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The White Ensign is flown on British Royal Navy ships and shore establishments. It consists of a red St George’s Cross on a white field with the Union Flag in the upper canton. The White Ensign is also flown by the Royal Yacht Squadron and ships escorting the Queen.

The decisive naval Battle of Sluys was fought on 24 June 1340 as one of the opening conflicts of the Hundred Years’ War. It is historically important in that it resulted in the destruction of most of France’s fleet, making a French invasion of England impossible, and ensuring that the remainder of the war would be fought mostly in France.

As well as ships of war the Royal Navy had a requirement for various other vessels. With her jack and commissioning pendant this snow is clearly naval, presumably a transport or supply vessel bought or hired by the Navy, but not a fighting ship.

Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, was one of the Royal Navy’s great commanders. He fought during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. Pellew is remembered as an officer and a gentleman of great courage and leadership, earning his land and titles through consummate courage, leadership and skill.

Band of Brothers was a phrase used by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson to refer to the captains under his command just prior to and at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. The phrase, taken from Shakespeare’s Henry V, later came to be more generally applied to his relationship with the captains and men under his command.

HMS Victory, still a commissioned warship, now in permanent drydock at Portsmouth Historic Harbour. She will always be linked to Horatio Nelson and his glorious victory and tragic death at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The rum issue continued in the Royal Navy until 31 July 1970. Dubbed Black Tot Day, it saw ceremonies held around the Fleet to make it a day to remember. Sailors conducted mock funerals and wore black arm bands.

HMS Warrior was the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French La Gloire, launched a year earlier. When completed in October 1861, Warrior was the largest, fastest, most heavily-armed and most heavily-armoured warship the world had ever seen. She was almost twice the size of La Gloire and thoroughly outclassed the French ship in speed, armour, and gunnery. Today, she remains as a museum ship, preserved for the nation, in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

HMS Dreadnought revolutionised naval power when she entered service in 1906. Dreadnought represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the “dreadnoughts”, as well as the class of ships named after her, while the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as “pre-dreadnoughts”. Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary battery of somewhat smaller guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion.

The battlecruiser HMS Hood was the pride of the Royal Navy in the interwar period and during the early period of World War II. She served the Royal Navy for over two decades before her sinking in combat with the German battleship Bismarck at the Battle of Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941. Of the 1,418 crew, only three men (Ted Briggs (1923-2008), Robert Tilburn (1921-1995) and William Dundas (1921-1965) survived; they were rescued about two and a half hours after the sinking by the destroyer HMS Electra.

HMS Daring was formally commissioned on 23 July 2009. As the lead ship of the first destroyer class built for the Royal Navy since the Type 42 in the 1970s, she has attracted significant media and public interest. The price tag of approximately £6.6 billion for the six ships represents a significant investment into the future needs of the Royal Navy.