A permanent Naval Service did not exist until the mid 17th century, when the Fleet Royal was taken under Parliamentary control following the defeat of Charles I in the English Civil War. This second reformation of the navy was carried out under 'General-at-Sea' (equivalent to Admiral) Robert Blake during Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. The incorporation of the Royal Navy was in contrast to the land forces, which are descended from variety of different sources including both royalist and Parliamentary forces.

After defeats in the second and third Anglo-Dutch wars the Royal Navy gradually developed into the strongest navy in the world. From 1692 the Dutch navy was placed under the command of the Royal Navy's admirals (though not incorporated in it) by William III's command following the Glorious Revolution. The early 18th century saw the Royal Navy with a superior number of ships to contemporary navies, although it suffered severe financial problems throughout this period, and found itself in heavy debt, which affected most of its operations and administration. As the 18th century drew on the government developed improved means of financing the Royal Navy through bonds. With improved cash flow, the Royal Navy began to develop the strategic ability to counteract the movements of other countries' naval forces by the means of blockades, supported by unprecedented naval logistics, the gradual development of superior naval tactics and strategy and consistently high morale. This eventually led to almost uncontested power over the world's oceans from 1805 to 1914, when it came to be said that "Britannia ruled the waves". Even before 1805, the Royal Navy suffered only one strategic defeat - during the American Revolution at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781 against a French fleet commanded by the able Comte de Grasse (although in 1796 a French invasion fleet was prevented from landing in Bantry Bay, Ireland only by the weather). The Napoleonic Wars saw the Royal Navy reach a peak of efficiency, dominating the naval forces of all Britain's adversaries. The height of the Navy's achievements came on 21 October 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar where a combined French and Spanish fleet was decisively beaten by a numerically smaller but more experienced British fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson.

The victory at Trafalgar consolidated the United Kingdom's advantage over other European maritime powers. By concentrating its military resources in the navy it could both defend itself and project its power across the oceans as well as threaten rivals' ocean trading routes. The United Kingdom therefore needed to maintain only a relatively small, highly mobile, professional army that could be dispatched to where it was needed by sea, as well as be given support by the navy with bombardment, movement, supplies and reinforcement. Meanwhile rivals could have their sea-borne supplies cut off, as had occurred with Napoleon's army in Egypt. Other major European powers were forced to split their resources between maintaining both a large navy and enormous armies and fortifications to defend their land frontiers. The domination of the sea therefore allowed the United Kingdom to rapidly build its empire from the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and throughout the 19th century, giving it enormous military, political and commercial advantages.

Unlike the French navy of pre-revolutionary France, the highest commands of the Royal Navy were open to all within its ranks showing talent. This greatly increased the pool available, even if there was a bias towards the upper class. Furthermore, the French revolution's anti-aristocratic purges caused the loss of most of the French navy's experienced commanders, increasing the Royal Navy's advantage.

Despite the success of the Royal Navy during this period, the conditions of service for ordinary seamen, including no increases in pay for a century, late payment of wages and maintaining ships in commission for years without shore leave, all set against the background of harsh and arbitrary discipline, eventually resulted in serious mutinies in 1797 when the crews of the Spithead and Nore fleets refused to obey their officers and some captains were sent ashore. This resulted in the short-lived "Floating Republic" which at Spithead was quelled by promising improvements in conditions, but at the Nore resulted in the hanging of 29 mutineers.

Napoleon acted to counter Britain's maritime supremacy and economic power, closing European ports to British trade. He also unleashed a storm of privateers, operating from French territories in the West Indies, which placed great pressure on British mercantile shipping in the western hemisphere. The Royal Navy was too hard-pressed in European waters to release significant forces to combat the privateers. Its large ships-of-the-line were not useful, in any case, for seeking out and running down the nimble privateers, which operated individually, or in small numbers, scattered far-and-wide. The Royal Navy reacted by commissioning small warships, of traditional Bermuda design. The first three ordered from Bermudian builders, HMS Dasher, HMS Driver and HMS Hunter, were each sloops of 200 tons, armed with twelve 24-pounders. A great many more ships of this type were ordered, or bought up from trade, primarily for use as advice ships. The most notable was HMS ''Pickle'', the former Bermudian merchantman that carried news of victory back from Trafalgar.

In the years following Trafalgar, there was increasing tension at sea between the Britain and the United States. American traders took advantage of their country's neutrality to trade with both the French controlled parts of Europe and Britain. Both France and Britain tried to prevent trade but only the Royal Navy was in a position to enforce a blockade. Another irritant was the suspected presence of British deserters aboard US merchant and naval vessels. Royal Navy ships often attempted to recover these deserters. In one notorious instance in 1807, otherwise known as the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, HMS ''Leopard'' fired on USS ''Chesapeake'' causing significant casualties before boarding and seizing suspected British deserters.

In 1812, while the Napoleonic wars continued, the United States declared war on the United Kingdom and invaded Canada. At sea, the war was characterised by single ship actions between small ships, and disruption of merchant shipping. The better designed American frigates were heavier and faster than their counterparts, and handled well under volunteer crews. As a result a number of British ships were defeated and mid-way through the war, the Admiralty was forced to issue the order to not engage American frigates individually. Additionally, there were also significant merchant losses of merchant shipping to American privateers, 866 merchant vessels; however, the Royal Navy gradually reinforced the blockade of the American coast, virtually halting all trade by sea and capturing many merchant ships and forcing the US navy frigates to stay in harbour or risk being captured.

