English ship Happy Entrance (1619) explained

Happy Entrance^[1] was a middling ship of the English navy, built by Andrew Burrell at Deptford and launched in 1619. King James I originally named the ship Buckingham's Entrance to mark the appointment of his favourite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, as Lord High Admiral of England. But she was subsequently renamed.^[2]

During the Second English Civil War she served on the side of Parliament under the command of Richard Badiley. In April 1649, a party of seamen from Happy Entrance captured and burnt the Royalist ship Antelope at Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands.^[3] Antelope was then over 100 years old and was a veteran of the 1588 campaign against the Spanish Armada.^[4]

Happy Entrance was present at the Battle of the Gabbard on the 2-3 June 1653, as part of the Blue Squadron. She was under the command of Captain Richard Newbery.

Happy Entrance was destroyed by fire in 1658.

References

• Clowes, William Laird: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, vols. 1-2,1896-1898
• Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line – Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. .

Notes and References

1. The 'HMS' prefix was not used until the middle of the Eighteenth Century, but is sometimes applied retrospectively
2. Book: Corbett, Julian Stafford. England in the Mediterranean. A study of the rise and influence of British power within the Straits, 1603-1713 ... With a map . 754149865. 74–75 . en.
3. Clowes, Royal Navy, vol. 2, p. 120.
4. Clowes, Royal Navy vol. 1, p. 580, 588-589.