THE ROYAL Navy remembered Trafalgar Day today with a ceremony aboard HMS Victory, moored in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.
The event marked the 208th anniversary of the battle on October 21, 1805, which saw the Royal Navy fleet defeat a combined French and Spanish fleet of the Cape of Trafalgar.
Led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard the Victory, the oldest commissioned warship in the world, the battle sealed British dominance of the seas for a hundred years.
The ceremony is an act of remembrance rather than just a celebration of victory, remembering the loss of the country’s greatest ever naval leader, Horatio Nelson, and the lives of men on both sides who perished in the fierce battle, or subsequently, from their injuries.
The day started with the daily naval ceremony of ‘Colours’, as the White Ensign of the Royal Navy and the Union Jack are hauled up.
Shortly afterward the flag sequence indicating Nelson’s famous message to the Fleet that “England expects that every man will do his duty” is hoisted, this was followed as the fleets met with the signal “Engage the enemy more closely.”
Nelson’s tactical genius in splitting the line of enemy ships had already set the pre-conditions for victory, when only an hour into the Battle, Nelson was hit by a French sharpshooters’ musket ball as he paced Victory’s quarterdeck, directing the battle.
He fell, fatally wounded, on a spot marked by a lovingly polished brass plaque, which forms the centrepiece of the Trafalgar Day Ceremony.
During this morning's ceremony the Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral David Steel laid a wreath by the plaque; a second was placed on the orlop deck, where he died.