Royal Oak 1690

Launched in 1690, Royal Oak at 1,154 Tons BM was rated for 70-74 guns and 500 Men and Classed as a Third Rate Ship Of The Line.

Built during a period where the Royal Navy was beginning to seek options to counter the ever increasing size of French Third Rate ships, which were starting to outclass English standard 150' 70 gunners, The old Royal Oak launched in 1674, was well regarded in the fleet as likely one of the best sailors of the 3rd Rate class, originally designed by Jonas Shish she was state of the art.

But by the late 1680s, Royal Oak started to look alot more appealing not only for her speed, but her extra size, Royal Oak was 7' longer than normal British 70s, this is partly what gifted her the speed she was famous for but, it also allowed for an armament to counter the newer French Threat.

Thus in 1690, Sir Robert Lee a renowned naval designer of his time, set about Rebuilding and modernizing the ageing Royal Oak. The process called ''Rebuilding'' began, Lee added new headrails and two new stern balconies' more in fashion at the time, opposed to the one row of stern lights that once resided there. He modernised her internals bringing her capacity for crew and fighting equipment into the modern age. But Lee, realizing what made Royal Oak so special, never altered her dimensions or made any changes to her hull form, while he overseen the replacement of rotten timbers he was careful to preserve what made her one of the best fighting ships of the age.

When Completed, Royal Oak represented one of the most advanced Third Rate ships yet launched in england, so successful in fact, that when the Royal Navy finally decided on a new class of 80 gun two deckers to take over the role of the old style 70 gun ships, they based the new class on Royal Oak, copying her Dimensions and general profile for a series of thirteen ships.

First commissioned in 1691, Royal Oak didn't have to wait long to see action, when she took part in the battle of Barfleur in 1692, under Captain George Byng, she however wasn't heavily engaged. Next in 1693 Royal Oak found herself under command of Captain Gerard Ellwes as the Flagship of Sir George Rooke's squadron at the Battle of Lagos, Royal Oak and a combined Anglo-Dutch squadron of 21 ships of the line, defending a convoy of over 200 merchant ships, fought a hot action with a Fleet of 70 ships of the line under Admiral Tourville, the allied fleet was not able to avoid the french, a brisk action followed, two Dutch ships fought hard to slow the advance of Tourville they were both captured and commended for fighting hard, while Rooke in Royal Oak put some distance between his ships and the French Fleet when, Tourville ordered four of his best sailors to give chase to Rooke and his remaining merchant's, seeing this, Rooke ordered Royal Oak to come about and face the pursuers, fighting another brisk action, beating off the would be attacker's. Royal Oak and the remaining merchants (a little over half of the original 200 ships) made it back to safety, considering the odds, Rooke managed to haul the majority of his ships and merchants together from the jaws of Tourville's terrifying 70 ship battle fleet, while Tourville managed to capture 40 merchants and destroy another 50. making it still one of the biggest losses of trade value of the war. Without Rooke's gallant defence of his ships and Convoy it may have destroyed the Allied war effort.

Royal Oak was next found at the Battle of Malaga in 1704, the battle itself proved to be a bloody exchange between the Anglo-Dutch fleet of 53 vs a French fleet of 50, the battle proved to be a tactical draw with the Allied fleet slightly more wounded than the French but no ships lost on either side, but a strategic Victory for the Anglo-Dutch fleet, the fighting was fierce and very competitive with Royal Oak and several others being heavily battered and suffering many casualty's, but the French were drove into port for the rest of the war, giving command of the seas to the Royal Navy, tho they never put another battle fleet to sea, they resorted to small squadrons to harass English and Dutch trade.

It would be these very commerce raiding squadrons that would see Royal Oak in two final and greatest fights, After Malaga the Royal Navy choose to decrease the amount of large warships in service, laying up many three deckers and many of their other 3rd and 4th rates, while keeping a key number of ships to escort convoys.

