Talk:HMS Sovereign of the Seas

Military history: Maritime / British / European / Early Modern

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Maritime warfare task force
	British military history task force
	European military history task force
	Early Modern warfare task force (c. 1500 – c. 1800)

Ships

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ships, a project to improve all Ship-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other articles, please join the project, or contribute to the project discussion. All interested editors are welcome. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.ShipsWikipedia:WikiProject ShipsTemplate:WikiProject ShipsShips articles

"candle accident"

this blog post

http://lewisshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/walled-garden-wikis-and-candlepower/

quotes some source (obscure to me) that says

Sovereign of the Seas: HMS Sovereign of the Seas; First Rate; Length:38.7 m (keel); Beam: 14.2 m; 1,141 tons; Armament: 106 guns; 20 cannon drakes, 4 demi-cannon drakes and 4 demi-cannon on the lower gun deck; 24 culverin drakes, 6 culverins and 4 demi-cannon on the middle gun deck; 38 demi-culverin drakes, 4 demi-culverins and 2 culverin drakes on the upper gun deck; Woolwich Dockyard, England; 1637. The Royal Navy’s most lavish ornamented and expensive ship of the day. Slow and cumbersome, she nevertheless saw action during all three Anglo-Dutch wars. *In 1703 she was destroyed by a candle mishap at Chatham.*” (Emphasis added.)

the only web source that comes close to this account is

http://www.farahardupre.co.uk/catalog/Cat_56.pdf

which is a catalog with somewhat romantic descriptons of artifacts that says

The ship took part in many battles with the Dutch and French and remained undefeated. Sadly she came to an ignominious end in 1696 at Chatham, when a careless sailor left a candle unchecked in his cabin, and she was destroyed by fire. Had she survived, she would not have been obsolete in terms of fire power and size, at the Battle of the Nile over a century later. At the launch of “The Sovereign of the Seas” King Charles ordered the Master of the Royal Mint to produce a commemorative medal to be known as “The Dominion of the Seas Medal”. A few were first struck in silver but because of its size technical problems caused the rest, like this one, to be cast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edward Vielmetti (talk • contribs) 14:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

from Samuel Pepys diary

http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/1820.php#discussion

or more accurately from comments thereupon; lots of discussion including a recounting of the candle story.

it was renamed the HMS Royal Sovereign by then.

Paid for with Charles I’s very unpopular Ship Money, the Sovereign of the Seas was launched in 1637. The world’s first true three-decker, she was very big for her day at over 1500 tons and carried 100 guns plus. She was rebuilt as Royal Sovereign in 1660, and again in 1685 when her upper works were cut down to make her more seaworthy. An overturned candle set her on fire at her moorings at Chatham in 1697 and destroyed her. Her replacement, Royal Sovereign II was launched in 1701. She was feared by the Dutch who called her the”golden devil” on account of the lavish gold leaf applied to her ornaments.

this text is otherwise unsourced —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edward Vielmetti (talk • contribs) 14:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

found the court martial records

blogged here

http://vielmetti.typepad.com/vacuum/2008/10/why-did-the-roy.html

which can be worked into the article as appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edward Vielmetti (talk • contribs) 01:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not built as a ship of the line

I would take issue with the citations to Brian Lavery. At least in the British Royal Navy, the term "ship of the line" can't go any further back than Blake's Fighting Instructions of 1653, which pioneered the British line of battle tactic. So the Sovereign of the Seas can't have been built as a ship of the line, much less a "first rate" in 1637. I don't have a counter-citation ready to hand, or I'd change the lead myself. Pirate Dan (talk) 19:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

File:Sovereign of the seas.JPG Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Sovereign of the seas.JPG, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests March 2012

What should I do?

Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.

If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.

To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Sovereign of the seas.JPG)

This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 09:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklisted Links Found on HMS Sovereign of the Seas

Cyberbot II has detected links on HMS Sovereign of the Seas which have been added to the blacklist, either globally or locally. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed or are highly inappropriate for Wikipedia. The addition will be logged at one of these locations: local or global If you believe the specific link should be exempt from the blacklist, you may request that it is white-listed. Alternatively, you may request that the link is removed from or altered on the blacklist locally or globally. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. Please do not remove the tag until the issue is resolved. You may set the invisible parameter to "true" whilst requests to white-list are being processed. Should you require any help with this process, please ask at the help desk.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:

http://shippictures.byethost22.com/hms%20sovereign%20of%20the%20seas.htm
Triggered by \bshippictures\.byethost22\.com\b on the local blacklist