English_ship_Elizabeth_Jonas_(1559)

English ship <i>Elizabeth Jonas</i> (1559)

English ship Elizabeth Jonas (1559)

First large English galleon

For the child prodigy pianist, see Elizabeth Jonas.
For other ships with the same name, see HMS Elizabeth.

The Elizabeth Jonas of 1559 was the first large English galleon, built in Woolwich Dockyard from 1557 and launched in July 1559.

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Construction

The vessel's keel was laid in 1557, for a ship of 800 tons burthen to replace Henry VIII's prestige warship, the Henry Grace à Dieu (More commonly known as the "Great Harry"), which had been destroyed by fire in 1553.[1] Originally intended to be named Edward after Edward VI, she was renamed when Elizabeth I came to the throne.[2] Launched in 1559, accounts of the time relate that she was named Elizabeth Jonas by Elizabeth herself, "in rememberance of being preserved from Her enemies, no less miraculously than the phrophet Jonas (Jonah) was preserved from the belly of a whale".[3] She was a square-rigged galleon of four masts, including two lateen-rigged mizzenmasts.

Elizabeth Jonas served effectively under the command of Sir Robert Southwell during the battle of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1597-98 she was rebuilt as a razee galleon. Phineas Pett mentions that Elizabeth planned to attend the 1598 launch at Woolwich but did not.[4]

On 5 August 1606, held as a day of thanksgiving for the king's deliverance from the Gowrie Conspiracy at Perth in 1600, James VI and I, Anne of Denmark, their son Henry, and her brother Christian IV of Denmark had dinner aboard the Elizabeth Jonas at Upnor Castle near Rochester, and then were rowed to Chatham.[5] The Elizabeth Jonas was joined to the White Bear by a bridge, and a third ship moored in between served as the kitchen.[6] Phineas Pett was involved in preparing the Elizabeth Jonas and the White Bear for this entertainment.[7]

In the early seventeenth century she was listed as one of the Navy's Ships Royal, denoting the largest and most prestigious vessels in the fleet. A 1618 commission of enquiry confirmed the designation, but found that years of inactivity had left her entirely unserviceable. Later that year she was broken up for scrap at Woolwich Dockyard.[1]

Notes

  1. [1]
    Winfield 201, p. 8
  2. [2]
    Winfield 2009, p. xii
  3. [3]
    Drachinifel Naval history series Guide 303. /https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlAMt_HNMnY
  4. [4]
    Samuel Denne, 'Extracts from the life of Mr Phineas Pette', Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, 12 (London, 1809), p. 222.
  5. [5]
    John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), pp. 82-3, 91: Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 87.
  6. [6]
    J. S. Brewer, Court of King James, 2 (London: Richard Bentley, 1839), 139.
  7. [7]
    Samuel Denne, 'Extracts from the Life of Mr Phineas Pette', Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, 12 (London, 1809), pp. 229-230.

References

  • R C Anderson, List of English Men of War 1509 - 1649
  • Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603-1714: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84832-040-6.
  • Winfield, Rif (2010). First Rate: The Greatest Warships of the Age of Sail. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781591142645.
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