English ship Elizabeth Jonas (1559)

English ships fight the Spanish Armada, 1588
History
England
Name: Elizabeth Jonas
Builder: Peter Pett, Woolwich Dockyard
Laid down: 1557
Launched: 3 July 1559
Out of service:
  • 1585-1586
  • 1597-1598
Fate: Rebuilt 1597-98. Condemned and sold, 1618
General characteristics as built 1557-59
Tons burthen: 740 bm
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament: 42 guns
General characteristics as rebuilt from 1598
Class and type: 55-gun Royal Ship
Tons burthen: 684 bm
Length: 100 ft (30 m) (keel)
Beam: 38 ft (12 m)
Depth of hold: 18 ft (5.5 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 500 (340 sailors, 40 gunners, 120 soldiers)
Armament:

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

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, which had been destroyed by fire in 1553.[1] Originally intended to be named Edward after ordered Edward VI of England, she was renamed when Elizabeth I came to the throne.[2] 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.

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 2 Winfield 201, p. 8
  2. ↑ Winfield 2009, p. xii

References


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