By this time, the Royal Navy had begun building a naval base and dockyard in Bermuda, which had become the winter location of the Admiralty previously based in Newfoundland. The Royal Navy had begun development after American independence had deprived it of bases on most of the North American seaboard. In time, Bermuda would become the headquarters for Royal Naval operations in the waters of southern North America and the West Indies. During the War of 1812, the Royal Navy's blockade of the US Atlantic ports was orchestrated from Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The blockade kept most of the American navy trapped in port. The Royal Navy also occupied coastal islands, encouraging American slaves to defect. Units of Royal Marines were raised from these freed slaves. After British victory in the Peninsular War, part of Wellington's Light Division was released for service in North America. This 2,500 man force, composed of Major-General Ross and detachments from the 4, 21, 44, and 85 Regiments, with some elements of artillery and sappers, arrived in Bermuda in 1815 aboard a fleet composed of the 74-gun HMS ''Royal Oak'', three frigates, three sloops and ten other vessels. It had been thought to use the combined force to launch raids on the coastlines of Maryland and Virginia, with the aim of drawing US forces away from the Canadian border. Following American atrocities at Lake Erie, however, Sir George Prevost requested a punitive expedition which would 'deter the enemy from a repetition of such outrages'. The British force arrived at the Patuxent on 17 August. It landed the soldiers within 36 miles of Washington DC. Led by Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, the force drove the US government out of Washington, DC. Ross shied from the idea of burning the City, but Cockburn and others set it alight.

Between 1793 and 1815 the Royal Navy lost 344 vessels to non-combat causes - 75 by foundering, 254 shipwrecked and 15 from accidental burnings or explosions. In the same period it lost 103,660 seamen - 84,440 by disease and accidents, 12,680 by shipwreck or foundering, and 6,540 by enemy action.

During the two World Wars, the Royal Navy played a vital role in keeping the United Kingdom supplied with food, arms and raw materials and in defeating the German campaigns of unrestricted submarine warfare in the first and second battles of the Atlantic.

During the First World War the majority of the Royal Navy's strength was deployed at home in the Grand Fleet in an effort to blockade Germany and to draw the Hochseeflotte (the German "High Seas Fleet") in to an engagement where a decisive victory could be gained. Although the latter never materialised, the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine fought many battles; Battle of Heligoland Bight, Battle of Coronel, Battle of the Falkland Islands, Battle of Dogger Bank and the Battle of Jutland. The latter engagement is the best-known and was a somewhat indecisive affair, with the Royal Navy suffering heavier losses yet succeeding in its strategic goal of blockading the Hocheseeflotte. The Royal Navy was also heavily committed in the Dardanelles Campaign against the Ottoman Empire.


In the inter war period, the Royal Navy was stripped of much of its power. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 imposed limits on individual ship tonnage and gun calibre, as well as total tonnage of the navy. The treaty, compounded by the deplorable financial conditions during the immediate post-war period and the Great Depression, forced the Admiralty to scrap all capital ships from the Great War with a gun calibre under 15 inches and to cancel plans for new construction. Three planned units of the ''Hood'' class of battlecruiser and a class of 16-inch battlecruisers and 18-inch battleships - the G3 and N3 classes respectively - were cancelled. Also under the treaty, three "large light cruisers" - ''Glorious'', ''Courageous'' and ''Furious'' - were converted to aircraft carriers. New additions to the fleet were therefore minimal during the 1920s, the only major new vessels being the two units of the ''Nelson'' class of battleships and fifteen heavy cruisers of the County and ''York'' classes.

The London Naval Treaty of 1930 deferred new capital ship construction until 1937 and reiterated construction limits on cruisers, destroyers and submarines. As international tensions increased in the mid-1930s the Second London Naval Treaty of 1935 failed to halt the deterioration into a naval arms race and by 1938 treaty limits were effectively null and void. The re-armament of the Royal Navy was well under way by this point however. This resulted in the new capital ship construction, in the shape of the ''King George V'' class of 1936, being limited to the 35,000 tons and 14-inch armament. Other significant new construction included the carriers ''Ark Royal'' and of the ''Illustrious'' classes, the Town and Crown Colony classes of light cruiser and the Tribal class destroyers. In addition to new construction, several changes were made to existing ships, such as the reconstruction of old battleships, battlecruisers and heavy cruisers and the reinforcement of anti-aircraft weaponry.

As a result, the Royal Navy entered the Second World War as a relatively heterogeneous force composed of World War I veterans, inter war ships limited by close adherence to treaty restrictions and new construction. It remained, however, a powerful force, though smaller and more aged than it was during World War I.

During the earlier phases of World War II, the Royal Navy provided critical, if depressing cover during British evacuations from Dunkirk and Crete. In the latter operation, Admiral Cunningham ran great risks to extract the Army, but saved many men to fight another day. It suffered a massive blow however, when the battlecruiser HMS Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. The Bismarck was also sunk a few days later, though public pride in the Royal Navy was severely damaged as a result of the loss of Hood.

The Royal Navy was also vital in guarding the sea lanes that enabled British forces to fight in remote parts of the world such as North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Far East. Naval supremacy was vital to the amphibious operations carried out, such as the invasions of Northwest Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. By the end of the war however, it was clear that aircraft carriers were the new dominant weapon of naval warfare, and that Britain's former naval superiority in terms of battleships had been rendered null.