HMS Royal Sovereign was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, which served as the flagship of Admiral Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar. She was the third of seven Royal Navy ships to bear the name. She was launched at Plymouth Dockyard on 11 September 1786, at a cost of £67,458, and was the only ship built to her design. Because of the high number of Northumbrians on board the crew were known as the Tars of the Tyne. Construction Royal Sovereign was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line, designed by the John Williams (Surveyor of the Navy) in 1772. Royal Sovereign was ordered on 3 February 1772 to be built at Plymouth Dockyard by the Master Shipwright Thomas Pollard. The long nature of her construction meant that the master shipwright changed twice, with Pownoll being replaced by John Henslow in February 1775, and Henslow in turn handing over to Thomas Pollard in November 1784. She was laid down on 7 January 1774 and launched on 11 September 1786 with the following dimensions: along the gun deck, at the keel, with a beam of and a depth in the hold of . She measured 2,175 tons burthen. The fitting out process for Royal Sovereign was completed in September 1787, but she was still only partly fitted for sea. In service Royal Sovereign was part of Admiral Howe's fleet at the Glorious First of June, where she suffered 14 killed and 41 wounded. On 16 June 1795, as the flagship of Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis, she was involved in the celebrated episode known as 'Cornwallis' Retreat'. On 17 March 1796 the transport ship collided with her and sank. Belisarius, Barge, master, was carrying troops and their dependents to the West Indies. Barge and about 110 persons were saved. A witness on wrote in a letter to The Observer newspaper that the accident was "occasioned by a dispute between the Master and the second Mate [of the Bellisarius] when wearing ship; by which, not paying proper attention, they fell athwart the Royal Sovereign, when the Sovereign's gib-boom and bowsprit took their main-mast, and struck her amid ship, by which she almost instantly sunk. To add to the distress of this dreadful scene, an unhappy woman, with her infant in her arms, who stood on the quarter-deck of the Bellisarius, attempted to save the life of her