence, but it soon fell into decay.
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Alfred was, in fact, ruler of the Saxon kingdom Wessex which covered at various times greater or lesser portions of the West Country. Because his illustrious reign in the "Dark Ages" which set the scene for the unification of England he is frequently considered the first "king of England".
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King Alfred's naval victory over the danes at the Battle of Swanage Bay in 877 is considered the first English naval victory; a Danish fleet left Wareham to relieve their comrades besieged at Exeter by King Alfred's forces. Storms drove one hundred and twenty of the vessels ashore off Perveril Point before the English galleys could intercept them (the earliest recorded shipwrecks off the Dorset Coast).
The Norman conquest of 1066 resulted in the medieval monarchs of England holding greater or lesser possessions in France and the need to cross the English Channel with armies and supplies. With no standing navy, the medieval monarchs relied on the Cinque Port Confederation which provided "ship service", consisting of manned vessels in return for privileges granted to these ports of the South Coast.
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The Cinque Port Confederation seems to have existed in Saxon times, before the Norman conquest and royal charters deal with the confederation as a corporate body (as opposed to addressing individual ports).
The ships provided for ship service were not specialised warships but merchant and fishing vessels adapted temporarily for the purpose with the addition of fore and aft castles, etc.
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The first reformation of the "Navy Royal", as it was then known, occurred during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547). By the time of his death, the Navy Royal had been expanded to fifty-eight ships.
Thanks to the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VII had become the richest king in Christendom. His daughter Elizabeth I (1558-1603) could not rebuild her father's Navy through lack of finance yet her reign is famed as a great age of English seafaring achievements. The long-running war with Spain was, for the most part, conducted by privateers. It was during her reign that Britain's best remembered sea battle took place when the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588.
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Elizabeth I's reign was the last to see the use of galleys with oars to supplement their sails or replace them when becalmed.
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The second great reformation of the navy took place under General-at-Sea (Admiral)
Robert Blake (1599-1657) during Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth (1649-1660).
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Following the defeat by the Dutch at the battle of Dungeness on November 30th, 1652, during the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Commissioners of the Navy made a thorough review of naval tactics. The first official Articles of War and Fighting Instructions (written by General-at-Sea Robert Blake while recovering from a wound) were issued to English naval commanders in March 1653 and became the basis for the Navy for over a century until Horatio Nelson.
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Blake's Fighting Instructions included line-ahead fleet formations (hence "Ship of the Line") to maximise the use of the broadside.
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The Naval Service came into existence in the mid-17th century when the Fleet Royal was taken under the control of Parliament following the defeat of Charles I in the Civil War.
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The royal navy was incorporated by the Commonwealth in contrast to the army which was a creation of Parliament and consequently does not carry the "Royal" prefix.
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| Ruling the Waves, 1690-1914 |
For over two centuries between 1690 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Royal Navy was the uncontested military power throughout the world's oceans, losing only one major battle (Chesapeake, 1781 although it lost a number of smaller engagements, during the American War of Independence), and maintaining supply and communication links with distant locations in the far-flung British Empire.
| Battle of Trafalgar, 1805 |
The English sighted the enemy fleet of combined French and French ships
which had been ordered out of Cadiz by Napoleon at dawn and were engaged at mid-day on
0ctober 21st, 1805.
Outnumbered 33-27, Nelson ordered his captains to sail at the enemy line in two
lines, thus splitting off half the enemy ships down-wind where they could not engage in the
battle. After the battle had commenced, Nelson could not see most of the ships involved, let alone
issue orders, thus he was relaint on his captains following the orders they had been previously given.
47,000 men started the day aboard the ships and by the end of the day, 4,500 were dead and 3,000 injured.
Because of the hard conditions aboard ships of the
Royal Navy, the service relied greatly on impressment which, if in theory illegal,
is thought to have furnished as many as half the crew of the Victory at
trafalgar.
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Nelson's flagship, the Victory with a crew of 800,
carried one hundred guns, each of which could be fired every two minutes.
Twenty-eight tons of shot were fired using eight tons of gunpowder - the gunfire of the
battle could heard sixty miles inland off the Spanish coast.
The 24lb shot which was used left the guns at a speed of 1,600ft per second and could pass through
2 feet of solid oak at 400 metres sending splinters across the decks of the enemy
to impale the sailors. Grape shot, 2lb balls held in a canvas bag, was used against personel. The
canvas bag containing the shot would burn away when the cannon was fired. Chain shot (two pieces of shot linked by a chain) and
bar shot would be used to bring down the rigging of the enemy.
