List of ships of the line of the Royal Navy

This is a list of ships of the line of the Royal Navy of England, and later (from 1707) of Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. The list starts from 1660, the year in which the Royal Navy came into being after the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, up until the emergence of the battleship around 1880, as defined by the Admiralty.

This list includes several earlier ships which were rebuilt for the Royal Navy in this period – specifically the first rate Royal Prince (in 1663), the second rate Victory (in 1666), the third rate Montague (in 1675) and the fourth rates Bonaventure (in 1663) and Constant Warwich (in 1666). The process, which generally involved the dismantling in dry dock of the old ship and constructing it to a new design incorporating part of the materials from the old vessel, produced what were in effect substantially new ships with altered dimensions and sizes, and generally mounting a somewhat larger number of guns.

The above list excludes two smaller fourth rates not designed for the line of battle – the galley-frigates Charles Galley and James Galley of 1676. It also excludes four fifth rates of 36 guns (the Falcon and Sweepstakes of 1666, the Nonsuch of 1668, and the Phoenix of 1671) which were re-classed as 42-gun fourth rates some years after their original completion, but later reverted to being fifth rates.

This programme was approved by Parliament on 10 October 1690. While nominally it comprised seventeen third rates of 80 guns and ten fourth rates of 60 guns, funds for three third rates of 70 guns were provided at virtually the same date as the Programme, which should thus strictly speaking refer to Thirty Ships.

The 1706 Establishment established a desired set of principal dimensions for each group (i.e. size) of warship from the 40-gun fifth rate up to the 90-gun second rate (first rates and ships of less than 40 guns were not covered by the 1706 Establishment). As only the principal dimensions were specified, the design of individual ships remained with the Master Shipwright in each Dockyard; thus ships of the same number of guns built to this Establishment did not constitute a class in the modern sense of all being built to one design.

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