HMS Monmouth (F235): The Black Duke, Named in Disgrace, Retired With More Battle Honours Than Any Ship in the Fleet

Named for a Traitor, Painted in Black

HMS Monmouth, the sixth Duke-class Type 23 frigate, was launched by Lady Eaton in 1991 and commissioned in 1993, and carried a genuinely unusual distinction among Royal Navy warships. Named for the Duke of Monmouth, executed for treason after leading the failed 1685 rebellion against King James II, the ship's name was painted in black rather than the standard red, and she flew a plain black flag, a lasting reflection of the blacking out of the Duke's own coat of arms following his rebellion and execution. This earned her the affectionate nickname The Black Duke throughout her service, and, in a wonderfully ironic twist, until her decommissioning she carried more battle honours than any other ship name in the entire Royal Navy, a name once disgraced going on to become one of the fleet's most decorated.

Dublin, New Zealand, and Sierra Leone

HMS Monmouth made the first UK or US warship visit to New Zealand since the 1985 ANZUS dispute in June 1995, and went on to take part in Operation Kingfisher off West Africa and Operation Resilient, providing humanitarian assistance in Sierra Leone, between 1997 and 1998. In 1999 she became the first major Royal Navy vessel to visit Dublin since the 1960s, a genuinely notable piece of naval diplomacy given the historically fraught relationship between Britain and Ireland.

Circumnavigating the Globe

HMS Monmouth served on the Atlantic Patrol Task North between 2004 and 2006 under the command of Jerry Kyd, and in 2007 completed a full global circumnavigation, taking in Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii along the way, alongside Five Power Defence Arrangements exercises with regional partners.

Escorting the Little Ships

HMS Monmouth deployed to the Persian Gulf between 2009 and 2010, and that same year took on a rather more sentimental duty, escorting the flotilla of little ships commemorating the 70th anniversary of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk, a genuinely moving link between a modern frigate and one of the defining episodes of the Second World War.

Piracy, Drugs, and a Rescue at Sea

HMS Monmouth patrolled against piracy off Somalia in 2011 and took part in Seychelles independence celebrations that same year, before returning to the Gulf for a seven-month deployment in 2013. She took part in NATO's Exercise Dynamic Guard in Norwegian waters in 2016, rescuing an injured Canadian fisherman during the deployment, and in 2017, during a further Gulf and Indian Ocean deployment, seized 455 kilograms of cannabis and 266 kilograms of heroin, as well as rescuing a crewman from the sunken tanker Rama 2, a genuinely productive tour combining hard security work with straightforward lifesaving.

Making History Alongside HMS Queen Elizabeth

HMS Monmouth escorted the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to the eastern seaboard of the United States in 2018 for the Westlant 18 deployment, which included the first F-35 fighter trials aboard the carrier, and on 3 September that year her own Wildcat helicopter, nicknamed Blackjack, became the first Wildcat ever to land aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth, a genuinely proud little footnote in the history of Britain's newest and largest warship.

Decommissioned Without a Sea Ceptor

HMS Monmouth was decommissioned on 30 June 2021, following an accelerated retirement decision announced that March as part of the Ministry of Defence's Integrated Review, and never received the life extension refit that upgraded most of her sister ships, leaving her the only Type 23 frigate, British or Chilean, never to be fitted with the Sea Ceptor missile system. HMS Monmouth left Portsmouth for the final time in April 2025, bound for Aliağa in Turkey to be broken up, closing the career of a ship whose disgraced namesake would surely have been astonished to learn just how honoured his name eventually became.