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Royal Navy

maritime service branch of the British Armed Forces

The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service.

The royal navy of England has ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island. ~ William Blackstone
In July 1642 Charles I's splendid navy defected to Parliament without firing a shot. Throughout the First English Civil War the king thus faced the humiliation of fighting his own 'royal' navy... While command of the navy could never guarantee victory, without it Parliament would have faced almost certain and rapid defeat. ~ Bernard Capp
Come cheer up, my lads! 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year ~ David Garrick
To honour we call you, as free men not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves? ~ David Garrick
Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady! ~ David Garrick
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again. ~ David Garrick
The Irish army is held in high regard among most Irish people. It is seen as a manifestation of sovereignty, especially as the army claims an unbroken link with the insurrectionists of 1916. Unfortunately the Naval Service enjoys no such legacy; founded in 1946, its first commanding officer was from the Royal Navy. ~ Aidan McIvor
Ever since the days of old the Navy's ruled the waves.
For years they've told the world that Britons never shall be slaves.
The Navy still remembers and you'll often hear them say
What Nelson told Napoleon upon Trafalgar day. ~ Bell-Bottom George
It serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, it jolly well serves you right.
It serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, you might have been sitting tight
You might have been in Civvy Street instead of in the fight
But it serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, it jolly well serves you right. ~ Bell-Bottom George


Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

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  • The royal navy of England has ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island.

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  • During the civil war the naval contribution to the parliamentary cause was secondary. Victory was decided on land. The fact that Parliament had control of the navy was none the less vital in making victory possible. If the king had retained control of the fleet the royalists could have blockaded London, and the resulting economic dislocation might easily have generated enough popular pressure to force Parliament into peace on almost any terms. During the war the navy's undramatic work in protecting commerce kept up the level of customs revenues and helped finance the war-effort. The navy was an effective deterrent to any foreign monarch tempted to send help to Charles. It assisted land campaigns by transporting supplies and reinforcements and by providing mobile artillery. It played an important role in maintaining the outposts at Hull and Plymouth, and contributed to the capture of Bristol and Newcastle. The earl of Warwick, as Lord High Admiral, and his vice-admiral and successor William Batten provided vigorous and effective leadership.
    • Bernard Capp, Cromwell's Navy: The Fleet and the English Revolution, 1648-1660 (1989), p. 2-3
  • During the interregnum the navy's role was far more spectacular. The rulers of continental Europe were horrified by the execution of the king in January 1649 and all repudiated the new Commonwealth. The navy was thus needed to protect England from possible invasion and to force foreign powers to recognize the new regime. Over the next eleven years it was almost continuously in action, both defensive and offensive.
    • Bernard Capp, Cromwell's Navy: The Fleet and the English Revolution, 1648-1660 (1989), p. 3
  • In July 1642 Charles I's splendid navy defected to Parliament without firing a shot. Throughout the First English Civil War the king thus faced the humiliation of fighting his own 'royal' navy. Far more was at stake, of course, than injured pride. As Clarendon observed, the loss of the fleet was 'of unspeakable ill consequence to the king's affairs', and dealt a devastating blow to his chances of winning the war. While command of the navy could never guarantee victory, without it Parliament would have faced almost certain and rapid defeat.
    • Bernard Capp, The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1638-1660 (1998), edited by John Kenyon and Jane Ohlmeyer, p. 156

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  • Ever since the days of old the Navy's ruled the waves.
    For years they've told the world that Britons never shall be slaves.
    The Navy still remembers and you'll often hear them say
    What Nelson told Napoleon upon Trafalgar day.
    • George Formby, "It Serves Me Right", Bell-Bottom George (1943), directed by Marcel Varnel, written by Edward Dryhurst, Peter Fraser, John L. Arthur, Richard Fisher, and Peter Creswell
  • It serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, it jolly well serves you right.
    It serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, you might have been sitting tight
    You might have been in Civvy Street instead of in the fight
    But it serves you right, you shouldn't have joined, it jolly well serves you right.
    • George Formby, "It Serves Me Right", Bell-Bottom George (1943), directed by Marcel Varnel, written by Edward Dryhurst, Peter Fraser, John L. Arthur, Richard Fisher, and Peter Creswell