This brings us to 1707, when three Third Rate 70 gun ships were selected to escort a convoy of 52 merchantmen to the west-indies, Commodore Baron Wylde in Royal Oak with Grafton and Hampton Court was to escort convoy and provide protection from expected light enemy forces. However only a few days out, off Beachy, ran into Admiral Forbin's squadron of 7 ships of the line, seeing that they were poorly outnumbered, Royal Oak, Grafton and Hampton Court, began a defensive action to by the merchants time to escape, the three english ships threw themselves into hard battle with the French, Grafton after some hot exchanges was surrounded by three ships and boarded after some vicious fighting was obliged to surrender, Hampton was next focused, by several ships, and was being battered, she nearly had herself disengaged when two fresh ships checked her way and after a warm skirmish of 30 mins, struck. Royal Oak seeing the predicament made her way closer to better aid Hampton Court, but found she had already struck her colors, Commodore Wylde decided that the only thing left to do was to try and save his ship and perhaps some of the remaining merchants, Forbins flagship went after Royal Oak hammering her hard, its here where Royal Oak, though much shattered and with water gaining fast, she managed still, to put distance between herself and the French, before the pumps could no longer keep up with the flooding, Wylde ordered his ship beached to save her from sinking, he sailed just long enough to save his ship, and 31 of his merchant fleet over half.

Wylde and the other captains here hailed as hero's, they fought bravely and bitterly, and managed at great cost to prevent their valuable convoy from complete destruction, and as soon as Royal Oak was repaired Wylde was immediately sent as part of an 5 ship of the line escort for a convoy of 130 merchantmen, Two 80 gun ships, Royal Oak and two 50 gun ships, under command of Commodore Richard Edwards, bound for Portugal. the convoy left in October 1707, and a day out were sighted by two French squadrons of 6 ships of the line each one under Admiral Forbin, and the other under Admiral Duguay Trouin.

Trouin, the more aggressive of the two commanders and commanding the 72 Gun Lys, led the 12 ship fleet to intercept the convoy, While Edward's took his five ships and bore closer to the French, deciding to buy time and hold off the larger attacking force so the merchantmen could escape, Cumberland 80, the flagship lead a vicious attack, but after heavy fighting from all sides was forced to strike to the Lys, Next Chester 50, struck to Jason and Ruby 50, to Amazone, Devonshire continued a running fight with 5 ships until the evening, when during continued hot action exploded, Killing all but two of her crew, Royal Oak however during intense fighting had been run into by Achille both ships losing their bowsprites, Royal Oak then was boarded, through ferocious fighting managed to repel her boarder's and sheer off, after some violent gunnery exchanges, Wylde seeing that he again was standing nearly alone, decided to make a break for it, Royal Oak again even after nearly 20 years of hard service, showed what she was made of, out sailing her chase to safety, carrying in a fair number of merchants with her. The sacrifice Edwards made, lost 4 of his 5 ships but only 15 of the 130 valuable merchants were captured by the French. Once again the defending Captains Richard Edwards, John Watkins, Peregrine Bertie and John Balchen were looked on as Hero's for gallantly fighting to the last to defend their convoy, while Wylde was at first court-martialed for breaking the line, this however was dissmissed after the court had found he had done his up most to do his duty.

Royal Oak received a small repair and was back in service by 1708, but by 1709 was found to be unfit for service, 20 years of hard active service, and those to final taxing battles had taken the last of Royal Oaks youthfulness, and what remained was a shadow of a great warship, once the cutting edge of Royal Navy 70 gun ships, she was Broken up in 1710, and ordered to be rebuilt into a standard 150' 70 gun ship, her brilliant design was not preserved in the next Royal Oak in 1713, while the new ship was a solid workhorse, it was generally accepted that the was not to be compared to the brilliance of the old ship. 1690 Royal Oak, would be remembered by admirals as late as the 1740s for her sailing performance and graceful design. Truly a legendary fighting ship that deserves to be remembered,