HNLMS Heiligerlee, formerly known as Panter, was a Heiligerlee-class monitor built in England for the Royal Netherlands Navy in the 1860s.

By 10 June 1868 the English press mentioned that Heiligerlee had completed her trial cruise.

During this cruise she had on board her guns and ammunition, 75 officers and men, their luggage, six weeks of stores and 5 days of coal.

[8] In the early afternoon of the 15 June 1868 Heiligerlee arrived in the Nieuwe Diep near Den Helder.

[13] While there, the ship was visited by the Secretary for War, the governor of Groningen province, and a lot of local dignitaries and civilians.

Some subsequent trips show that the Heilgerlee could indeed penetrate way inland: From Hellevoetsluis she would steam on the 'Kanaal door Voorne' to reach its new base at Rotterdam.

[15] On 21 October the royal yacht 'Leeuw' with the Queen and Prince Alexander on board made a small detour to view Heiligerlee while she was stationed across the park on the Meuse.

[18] By sailing to Gorinchem, Heiligerlee demonstrated that monitors could play a role in defending the new Water Line.

In August Heiligerlee and Ram Turret ship Schorpioen exercised on the Haringvliet.

In effect, the drastic increase in Dutch defense spending was vindicated when the Franco-Prussian war started.

It created the severe risk that it would provide one of the parties with a pretext to invade the Netherlands if it could easily do so.

To prevent this the garrison of Hellevoetsluis was reinforced and Heiligerlee and Tijger were posted before the harbor.

On 16 August the same ships left Hellevoetsluis again, and sailed to Vlissingen[21] The Heilgerlee was part of the Squadron under Rear Admiral J.J. Wichers consisting of the Ram Turrets Buffel and Schorpioen, the monitors Heiligerlee, Krokodil and Tijger, and Peddle Steamer Valk.

The squadron was to test a barrier of ropes that would bar the 'Hitsertsche Gat' north of the island.

The ram of Adder hit Heiligerlee on the port side between the first mast and the turret, and made a big hole below the waterline / armor.

The double bottom and compartmentalization made that Heiligerlee stayed afloat and reached Hellevoetsluis under its own power.

On 15 October 1875 Heiligerlee was taken out of service, and Roëll relieved of his command.,[27] a measure probably meant to economize on the fleet.

While there in the evening of 27 August, the demonstration of its electrical search light made a huge impression on the locals.

[36] In early May the Heilgerlee, the Cerberus and the gunboats Wodan, Thor and Brak left Amsterdam for Terschelling, where they exercised.

While sailing on the Zuiderzee and exercising with the turret, a leg of one of its sailors got stuck and was crushed.

On 21 July 1892 Moreau's squadron, consisting of Heiligerlee, Panter, Tijger, Krokodil and gunboats Wodan, Thor and Hadda, arrived in Nieuwe Diep from the Zuiderzee.

[45] During the conflict Heiligerlee was in the Spuikanaal and guarded a ship housing workers from Germany, who had been hired to break the strike.

While the Heilgerlee was in the Spoorhaven, a rowboat tried to reach the ship with the foreign workers in the evening of 26 October.

[47] After the authorities were convinced that the conflict had been resolved, Heiligerlee left Rotterdam for Hook of Holland on 25 November 1907.

It seemed that Heiligerlee was on her way to even more uneventful years of service, when in late November 1908 the Algemeen Handelsblad started an influential serie of articles called 'the battle-worthiness of our fleet'.

The specific complaint about Heiligerlee was that 111 men were employed to operate one outdated gun.

[54] This was planned for 21 April 1910[55] The auction was won by the Ship breakers Company R. Bos Pzn.