Sovereigns of the Sea: The Quest to Build the Perfect Renaissance Battleship

by Angus Konstam

The Ultimate Warship Her keel measured 126 feet, and she stretched to 160 feet overall. Her 46.5-foot beam sacrificed speed for the sake of stability, and the 19 feet of water she drew denied her access to smaller ports. Some saw her enormous size and ungainly proportions as serious drawbacks, but the 102  heavy bronze cannon that bristled from her flanks guaranteed that this black-hulled, ornately decorated monster would live up to her Sovereign of the Seas. The Dutch sailors who faced her in battle called her by another name, “The Golden Devil.”  This immensely powerful floating fortress was the culmination of more than two hundred years of competition among the kingdoms of Europe to create the perfect marriage between guns and ships. Their relentless quest for maritime supremacy had produced a seemingly endless succession of grandiose flagships, from Henry V’s Grace à Dieu to Sweden’s ill-fated Vasa. Emerging nation-states had invested vast portions of their treasuries, kings had vied as much for prestige as for power, and thousands of hapless seamen had perished in pursuit of this goal. Sovereigns of the Sea is a gripping tale of an arms race that created and ruined empires, changed the map of the world, and led Europe out of the Renaissance and into the modern age.

Genres: History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Angus Konstam is a Scottish writer of popular history. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised on the Orkney Islands, he has written more than a hundred books on maritime history, naval history, historical atlases, with a special focus on the history of piracy.

Reviews

[Chris Bauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book contains a great deal of information and interesting stories of the construction of warships and their use in battle, it suffers at times from poor organization - thus only 3 stars.

Konstam's goal is to write about the development of the cannon-armed warship during the course of the renaissance, beginning with the navy of Henry V (the principle weapon of which was the longbow) and culminating with the "Sovereign of the Seas" (pictured on the front cover) built by Peter Pett for King Charles I, a ship which Konstam sees as the "perfect" renaissance warship balance of size, manouverability, and gunpower.

While the individual chapters or sections thereof are coherent and interesting, unfortunately the attempt to trace both the technical development of the warship over time and the construction and use of these ships by various monarchs and captains results in a jumbled chronology jumping backwards and forwards in time, individual events or even whole passages being repeated, and sometimes no clear reason for which a section describing a particular technological development interrupts a narrative or vise-versa.

Granted, this is not an academic work but seems more directed at the casual reader with an interest in naval history, and there is much to be learned here if one is not already familiar with the period (Konstam uses a strange system of "pseudo" footnoting, a section in the back containing references to specific passages and linking them to his extensive - and quite good - bibliography which can lead the reader to more detailed treatments).

However, the reader may be disappointed because of the limited number of illustrations (only in black and white), which at times seem to be inserted far from the text which describes them. Much of Konstam's description of the development of naval construction in this period can also be found in the various Osprey Publishing books he has authored - such as a two volume set on the Tudor navy under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I - and there, of course, the reader will find plentiful images to help illustrate the history being discussed.

[Markt5660 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much has been written about the famous "Age of Fighting Sail" of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The era of Lord Nelson, Horatio Hornblower, and Jack Aubrey. The line of battle and the Ship-of-the-Line were considered state of the art until the advent of steam. But, as with most technology, the sailing warship did not spring up from nowhere. This book is an excellent history of what came before; the evolution of the sailing warship from a troop carrying transport/merchant to a purpose-built gun platform. It covers the designs, history and disasters from the 15th through the 17th centuries. The details are well researched with plenty of illustrations and a clean writing style.

[Reid Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for a very specific kind of person. If you want to know how we went from cogs and carracks to ships of the line, look no further.

[Wolfgang Schwerdt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Holländer nannten das mächtige Schiff mit den 102 schweren Bronzekanonen den goldenen Teufel. Sovereign of the Seas – also Herrscher der Meere – war der Taufname jenes 1637 vom Stapel gelaufenen Schiffes, mit dem England die Maßstäbe der Segelschlachtschiffe für die folgenden Jahrhunderte setzen sollte. Sovereigns of the Sea ist aber weniger ein Buch über den Schiff gewordenen furchteinflößenden Höhepunkt einer zwei Jahrhunderte währenden Entwicklung, vielmehr nimmt es den Leser mit auf eine spannende Reise durch die Geschichte dieser Entwicklung.
Angus Konstam gelingt es mit seinem Buch die ganze historische Komplexität der Entwicklung vom Enterkampf bis zur Linienschlacht der segelnden Geschützplattformen unterhaltsam und solide strukturiert darzustellen, zu veranschaulichen. Souverän sortiert er die unterschiedlichen aber ineinandergreifenden politischen technologischen, militärischen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungslinien bei den Protagonisten des Kampfes um die Seeherrschaft, um sie, nachvollziehbar gegliedert, wieder zu einem großen Ganzen zusammenzufügen.
Das Buch über die Herausforderung, das perfekte Renaissance-Schlachtschiff zu bauen, ist rundum gelungen und nicht nur wegen seiner klaren aber keineswegs langweiligen Sprache auch für interessierte Laien gut verständlich. Es ist bei aller fachlichen Informationsdichte und Kompetenz des Autors eine ent- und spannende Lektüre.

Zur vollständigen Rezension auf GeschiMag: https://geschimagazin.wordpress.com/2...

[Gary Wallis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really isn`t the kind of naval history that I am interested in alot but this book was very good. He traces the history of the development of naval warships from just before the Tudor Navy, thru the development of the Vasa disaster to the final ultimate warship Sovereign of the Seas. This last warship was the father of the British ships of the line Nelson used in Trafalgar. A really well researched book and a pleasure to read.

[Kevin O'Connell]

Readable- Yes
Enjoyable- Very
Informative- Very