The 1647 Programme of four additional Fourth rate vessels for the English Navy Royal was approved by Parliament on 9 January 1647, following a recommendation on 31 December 1646 by the Admiralty Committee that four new frigates should be built, each to be of 370 tons and to carry 32 guns. Like the three vessels built in the previous year under the 1646 Programme, each vessel would have eleven pairs of gunports on its sole gundeck, with further ports on the quarterdeck above. While nominally built for the Kingdom of England, and thus nominally the property of the Stuart King, their construction during the English Civil War was actually ordered by the Parliamentary side, and with the execution of King Charles I in January 1649 these ships (and preceding vessels) passed under the control of the new Commonwealth of England, and remained as such until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.

Designs, specifications and reconstruction Orders placed later in January 1747 with Master Shipwright Henry Goddard to build one frigate (the Dragon) at Chatham Dockyard, with Peter Pett (Snr) to build two frigates (the Elizabeth and Tiger) at Deptford Dockyard and with his son Peter Pett (Jnr) to build another frigate (Phoenix) at Woolwich Dockyard. The three Master Shipwrights were individually responsible for the respective designs for the four vessels and for supervising their construction. While all four would be classed as Fourth rates and would each have eleven pairs of gunports on their gundeck (and five or six pairs on their quarterdecks), their individual dimensions and armament differed and are listed in the articles on the individual vessels.

All four frigates were built as single-decked warships, with their main battery on the sole gundeck, with eleven pairs of gunports carrying a mixture of culverins and demi-culverins, as in the three frigates ordered under the previous year's programme. Above this gundeck they each had a long quarterdeck with either five or six pairs of ports for a mixture of demi-culverins and sakers, but lacked any forecastle. The latter omission was soon corrected, with a forecastle (as an elevated structure over the forward part of the gundeck to protect it in heavy seas, but not carrying any guns) being built to "add very much to their strength". During 1649 a small poop was added to surmount the quarterdeck, and over the next couple of years a spar deck was added above the gundeck. Initially this did not carry any guns, but by 1654 this had altered to a full upper deck bearing an upper battery of guns, with the poop becoming a new quarterdeck and with a new quarterdeck above the upper deck.Brian Lavery, The Ship of the Line, Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850 (Conway Maritime Press, 1983) They thus became two-deckers, and by June 1660 all four were each established with 38 guns and 130 men.

Ships of the 1647 Programme As with most vessels of this time period, only the years of their launch are available. All four ships served the navy of the English Parliament (and subsequently that of the Commonwealth of England) from 1647 to 1660, when they became part of the Royal Navy following the Stuart Restoration. + Name Builder Launch year Gundeck length Keel length Original breadth Breadth after girdling Original burthen tonnage Tonnage after girdling Careers and fates Dragon Henry Goddard, Chatham Dockyard 1647 119 ft 10 in 96 ft 0 in 28 ft 6 in 414 30 ft 1 in 462 Rebuilt at Deptford in 1689-90 Rebuilt at Rotherhithe in 1706-07 Wrecked on the Casquets (near Alderney) on 26 March 1712 Phoenix Peter Pett II,Woolwich Dockyard 1647 120 ft 0 in 96 ft 0 in 28 ft 6 in 414 33 ft 0 in 556 Wrecked at Gibraltar in a storm on 3 December 1664 Tiger Peter Pett I,Deptford Dockyard 1647 123 ft 8 in 99 ft 0 in 29 ft 6 in 453 34 ft 0 in 608 Rebuilt at Deptford in 1682 Rebuilt at Rotherhithe 1702-03 Rebuilt at Sheerness 1718-22 Wrecked 12 January 1742 Elizabeth Peter Pett I,Deptford Dockyard 1647 n/a 101 ft 6 in 29 ft 8 in 475 34 ft 6 in 642 Burnt in action with two Dutch warships off Jamestown, Virginia on 5 June 1667

Citations

References British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603 – 1714, by Rif Winfield, published 2009 by Seaforth Publishing, England. , EPUB , Chapter 4, The Fourth Rates - 'Small Ships', Vessels acquired from 24 March 1603, 1647 Programme Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. Colledge, revised and updated by Lt-Cdr Ben Warlow and Steve Bush, published by Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, Great Britain, © the estate of J.J. Colledge, Ben Warlow and Steve Bush 2020, EPUB