Gillyflower was a 32-gun fourth rate vessel of the Kingdom of England, She started life as the Genoese merchantman Archangel Saint Michael built 1639 in Amsterdam in 1639. she was captured by the Royalist privateers in November 1650, then defected to the Parliamentarians in 1651.

[3] She was commissioned as Saint Michael into Royalist Navy under Captain Goulding in 1651 but deserted to the Parliamentarians the same year.

[4] During the First Anglo-Dutch War she partook in the Battle of Portland as a member of Robert Blake's Fleet on 18 through to 20 February 1653.

[5] She participated in the Battle of the Gabbard as a member of White Squadron, Van Division on 2–3 June 1653.

[6] In 1654 she was under Captain Henry Fenn for an expedition to the West Indies in December 1654, returning in November 1655.