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  • Come cheer up, my lads! 'tis to glory we steer,
    To add something more to this wonderful year;
    To honour we call you, as free men not slaves,
    For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
    • David Garrick, author of the lyrics to the first verse of "Heart of Oak" in 1759, while the music was written by William Boyce. Originally written for the London stage, the song became quite popular and was subsequently adopted as the official quick march of the Royal Navy.
  • Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;
    We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!
    We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.
    • David Garrick, chorus to "Heart of Oak" (1759)

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  • The seeming helplessness of our cousins strikes me as amusing when it is not annoying. I am sure what they wish in their hearts is that we would haul down the Stars and Stripes and hoist the White Ensign in all our ships. What particularly irks me is their strong liking for mixed forces, which as you know approached anathema to me. I am willing to take over additional tasks- and we have done so- but I cannot be expected to agree to help them cling to tasks that they themselves say they are unable to do unless we lend them our ships and other forces. I think we have done enough for them in their Home Fleet.
    • Ernest King, in a letter from King to Admiral Harold B. Stark in November 1943, as quoted in Churchill's Anchor: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (2000) by Robin Brodhurst.

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  • How groups of humans contemplate and plan for wars is also affected by their culture, including geography. Island nations or those with long coasts have understood and invested heavily in sea power. In the case of Britain, its navy – tellingly called the Senior Service – has absorbed more resources and had much greater prestige over the centuries than its army. While paintings, poems, films and histories memorialise the great naval battles – Salamis, Lepanto, Trafalgar, Midway – when one navy destroyed another, the main strategic purpose of navies is to control the seas, and the highways hat criss-cross them, and prevent their enemies from doing so. Even today land communications are vulnerable to disruption, either man-made or natural; how much more so in the past before surfaced roads and railways?
  • Ever since humans began to build floating craft, water has been the most reliable way of moving people and material. Navies exist to protect their nations, their coasts, people and shipping, and to project their power abroad. By landing troops on enemy coasts, acting as floating gun and aircraft platforms in more recent times to bring firepower to bear on land targets, or destroying enemy capacity to wage war, whether by sinking or seizing enemy and sometimes neutral shipping or blockading ports so that needed resources, including soldiers, cannot move in or out, a powerful navy can make it difficult, even impossible, for its enemy to wage war on land or at sea. ‘We destroy the national life afloat,’ said the leading British naval theorist Julian Corbett, who taught generations of officers before the First World War, ‘and therefore check the vitality of that life ashore, as far as one is dependent on the other.’
  • Napoleon was supreme on the Continent but he never managed to defeat the British navy. As a result the British were able to send supplies and reinforcements to their allies and damage the French economy by sinking French shipping and blockading French ports. In the First World War the British navy successfully enforced a naval blockade on Germany which included interdicting goods which the British deemed necessary for the German war effort even if these were carried on neutral ships. While the impact of the blockade is still debated, senior German officers blamed it for their defeat. ‘We were in the end defeated by sea power,’ said Erich Raeder, who headed the German navy from 1928 to 1943, ‘which deprived us of our food and raw materials, and slowly throttled by the blockade.’
  • During the Civil War consideration was given by the British government to using the Royal Navy to help the Free State Army. However, it was decided that such an action was unnecessary and would only embarrass the Provisional government in Dublin. The Royal Navy remained aloof during the conflict, although its presence dominated Ireland's coastal waters.
    • Aidan McIvor, A History of the Irish Naval Service (1994), p. 46
  • The Irish army is held in high regard among most Irish people. It is seen as a manifestation of sovereignty, especially as the army claims an unbroken link with the insurrectionists of 1916. Unfortunately the Naval Service enjoys no such legacy; founded in 1946, its first commanding officer was from the Royal Navy.
    • Aidan McIvor, A History of the Irish Naval Service (1994), p. 220
  • "Mare ditat rosa decorat" (The sea enriches and the rose adorns)

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  • "Si vis pacem, para bellum" (Latin) (If you wish for peace, prepare for war)

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  • I am not talking about failure, I am talking about my supreme confidence in the British fleet...superlative ships, excellent equipment, the most highly trained professional group of men, the most honourable and brave members of Her Majesty's Service. Failure? Do you remember what Queen Victoria once said? “Failure—the possibilities do not exist”. That is the way we must look at it, with all our professionalism, all our flair and every single bit of native cunning, every single bit of professionalism and all our equipment and we must go out calmly, quietly, to succeed.

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  •   Encyclopedic article on Royal Navy on Wikipedia
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