These tales of the navy of the fighting days of old are to some extent, it may seem, cruises in rather out-of-the-way waters. At the same time, they may claim present-day associations that should render them not out of place just now. How and why, for instance, the world-famous name Dreadnought came into the Royal Navy is a story of interest on its own account that ought to be timely. With that also is told something of what our Dreadnoughts of old did under fire in the fighting days of history:

The “Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day”—on the 24th of August, 1572—was directly the cause of the coming into existence of our first Dreadnought . Startled and horrified at the terrible news, as the details of the ghastly story crossed the channel, Queen Elizabeth replied by instantly calling the forces of England to arms. John Hawkins, at the head of twenty ships of war, was sent to cruise off the Azores. The rest of the fleet was ordered to mobilize and be ready to concentrate in the Downs.

“ The Kentishe Menne in Front! ” “Kent claims for itself the first blow in battle against alien enemies.” The hand that penned these words has lain in the grave for over seven centuries; but old William Fitz-Stephen of Canterbury knew what he meant, and meant what he wrote. They are words that our fine “county cruiser” the Kent of to-day—to which the ladies of Kent have presented a silken battle flag and the Men of Kent a silver shield and other gifts, to incite the Kent’s bluejackets to shoot s

This year, 1907, has witnessed the coming round of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of British rule in India. It has recalled to memory too, among some of us at any rate, the name of one of the great Englishmen of history, Clive, and how he set his hand to the work which, in its ultimate outcome, placed the realms of the Great Mogul beneath the sovereignty of the British flag. The part that the Royal Navy took side by side with Clive and his soldiers is perhaps hardly as

One of the best known of all our man-of-war names reappears on the roll of the British fleet in the name Téméraire , now borne by one of our new giant 18,000-ton battleships of the Dreadnought type. This is the story of how it came to be a British battleship name in the first place, the story of the act of war which in the sequel led to that historic man-of-war the “Fighting” Téméraire figuring on another day among the ships of Nelson’s fleet at Trafalgar, to fight there as the Victory’s chief s

How the British Navy came by its first Formidable man-of-war, the predecessor in the direct line of the fine first-class battleship, the Formidable of our modern Navy, is one of the most exciting tales in our naval annals. It serves too to commemorate one of the most brilliant victories ever won at sea—the dashing encounter on that eventful winter’s afternoon in the Bay of Biscay, “When Hawke came swooping from the West”:— How the Formidable passed that day from France to England is, indeed, som

This is the story of the building of the Victory at Chatham Dockyard, and how, why, and when the order to set to work on this particular first-rate man-of-war was given. On the 20th of September, 1758, Lord Anson, First Lord of the Admiralty, after commanding at sea on Special Service off the coast of France all the summer, arrived in London to resume his duties on the Board. Nine days later, in the old parsonage house of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk, was born into this world the infant boy to whom

The story of what happened once in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts, in the West Indies, recalls one of our “forgotten glories”; a feat of arms that nine out of ten people, one may be quite certain, have never heard of. Nor do our general histories say much of it, even of those whose pages make reference to it. Yet it is one of the very smartest, and neatest, and cleverest displays that, it may be, any British Admiral ever made, and it was managed, too, in the face of heroic odds. In every sense it was a

The name Donegal has a significance to the Royal Navy that is all its own. It was designated by the Admiralty as a county cruiser name, for one of the ships of the Kent and Monmouth group; but there is more than that behind the name. Donegal lettered on the stern of a man-of-war has its own traditions—associations of a yet wider interest to the British fleet. The name, as a fact, owes its appearance on the Navy List to a very special occasion. H.M.S. Donegal , in its origin, is only incidentally

This is a glance at Captain Hardy, the captain of the Victory at Trafalgar, his lieutenants and other quarter-deck officers of Nelson’s flagship, and also something of the men who manned the Victory and where they came from. Incidentally this should be said of Nelson’s own personal connection with the Victory . Nelson’s first association with the Victory dated back to many years before Trafalgar—ever since, indeed, the year in which he entered the Navy as a boy of twelve. At that time the Victor

“Britannia Victrix” The 100-gun three-decker Britannia , was the flagship of the third in command at Trafalgar, Rear-Admiral the Earl of Northesk. In honour of the part that the Britannia took in the battle Lord Northesk was created a Knight of the Bath, and was granted by George the Third the right to place the name “Trafalgar” on his coat-of-arms, with special heraldic augmentations. Ever since 1805 the supporters of the heraldic shield of the earls of Northesk have each borne a staff with a R