Coventry was a 28-gun ship of the early 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...

. She was originally the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 ship San Miguel. She was captured in 1658, but was in turn taken by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in 1666. She was the first of six ships of the Royal Navy to bear the name Coventry.

The Royal Navy frigates and set sail from Plymouth on 17 February 1658 and put in to St Mary's, Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

for a few days. When the Spanish ship San Miguel was sighted they were quickly disguised as merchant ships, but the Spanish fled. The Royal Navy ships chased the Spanish ship and when the wind changed the Spanish ship fired at the Adventure, which had to give up the chase. Next day the Constant Warwick had caught up and after a five-hour battle captured the Spanish ship. The San Miguel was refitted and renamed Coventry. She served for a further eight years before being captured by the French and renamed Armes d'Angleterre.