After an initial participation in a punitive attack on Morocco, she spent the majority of her career in Home Waters.

[2] She was ordered on 12 December 1636 to be built under contract by Robert Tranckmore (a noted shipbuilder with a shipyard at Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex) at St Savior's Dock at Bermondsey in London on the River Thames.

Interestingly, the bow on the draught shows a beak typical of Tudor galleons and early Stuart warships, rather than the inclined bowsprit which emerged in the 1640s.

The draught gives dimensions of 96 ft in keel length and 32 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 347 tons, although the completed ships had lesser dimensions[4] The Providence was launched just 99 days later on 21 March 1637 (one day after the Expedition) and classed as a Fourth Rate (frigate).

A portrait of the ship by Willem van de Velde the Younger in 1661 showed significant changes in the appearance of the Providence.

The ship had been girdled (adding extra layers of timbers along both sides) during the Commonwealth era to improve her stability (the precise date is unrecorded), increasing the beam to 27 feet 4 inches (8.3 metres), and the oarports had disappeared.

She took part in June 1637 in a successful naval expedition led by William Rainsborough against the Barbary corsairs of Salé (the "Sallee pirates") in North West Morocco.

[9] In 1642 she was commissioned into the Parliamentary Naval Forces under the command of Captain Strachan for service in the English Channel.

[11] She was a member of Red Squadron, Van Division that engaged the Dutch at the Battle of the Gabbard on 2–3 June 1653.

This was followed by the St James Day Battle again as a member of Blue Squadron, Van Division on 25 July 1666.