English ship Constant Warwick
1645 fourth-rate
Constant Warwick was originally a 32-gun privateer, built in 1645 as a private venture between the Earl of Warwick and Sir William Batten and intended to operate as a privateer. Hired for service in the Parliamentarian navy during the First English Civil War, her captain William Batten defected to the Royalists during the 1648 Second English Civil War. After her crew mutinied in November 1648, she returned to England and was purchased by Parliament for the Commonwealth Navy on 20 January 1649.
Described as an "incomparable sailer", she was noted for her sharpness and fine lines, and was considered by some as the first true frigate of the Royal Navy (although the Expedition and Providence of 1637, which predated her by eight years and originally described as "pinnaces", were certainly categorised as frigates by the time of the English Civil War). Mainly used for patrolling, she was captured by the French in 1691.
Constant Warwick was the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear that name.
Construction and specifications
She was started as a private venture contracted to Peter Pett I of Ratcliffe and launched in 1645. Her dimensions were keel 85 feet 0 inches (25.9 metres) keel for tonnage with a breadth of 26 feet 5 inches (8.1 metres) and a depth of hold of 13 feet 2 inches (4.0 metres). Her tonnage was 315+48⁄94 tons. She was remeasured at a later date and her dimensions changed to keel 88 feet 0 inches (26.8 metres) keel for tonnage with a breadth of 27 feet 0 inches (8.2 metres) and a depth of hold of 12 feet 0 inches (3.7 metres).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “English ship Constant Warwick” is 1645 fourth-rate. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through English, ship and Constant, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “English ship Constant Warwick” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.