The 1647 Programme of four additional Fourth rate vessels for the English Navy Royal was approved by Parliament on 9 January 1647, following a recommendation on 31 December 1646 by the Admiralty Committee that four new frigates should be built, each to be of 370 tons and to carry 32 guns.

[1] While nominally built for the Kingdom of England, and thus nominally the property of the Stuart King, their construction during the English Civil War was actually ordered by the Parliamentary side, and with the execution of King Charles I in January 1649 these ships (and preceding vessels) passed under the control of the new Commonwealth of England, and remained as such until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.

The three Master Shipwrights were individually responsible for the respective designs for the four vessels and for supervising their construction.

[2] All four frigates were built as single-decked warships, with their main battery on the sole gundeck, with eleven pairs of gunports carrying a mixture of culverins and demi-culverins.

The latter omission was soon corrected, with a forecastle (as an elevated structure over the forward part of the gundeck, but not carrying any guns) being built to "add very much to their strength".