Three ships of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 have borne the name HMS Abdiel, after Abdiel

Abdiel

Abdiel is a biblical name which has been used as the name for a number of fictional characters and as a given name for several notable people...

, a Seraph

Seraph

A seraph is a type of celestial being in Judaism and Christianity...

 in Milton's

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

.
was a Marksman-class destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

, built as HMS Ithuriel but renamed before being launched in 1915. She was sold for scrapping in 1936. was an Abdiel-class

Abdiel class minelayer

The Abdiel class were a class of six fast minelayers commissioned into the Royal Navy and active during the Second World War. They were also known as the Manxman class and as "mine-laying cruisers".-Design:...

 minelayer

Minelayer

Minelaying is the act of deploying explosive mines. Historically this has been carried out by ships, submarines and aircraft. Additionally, since World War I the term minelayer refers specifically to a naval ship used for deploying naval mines...

 launched in 1940 and sunk by a mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

in 1943. was an exercise minelayer and mine countermeasures support ship launched in 1967 and broken up in 1988.