HMS Renown (1798)

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HMS Renown was a 74-gun sailing "ship of the line", later renamed Royal Oak.

She was launched at Deptford in 1798 and served in 1800-1801 as the flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren, initially in the English Channel and then notably at the abortive attack on Cadiz. Armed en flute, she transferred to the Mediterranean in 1801, still as Warren's flagship. In 1803 she was at Malta and in 1805 was under repair at Plymouth. After a further spell in the Channel Fleet, 1807-8, she transferred again to the Mediterranean. She was laid up at Plymouth in 1811 and hulked in 1814 as HMS Royal Oak.

In the Horatio Hornblower novels of C. S. Forester, a ship of the line named the Renown was featured in the novel Lieutenant Hornblower. In the story, the ship's mad captain is killed after falling through a hatch, and the junior officers must take over on adventures in the West Indies. The mysterious circumstances of the Captain's fall become of great importance to the court martial panel later on in the story. In Hornblower (TV series) this story was related in the fifth and sixth episodes, Mutiny and Retribution.