FEARSOME dragons, swift swans and leaping dolphins have decorated the prows of ships since antiquity. They embodied the spirit of the vessel, kept her safe in stormy weather and guided her home through rain and fog. The same held true across Britain, but it would be the Admiralty’s decision in the early 17th century to allow the use of carved images of people, not only animals, that would see the flowering of the great age of the British naval figurehead.
In 1637, HMS Sovereign of the Seas was launched, featuring the largest and most costly figurehead in the history of the Royal Navy. A huge gilded figure of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar mounted on a leaping horse and surrounded by vassals, it was said to have cost about £7,000 (close to £1 million today).
It may have appealed to gawking landlubbers, but the
