Naval supremacy
'When Britain really ruled the waves, in good Queen Bess's time' was the assessment of the late Victorian age's leading satirist, WS Gilbert. (He put these words into the mouth of a spoof peer of the realm in the comic opera 'Iolanthe', which he wrote with Arthur Sullivan in 1882.)
Gilbert's Lord Mountararat got it wrong. Naval exploits in the age of Elizabeth I are regularly romanticised and their significance exaggerated.
Late 16th century England, though growing in importance under an able, crafty and ruthless monarch, remained a bit-part player on the European stage.
'Britain's naval might was not openly challenged on the high seas between the battles of Trafalgar and Jutland.'
Britain 'really ruled the waves' throughout Gilbert's own lifetime. He lived from 1836 to 1911, during the reigns of Victoria and her successor, Edward VII.
Britain's naval might was not openly challenged on the high seas between Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson's famous victory at Trafalgar in 1805 and the World War One Battle of Jutland with the German navy in 1916.
During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. Though not always effortlessly, it was able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain's wider strategic interests.
The single European conflict fought during Victoria's reign - the Crimean War of 1854 - 1856 - contrasted markedly with the 18th century, during which the British were involved in at least five major wars, none of which lasted less than seven years.
The Victorians believed that peace was a necessary pre-condition of long-term prosperity.
Published: 2006-09-18
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