Muskateers would be stationed in the rigging to fire down on the crews of the enemy and one out of every
four who were hit would die of their wounds. Although the battle was won, a sniper shot
Nelson himself through the chest and his spinal cord was severed. He was taken below decks
and his injury kept secret so as not to demoralise the men but survived long enough to be told of the English
victory.
During World War II, the Royal Navy played a vital role in keeping
the sea lanes open to keep the United Kingdom supplied with the food, arms and raw materials which
were necessary to persue the war.
See Battle of the Atlantic (1940). It was also vital in enabling Britain to fight the
war in remote parts of the globe such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Far East.
Control of the seas was also vital to the many amphibious operations which were carried out during the war,
such as the invasions of West Africa, Sicily, Italy and the D-Day landings on the Normandy coast which
brought the war to a close.
King Charles I attempted to reinforce the neglected Navy by raising ship money. Ironically, when the raising of this tax for the improvement of the Navy percipitated Egland into civil war between king and parliament, the same navy sided with parliament.
By the mid-17th century, Holland had become a major maritime power with a large and highly successful merchant fleet. Dutch ships even carried English goods between English ports. To combat this, the Navigation Act was introduced in October 1651 forbidding foreign vessels from carrying English goods to or from English ports. The act, which caused the first Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 was passed not only as a measure to undermine the Dutch economically, but also to ensure that there was a larger pool of experienced English seamen upon which the Navy could draw. The act also required foreign ships to salute English naval ships in the English Channel and the North Sea.
Battle of Goodwin Sands or Battle of Dover
A Dutch fleet of 40 ships under Admiral Maarten Tromp encountered a British fleet of 25 under Robert Blake, "General-at-Sea" on May 19th, 1952. Despite the disparity in numbers, Blake insisted that the Dutch dip their ensigns in salute and proferred a few cannonshots as encouragement when the Dutch refused. Tromp replied with a broadside from his flagship, Brederode and five hours of battle ensued. Blake sunk five Dutch ships and the Dutch fleet withdrew as darkness fell. War was declared between England an the Netherlands in July and the Dutch began to gather their merchant ships into convoys against attacks by English ships.
Cromwell's foreign policy led England into the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652 against the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands which was eventually won by Ganeral-at-Sea Robert Blake (1598-1657) in 1654.
England and Holland, both Protestant countries in a predominantly Roman Catholic Europe had political interests in common but they were also rivals in trade, exploration and commerce.
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The Netherlands became completely independent of Spain by 1648 and both England and the Netherlands were Protestant republics after 1650. William II of Orange, the son-in-law of Charles I was the Stadholder of the Netherlands but died in 1650, a fortnight before the birth of his heir (the son of Mary Stuart, and grandson of Charles I). The office of Stadholder was abolished the merchants, jealous of their trade, gained more power in the Netherlands.
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There was long-standing competition between the two countries over the carrying trade and, in 1650, the Council of State of the Commonwealth which was reluctant to make a Protestant enemy and to see the return of the Orange family, made overtures to the Dutch to settle the differences by compromise. The Dutch saw the proposals of the Commonwealth as an attempt to undermine their sovereignty, and rejected it, Parliament passed the Navigation Act in 1651;-
. . . that from and after the first day of December and from thence forwards, no goods or commodities whatsoever of the growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, or of any part thereof; or of any islands belonging to them �as well of the English plantations as others, shall be imported or brought into this Commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, . . . in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but only in such as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of this Commonwealth . . . |
| - the Navigation Act, October 9th, 1651 |
In 1652 the Dutch, under Admiral Maarten Van Tromp (1598-1653) gained the upper hand in the ensuing conflict over the English Navy commanded by Robert Blake. Fortunes turned the following year as the Commonwealth won a series of engagements with the Dutch, capturing or sinking four times as many Dutch vessels as they lost themselves.
