Eleven ships of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

have borne the name HMS ''Unicorn'', after the

mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

creature, the

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unico ...

: * was a 36-gun ship captured from Scotland in 1544 and sold in 1555. * was a 56-gun ship launched in 1634 and sold in 1687. * (or ''Little Unicorn'') was an 18-gun

fire ship A fire ship or fireship is a large wooden vessel set on fire to be used against enemy ships during a ramming attack or similar maneuver. Fireships were used to great effect against wooden ships throughout naval military history up until the ad ...

originally in Dutch service as the ''Eenhoorn''. She was captured in 1665 and expended on 4 June 1666, on the fourth day of the

Four Days' Battle The Four Days' Battle was a naval engagement fought from 11 to 14 June 1666 (1–4 June O.S.) during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It began off the Flemish coast and ended near the English coast, and remains one of the longest naval battles in ...

. * was a 6-gun purchased in 1666 and sunk as a

blockship A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used as a waterway. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of at Portland ...

at Chatham on 11 June 1667, together with five other vessels, in a futile attempt to block the Dutch from advancing up the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

. * was a 28-gun

sixth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works an ...

launched in 1748 and broken up in 1771. * was a 20-gun

post ship Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a sixth-rate ship (see rating system of the Royal Navy) that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carrying ...

launched in 1776. The French frigate captured her on 4 October 1780Roche, p. 41. took her into service as ''La Licorne''. recaptured her in April 1781. The Royal Navy took her back into service as ''Unicorn Prize''; she was broken up at Deptford in 1787. * was a 36-gun

fifth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal N ...

launched in 1782. She was renamed HMS ''Thalia'' in 1783 and was broken up in 1814. * was a 32-gun fifth rate launched in 1794 and broken up in 1815. * is a

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

, launched in 1824 and converted to a powder hulk in 1860. She was a Royal Naval Reserve drill ship from 1873. She was renamed ''Unicorn II'' in 1939 and ''Cressy'' from 1941 until 1959. She was handed over to a preservation society in 1968 and is preserved in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

as a museum ship. * was an aircraft maintenance carrier, launched in 1941 and broken up around 1960. * was an launched in 1992. She was sold to Canada in 2001, who renamed her HMCS ''Windsor''.

Battle honours

Ships named ''Unicorn'' have earned the following

battle honours A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags ("colours"), uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible. In European military ...

: * Armada 1588 * Cadiz 1596 * Porto Farina 1655 * Santa Cruz 1657 * Lowestoft 1665 * Orfordness 1666 * Sole Bay 1672 * Schooneveld 1673 * Texel 1673 * "Vestale" 1761 * "Tribune" 1796 * Basque Roads 1809 * Salerno 1943 * Okinawa 1945 * Korea 1950–53

Citations

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Unicorn, Hms Royal Navy ship names

Battle honours

See also

Citations

References