Books

The contents of this, the eighth of the Navy Records Society’s Miscellany series, chronicles the activities and adventures of the Royal Navy, its officials, its officers and its men – both in British employment and out of it – over a period of some six hundred years. Ranging from the reign of Edward III to… Read Abstract »

This is the first general selection from the substantial body of surviving documents about Elizabeth’s navy. It is a companion to The Navy of Edward VI and Mary I (Vol.157 in the NRS Series), where the apparatus serving both volumes was printed, and it complements the other NRS volumes that deal specifically with the Spanish… Read Abstract »

The reigns of Edward VI and Mary I remain largely by-passed in naval history, yet it was a vital time for the administration of the navy and it saw the apprenticeship of many who would lead the service in Elizabeth’s later years. This volume helps to fill the gap and includes all the extant Treasurer’s… Read Abstract »

Edited documents in this Naval Miscellany include the 14th-century repair of Bayonne Galleys, Armada correspondence, the building of Plymouth dockyard, letters of Admiral Collingwood, Nelson’s Public Order Book during his 1801 blockade of Boulogne, Louis Parsons’ journal 1882-1901, Captain Clayton’s letters from the Australia Station 1885-8, Dudley Pound’s Grand Fleet diary 1914-15, and HMS Aurora’s… Read Abstract »

To celebrate its centenary in 1993, the Society produced a special volume covering seven hundred and fifty years of British naval history, containing 535 documents carefully selected by leading experts. See the contents of British Naval Documents 1204-1960.

Actions against the Spanish Armada and campaigns in the Netherlands left the Queen’s coffers empty. For this reason proposals to capture the Spanish treasure fleet were given royal support. The treasure fleet homeward bound from the Americas would be intercepted in the Azores. A diversion at Santander to damage the Spanish fleet would prevent protection… Read Abstract »

Published in this volume are various Spanish documents concerning the Armada; a journal of one of Blake’s officers in the mid seventeenth century; Boscawen’s letters to his wife; the account of a Swedish officer who served in the French Navy during the Seven Years War; selections from the Hood papers regarding Prince William’s service in… Read Abstract »

A collection of legal cases and precedents dealing with aspects of maritime and naval law such as piracy, prizes and prize goods, letters of marque and reprisal, contraband, ransom, convoy, and impressment. The volumes cover 1205-1648 and 1649-1767 respectively. This volume covers the years 1205-1648.

This contains documents that date from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The three for the sixteenth century include English piracy against the Spaniards, a Scottish document about a ship getting under way and the taking of the Madre de Dios in 1592. Two documents from the seventeenth century are a description by Rear Admiral… Read Abstract »

These are not for the most part shanties, but ballads about (and in many cases by) sailors and their exploits, from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth, with a learned introduction on their historical value. The tunes are named, but the music is not printed

The views put forward by Corbett in this collection have now been partly discredited, but the collection itself remains of fundamental importance for the study of British naval tactics. It includes both Fighting Instructions in the strict sense, and various orders and memoranda explanatory of them.

This was the first of the Miscellany volumes and while it contains documents from the sixteenth century to the turn of the nineteenth century, the majority relate to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Of the two sixteenth century documents, one relates to French warship signals and the other is a narrative of the Cadiz… Read Abstract »