| Battles |
| Dover May 19th, 1652
Battle of Dover or Battle of Goodwin Sands |
| | Dutch fleet of 42 encountered 20 English warships commanded by General-at-Sea Robert Blake in English waters and Tromp provocatively refused to make the conventional salute of lowering his flag to the English General-at-Sea. Blake's warning shot was replied with a broadside from Tromp's flagship, the Brederode resuting in a five-hour battle. The Dutch fleet lost two ships and withdrew as darkness fell. |
| July, 1652 |
| | Blake attacked and captured a large part of the Dutch fishing fleet. |
| | England declares war on the Netherlands. |
| Plymouth August 16th, 1652
Battle of Plymouth |
| | Thirty-two warships commanded by admiral Michiel de Ruyter escorting a merchant convoy of 60 ships down the English Channel from Calais to the Mediterranean sight and attack a British fleet of 38 ships commanded by General-at-Sea George Ayscue off Plymouth. Fiercely fought, the result was indecisive (both sides claimed victory) and the Dutch merchantmen successfully escaped down the Channel. |
| Kentish Knock September 28th, 1652
Battle of the Kentish Knock |
| | The Dutch fleet of 59 warships under Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de Witt were sighted by Blake's fleet of 68 warships off the Kentish Knock (a sandbank in the southern North Sea about 18 miles NE of North Foreland) and immediately attacked. Two Dutch ships were captured and several others were damaged with many casualties (a number of the Dutch warships holding back from joining in the action because of discontent among their crews). Blake pursued the retreating Dutch fleet for two days until de Witt took refuge in Goeree harbour. |
| Dungeness November 30th, 1652
Battle of Dungeness |
| | 42 ships under under Blake were engaged by 80 Dutch warships under Tromp and gradually overwhelmed them through force of numbers until Blake retreated for the refuge of the Thames With three ships sunk, two captured, and his flagship, the Triumph, badly damaged. The Dutch victory allowed their merchant convoys free passage through the Channel with the English fleet was blockaded in its own harbours.
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The defeat prompted the Commissioners of the Navy to make a thorough review of naval tactics and the first official Articles of War and Fighting Instructions were issued to English naval commanders in March 1653.
The Fighting Instructions included line-ahead fleet formations (hence "Ship of the Line") to maximise the use of the broadside and remained the basis of naval tactics throughout the next century.
The English fleet was strengthened so that, by early 1653, around 80 warships had been assembled at Portsmouth under the joint command of Generals-at-Sea Blake, Monck and Deane.
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| Portland February 18th-20th, 1653
Battle of Portland or the Three Days Battle |
| | Tromp's fleet of eighty warships escorted a large convoy of 200 merchantmen up the Channel as they returned from the Mediterranean when they were intercepted by the main English battle fleet under the joint command of Blake, Monck and Deane about 20 miles south of Portland Bill. Both sides had lost several ships when a squadron of English frigates bypassed the main action, making for the unprotected convoy and forcing Tromp to disengage from the battle to protect the merchantmen. Although sporadic fighting continued, the English fleet was becalmed and prevented from following the Dutch.
Thew following afternoon, the English caught up with the Dutch, Tromp deploying his warships in a defensive crescent protect the merchant convoy. Although the Dutch successfully resisted English attempts to break through the formation, by dusk they had run short of ammunition.
The battle was rejoined off Beachy Head in Sussex and the English broke through the Dutch defences to get in amongst the merchant convoy. Blake anchored the fleet at dusk intending to pursue the Dutch who escaped overnight into the shallows off the Flemmish and Zeeland coasts where the English dared not follow.
The Dutch had lost eight warships and possibly as many as fifty merchantmen and the Commonwealth reigned supreme in the Channel, now closed to Dutch mariners. |
| North Foreland June 2nd-3rd, 1653
Battle of North Foreland or Battle of Gabbard Shoal |
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A Dutch fleet of ninety-eight warships and six fireships under Admiral Tromp, with de Witt and de Ruyter as vice-admirals, engaged the English with one hundred ships and five fireships under Generals-at-Sea George Monck and Richard Deane near the Gabbard sandbak (off Orfordness on the Suffolk coast). The Dutch withdrew after seven hours of battle with the loss of three warships.
The following day, Monck having been reinforced by eighteen ships commanded by Robert Blake and, after four hours of battle, the Dutch withdrew in disarray, pursued by the English until nightfall. They had lost eleven ships, with a further nine captured, while the English fleet lost no ships and suffered light casualties.
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General-at-Sea Richard Deane was killed during the first Dutch broadside.
Following the victory, Monck's fleet imposed a total blockade on Dutch ports, capturing hundreds of Dutch merchantmem and fishing vessels, bringing all Dutch overseas commerce to a complete standstill and forcing the Netherlands to consider suing for peace with the Commonwealth.
