Empire of the Seas

Historian Dan Snow charts the role the Royal Navy has played in the development of Britain. Beginning with the 16th and 17th centuries, he examines how the armed forced confirmed England’s supremacy at sea after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, thereby transforming the outfit from a rabble of West Country freebooters into a seafaring institution.

In 1690, France ruled the waves and the Royal Navy was in tatters after King William III had taken England into a disastrous war. But the monarch’s determination to reign over the seas led to a chain reaction and a series of financial industrial and agricultural revolutions.

Dan Snow sheds light on the evolution of Admiral Nelson’s navy as the most powerful maritime fighting force in history. Through support from national enterprises such as the Royal Society, Captain Cook was able to explore unchartered territories, discovering Australia, before naval administrator Charles Middleton introduced copper-bottoming in times of spending cuts to strengthen the existing fleet. The decision provide crucial as Britain once again renewed conflict with its rival France.

Dan Snow explores the highs and lows of a climactic century in naval history. As Britain and France engaged in an arms race over battleships, the British Navy was slowly being eroded by and entrenched hierarchy. Germany emerged as a new threat and, when war came, British and German fleets clashed off Jutland in 1916. Britain emerged from the First World War victorious but impoverished. Their naval supremacy was coming to an end.