HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar

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On 21 October 1805, HMS Victory, flying the flag of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, led the British fleet to its decisive victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar, off the coast of southern Spain. The battle confirmed British naval supremacy for a century and ended the threat of a Napoleonic invasion of Britain, but it cost Nelson his life. He was struck by a musket ball fired from the rigging of the French ship Redoutable and died below decks on Victory as the battle raged above. Victory had sailed from Portsmouth as the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet, and it was to Portsmouth that she returned after the battle, carrying Nelson's body preserved in a cask of brandy. The ship's arrival in December 1805 was a moment of national mourning and celebration combined. Nelson's body was taken to London for a state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral. HMS Victory was placed in dry dock at Portsmouth in 1922 and has been preserved as a museum ship ever since. She remains the flagship of the First Sea Lord and is the oldest commissioned warship in the world. Her connection to Portsmouth and the Solent is inseparable from the story of Trafalgar.