Name Kentish Renamed HMS Kent, 1660 Launched November 1652 | Ordered 1 April 1652 Class and type Fourth-rate frigate | |
Builder Henry Johnson, Deptford Fate Wrecked, 15 October 1672 | ||
HMS Kentish was a 40-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Commonwealth of England Navy, built by contract at Deptford (not in the Dockyard) and launched in November 1652.
She was commissioned in early 1653 under Captain Jacob Reynolds and saw active service in the Battle of Portland on 18 February, and the Battle of the Gabbard from 2 June. Command was then passed to Captain Edward Witheridge, with Kentish returned to Chatham for the winter. In early 1654 she was assigned to the British squadron in the Mediterranean, where she remained until mid-1655. Her most famous action was on 4 April 1655 when she attacked a squadron of Tunisian warships lying in Porto Farina, on the Barbary Coast. She defeated both the ships and the on-shore fort to win her third battle honour.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, her name was changed to HMS Kent. She served in both the First and Second Dutch Wars with distinction and was involved in the Battle of Lowestoft, which remains the most crushing naval defeat in Dutch history, and the St. James's Day Battle, a two-day-long fight which ended in a closer English victory. She was wrecked in October 1672 off Cromer.