Thomas David A. Battles and Honours of the Royal Navy

Pen & Sword Paperbacks, 1998. — 362 p.This is an up-to-date reference book for nav al historians and indeed, for anyone interested in Britain''s maritime history and heritage. It lists every battle honour awarded to ships of the Royal Navy and gives an account of the action concerned. An invaluable and up-to-date reference book listing every battle honour awarded to ships of the Royal Navy. Although the honours go back to the Spanish Armada in 1588, surprisingly the system was not officially sanctioned until 1954.
It was 1660, the year of the restoration of King Charles II to the throne, which finds most support from claimants for the Navy’s founding year, if only because it was Charles who granted the Royal prefix in that year. It may strike a discordant note to the purists, therefore, to read here about battles which pre-date this datum point of 1660, by as much as seventy-two years in the case of the Armada (1588). But the Armada, as the Admiralty Fleet Order puts it with inconsistency but good sense, and with studied understatement, “is in all respects worthy of inclusion”. The Admiralty goes further, and this book is content to follow in its wake, by including Cadiz (1596), Kentish Knock (1652) and Santa Cruz (1657). We read of Drake, of Howard and of Frobisher, but none of these, neither the battles nor their commanders, represented a Navy that was Royal or even British – simply English.