English Civil War – Maritime – HMS Sovereign rare ms letter dated July 22nd 1643 addressed to the Commissioners of the Navy informing them that the Committee of the Navy had taken out the Sovereign and sent a guard to her at Chatham. An important action in the early days of the Civil War. HMS Sovereign of the Seas was a first rate ship of the line with 102 bronze guns, later renamed at the command of Charles I as the ‘Royal Sovereign’. Charles regarded the ship as a symbol of his Kingship, and therefore its taking by Parliamentary forces was a substantial propaganda blow to the King – particularly as it was subsequently renamed by Parliament as ‘The Commonwealth’. It later, however, reverted to the simple name of ‘The Sovereign’. An important letter in the history of the Civil War