The Royal Navy has a proud tradition as 'The Senior Service' dating back as an organised force - according to some historians - to Alfred the Great. In 1509, the newly-crowned King Henry VIII ordered a rearmament of the fleet and in this era great ships of 600 tonnes and more were built including the 'Mary Rose'. By the 17th century, King Charles I's major programme of warship building the Royal Navy had expanded further to become the most powerful in the world.
These eight stamps celebrate key Royal Navy vessels from the past 500 years, from Henry VIII's 'Mary Rose' to HMS Queen Elizabeth launched in 2014. The four pairs of stamps - 1st class NVI; £1.35; £1.55 and £1.60 feature fine paintings of the ships featured.
The BLCS 5000 cover features HMS Beagle which later gained fame as the ship on which Charles Darwin travelled on his scientific voyages which led ot the publication of the book 'On the Origin of Species'. The cover bears an image of the vessel together with an informative cachet and a pictorial Portsmouth, Royal Navy Ships handstamp.