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| Scheveningen July 31st, 1653
Battle of Scheveningen or Battle of the Texel |
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A Dutch fleet of one hundred warships sailed on July 24th, 1653, to lift the English blockade of the Dutch coast. Tromp made for the island of Texel, where twenty-seven Dutch warships and ten fireships under de Witt was blockaded by one hundred and twenty English ships under George Monck. Monk was lured from Texel to a partial engagement off Katwijk on July 29th, allwoing de Witt to escape to the open sea and meet Tromp off Scheveningen the following day.
The two fleets engaged off Scheveningen on the 31st, watched by hundreds of spectators from the beaches and, in the early stages, Tromp was killed by a musket shot (his death was kept secret for hours to avoid undermining morale). Gradually the Dutch were overwhelmed and, with up to thirty ships sunk or badly damaged, retreated to shelter at Texel.
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The death of Maarten Tromp was not only a severe blow to the Dutch navy, but also to the Orangists who sought the defeat of the Commonwealth and restoration of the Stuart monarchy in England; the Republican influence strengthened after Scheveningen and the peace negotiations with the Commonwealth, culminating in the Treaty of Westminster, began in earnest.
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Peace was concluded with the Dutch on generous terms by the Treaty of Westminster which was signed on April 5th, 1654. The principal aims of the treaty were to limit the powers of the pro-Stuart House of Orange in the Netherlands and secure the expulsion of English Royalist exiles from the Dutch territories.
While the Treaty of Westminster ended the hostilities of the First Anglo-Dutch War, it did little to alleviate the commercial rivalry in maritime trade between the two nations, especially in the extensive colonies of both countries, and hostilities continued between the trade companies (which had warships and troops of their own). The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667) was thus inevitable. |
Flag of the British East India Company |
Flag of the Dutch East Indies Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie) |
| Anglo-Spanish War, 1656-1660 |
As with the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654), the Anglo-Spanish War which broke out in February 1656 was fought because of commercial rivalries.
General-at-Sea Robert Blake blockaded Cadiz. During the blockade,
one of his captains, Richard Stayner, destroyed most of the Spanish Plate Fleet and a galleon
of treasure was captured - the overall loss to Spain was estimated at £2-million.
Blake maintained the blockade throught the winter of
1656, the first time
the English fleet had stayed at sea over winter.
In 1657, Blake won against
the Spanish West Indian Fleet over the English seizure of Jamaica although the English
failed in capturing their object, the island of Hispaniola. On
April 20th, Blake
totally destroyed a Spanish silver fleet of sixteen ships at
Santa Cruz Bay, Tenerife, with the loss of only one ship despite being under fire from
shore batteries and attacking and withdrawing on the tide.
| 877 | | Battle of Swanage Bay; Alfred the Great wins first English naval victory against the Danes
A Danish fleet left Wareham to relieve their comrades besieged at Exeter by King Alfreds forces. Storms drove 120 of the vessels ashore off Perveril Point before the English galleys could intercept them - the earliest known shipwrecks off the Dorset Coast | | BAAAGBYS BAAAGBPR BAAAGCBS BAAAGDDL BAAAGCIA BAAAGDZD BAAAGDDN BAAAGCQU BAAAGEFP BAAAGEFQ | | 999 | | The Danes sail up the river Medway to Rochester, ravaging Kent (ASC)
The failure of the English navy may have been due to treachery | | BAAAGEEN BAAAGDDL BAAAGDDN | | 1008 | | The navy raised by a ship tax failed | | BAAAGBTY BAAAGCPQ | | 1496 | | Henry VII creates the Royal Navy | | BAAAGBYL BAAAGBRG | | 1545.Jul | | Battle of the Solent: French fleet enters the Solent intending to destroy the English fleet and invade the Isle of Wight | | BAAAGBKY BAAAGBXA BAAAGEIB | | 1559.Dec.18 | | Elizabeth I sends aid to the Scottish Lords by land and sea | | BAAAGEKC BAAAGCLM | | 1599 | | Birth of Robert Blake (-1657), Commonwealth admiral, at Bridgewater, Somerset
