HMS Sovereign of the Seas
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HMS Sovereign of the Seas was a 17th century British Royal Navy first-rate ship of the line of 100 guns, later known as just Sovereign and then Royal Sovereign. Sovereign of the Seas was built by Peter Pett (later a Commissioner of the Navy), under the guidance of his father Phineas, the king's master shipwright, and was launched at Woolwich dockyard on October 13 1637. As the second three-decked first-rate (the first three-decker being Prince Royal of 1610), she was the predecessor of Nelson's Victory, although Revenge, built in 1577 by Mathew Baker, was the inspiration providing the innovation of a single deck devoted entirely to broadside guns.
She was the most extravagantly decorated warship in the Royal Navy, and the money spent making her so helped to create the financial crisis for Charles I that contributed to the English Civil War.
Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds noted that after the ship's launch she was "cut down" and made a safe and fast ship. Referred to as "The Golden Devil" (den Gulden Duvel) by the Dutch, Sovereign served throughout the wars of the Commonwealth of England and became the flagship of Admiral Robert Blake. She was involved in all of the great English naval conflicts fought against the United Provinces and France. Although repeatedly occupied by the Dutch in the fiercest of engagements the Sovereign was retaken every time and remained in service for nearly sixty years as the best ship in the English fleet.
She was smaller than Naseby (later renamed Royal Charles), but she was in regular service during the three Anglo-Dutch Wars, surviving the Raid on the Medway in 1667 by being elsewhere at the time, and took part in the outset of the War of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV of France, taking part in the battles of Beachy Head and La Hougue when she was more than 50 years old.
Sovereign became leaky and defective with age during the reign of William III, and was laid up at Chatham, ignominiously ending her days by being burnt to the water line as a result of having been set on fire either by accident, negligence or design.
In her honour Naval tradition has kept the name of this ship afloat, and several other subsequent ships have been named HMS Royal Sovereign.