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HMS Royal Sovereign

HMS Royal Sovereign has been the name of four warships of the British Royal Navy, of which the first was launched in 1701.

The second and most famous Royal Sovereign, launched in 1786, was Admiral Collingwood's flagship at the Trafalgar on October 21, 1805.

The third Royal Sovereign was the first of eight 15,000-ton battleships built under the 1889 Naval Defence Act. Launched in 1891, she was scrapped in 1913 having been rendered obsolete by the "all big gun" Dreadnought-type battleship.

The last Royal Sovereign, launched in May 1915, gave her name to a class of five battleships built in 1913-17. Displacing 27,500 tons and armed with eight 15-inch guns, she ended her service as the Soviet vessel Arkhangelsk in 1944-49.