He was the most influential admiral until Horatio Nelson | | BAAAGEKG BAAAGEKB | | 1633 | | Birth of celebrated English diarist and reformer of the Navy, Samuel Pepys | | BAAAGBFE | | 1649 | | Commonwealth reform of the Navy (-1652) | | BAAAGEKB | | 1651.Oct.09 | | Passage of the Navigation Act by the Commonwealth Parliament forbidding ships other than English or colonial from carrying English ports to/from English ports
The Act caused the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 | | BAAAGEFZ BAAAGEKB BAAAGCPO BAAAGCPP | | 1652 | | Commonwealth reform of the Navy (1649-) | | BAAAGEKB BAAAGEFZ | | 1652.Jan | | 2 warships and about 1,000 soldiers under General-at-Sea George Ayescue, sent by the Commonwealth quell the Royalists on Barbados in the Caribbean who had taken refuge there | | BAAAGEKB BAAAGCAP | | 1652.May.19 | | Battle of Godwin Sands or Battle of Dover - start of the First Anglo-Dutch War (-1654) | | BAAAGEFP BAAAGEFQ BAAAGEFZ BAAAGEKB BAAAGEHJ | | 1652.Jul | | England declares war on the Netherlands | | NAAAGBEI BAAAGEFZ BAAAGEKB | | 1652.Aug.16 | | Battle of Plymouth: 32 Dutch warships escorting a merchant convoy engage 38 English warships in an indecisive battle during which the merchantmen escape | | BAAAGEKB BAAAGDZE | | 1652.Sep.28 | | Battle of the Kentish Knock: 59 Dutch warships under de Witt were engaged by Blake\'s fleet of 68 warships off the Kentish Knock (about 18 miles NE of North Foreland). The retreating Dutch pursued for 2 days before taking refuge in Goeree harbour
| | BAAAGEKB BAAAGEKG | | 1653 | | Strengthening of the Navy against the Dutch threat with 80 warships assembled at Portsmouth under the joint command of Generals-at-Sea Blake, Monck and Deane | | BAAAGEKB BAAAGEKG BAAAGGAM | | 1653.Feb.18 | | During the three-day Battle of Portland, three miles off the promontory: the 32-gun Sampson and several Dutch ships sunk
The English, under Blake, chase Admiral Tromp\\\'s Dutch fleet up the channel to eventual defeat of the Isle of Wight on the 20th
| | BAAAGCQX BAAAGEFQ BAAAGCQU BAAAGCEM BAAAGEFZ BAAAGEKB BAAAGEKF BAAAGEKG | | 1653.Mar | | Publication of Articles of War and Fighting Instructions for the instruction of Naval officers in naval tactics by Robert Blake following the defeat at the Battle of Dungeness
The Fighting Instructions remained the basis of naval tactics throughout the next century | | BAAAGEKB BAAAGEKG | | 1654.Apr.05 | | Treaty of Westminster signed ending the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-) | | BAAAGEFR BAAAGEFZ BAAAGEKB | | 1656.Oct | | Blake maintains the blockade throught the winter, the first time
the English fleet had stayed at sea over winter | | BAAAGEKG BAAAGEKB | | 1657 | | Death of Robert Blake (1599-), the most influential British admiral until Horatio Nelson | | BAAAGEKG BAAAGEDG | | 1673 | | Samuel Pepys appointed Secretary to the Navy Office (-1689) | | BAAAGBFE | | 1685.Jun.20 | | Vessels of the Royal Navy arrive at Lyme Regis to prevent the possibility of Monmouths retreat | | BAAAGBVK BAAAGBUI | | 1689 | | Royal Naval Dockyard established at Devonport | | BAAAGBAV BAAAGDZF | | 1689 | | Samuel Pepys ends as Secretary to the Navy Office (1673-) | | BAAAGBFE | | 1690.Jun.30 | | Battle of Beachy Head: French defeat Anglo-Dutch fleet | | | | 1702 | | Monopoly of supplying pharmaceuticals to Royal Navy ships granted to the Society of Apothecaries in London by Queen Anne | | BAAAGDKN | | 1703 | | Death of English diarist and reformer of the Navy, Samuel Pepys | | BAAAGBFE | | 1781 | | Royal Navy lose the Battle of Chesapeake (American War of Independence)
The only major battle lost by the Royal Navy between 1690 and World War I (1914-1918) | | | | 1825 | | Deciphering and publication of the Diary of Samuel Pepys | | BAAAGBFE | | 1938.Sep.28 | | The Royal Navy mobilised | | | | 1943.May | | German navy lost 44 U-boats in May | | |
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