(formerly Royal Katherine) 2nd rate 90 (3m)
L/B:
153 × 40 (46.6m × 12.2m) Tons:
1,086 bm Hull:
wood Comp:
888 Arm:
90 guns Built:
Woolwich Dockyard, Eng.; 1664.
The name Royal Katherine was first given to an 84-gun ship built in 1664 which saw considerable action in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. She took part in the English victory at the Battle of Lowestoft (June 3, 1665), the English defeat in the Four Days' Battle (June 1-4), and their subsequent victory at Orfordness (July 25, 1666). When war with the Dutch was renewed a few years later, Royal Katherine (sometimes spelled Catherine) was part of the Anglo-French fleet defeated by the Dutch at Solebay on May 28, 1672, and again at the two battles of Schooneveld on May 28 and June 4 the next year. During the War of the League of Augsburg, Royal Katherine was part of the Anglo-Dutch fleet that defeated the French at the three-day Battle of Barfleur, on May 19-22, 1692.
In age of sail, in order to obtain funding for new ships from a parsimonious Parliament, the Admiralty would request funding to "rebuild" an old one. Despite appearances to the contrary, the result was in essence the same. So it was that the "rebuilt" Royal Katherine emerged from the yard in 1702. During the War of the Spanish Succession, she was present at the siege of Gibraltar on July 24, 1704, and at the siege of Vélez Málaga, Spain, on August 13, she flew the flag of Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Rooke.
Two years later, the ship was renamed for the site of the Duke of Marlborough's victory over the French in Belgium. The next half-century was relatively uneventful for the Ramillies.
At the start of the Seven Years' War, the Marquis de la Galissonière captured Minorca, in the western Mediterranean, in April 1756. Ordered to the relief of the besieged garrison at Port Mahon, Vice Admiral the Honourable John Byng was dispatched from Portsmouth with thirteen ships of the line and three frigates. On May 20, 1757, he engaged La Galissonière's fleet about thirty miles from Port Mahon. When the French withdrew, Byng failed either to pursue the fleet or to relieve Port Mahon, which soon surrendered. Instead, he retired to Gibraltar to await reinforcements. Vice Admiral Sir Edward Hawke was sent out to try to recapture Minorca, but the English had lost the island for good.
Although there was widespread condemnation of Byng for failing in his mission, as his court-martial progressed aboard
HMS St. George, it became clear that he was being made the scapegoat for a failure of government policy. Sentenced to a firing squad, Byng was executed on the deck of HMS Monarch on March 14, 1757. Condemnation of the punishment was widespread. In England it was said that "the unfortunate Admiral was shot because Newcastle [the Prime Minister] deserved to be hanged." But the French had the last word. When Voltaire's fictional Candide visits Portsmouth, he asks why an admiral has been sentenced to die. "In this country," he is told, "it's considered a good idea to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others."
Ramillies did not long survive Byng. In 1760 she was returning to Plymouth before an approaching gale when a combination of poor piloting and inadequate ship handling led to the ship's piling up on the rocks off Bolt Head on the evening of February 15. Only 26 of the 725 crew survived.
Clowes, Hepper, British Warship Losses. Pope, At Twelve Mr. Byng Was Shot.
