The ships spent their careers in the Mediterranean, Home and Channel Fleets, sometimes as flagships, although several were mobilised for service with the Flying Squadron in 1896 when tensions with the German Empire were high following the Jameson Raid in South Africa.

Three ships were assigned to the International Squadron formed when Greek Christians rebelled against the Ottoman Empire's rule in Crete in 1897–1898.

Hood was fitted with the first anti-torpedo bulges to evaluate underwater protection schemes in 1911 before being scuttled as a blockship a few months after the start of the First World War in August 1914.

A war scare with Russia in 1885 during the Panjdeh Incident, the failure of the blockading fleet to contain the raiding ships in port during the 1888 fleet manoeuvres and more realistic evaluations of the numbers of ships required to perform the tasks required in a war against France, coupled with exposés by influential journalists like W. T. Stead, revealed serious weaknesses in the Navy.

[1] The Government responded with the Naval Defence Act 1889, which provided £21.5 million for a vast expansion programme of which the eight ships of the Royal Sovereign class were the centrepiece.

The Act also formalised the two-power standard, whereby the Royal Navy sought to be as large as the next two major naval powers combined.

[2] Preliminary work on what would become the Royal Sovereigns began in 1888 and the Board of Admiralty directed the Director of Naval Construction, Sir William White, to design an improved and enlarged version of the Trafalgar class.

White, however, argued strenuously for a high-freeboard design to improve the new ships' ability to fight and steam in heavy weather.

[5] Those ships fitted with barbettes had a freeboard of 19 feet 6 inches (5.9 m) (about 90% of modern guidelines), provided by the addition of a complete extra deck, which improved their performance in heavy seas.

[7] Hood's freeboard, however, was only 11 feet 3 inches (3.4 m), which meant that she was very wet and lost speed rapidly as wave height increased.

This had the effect of making her roll period shorter by around 7% compared to her sister ship, which in turn made her gunnery less accurate.

As a result, the Navy decided not to push the boilers of the Royal Sovereign class past 11,000 ihp to prevent similar damage.

The ships carried a maximum of 1,420 long tons (1,443 t) of coal, which gave them a range of 4,720 nautical miles (8,740 km; 5,430 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

These guns were intended to destroy the unarmoured structure of their opponents and they were widely spaced on two decks so that a single hit would not disable more than one.

Fire-control equipment and rangefinders were installed in every ship in 1905–1908 and all light guns had been removed from the main deck and the fighting tops by 1909.

Revenge and Royal Oak were commissioned into the Flying Squadron in 1896 when tensions with the German Empire were high following the Jameson Raid in South Africa, with the former as the flagship.

Empress of India and Royal Sovereign were transferred to the Mediterranean shortly after the review although only the former ship joined Ramillies and Hood as part of the International Squadron, a multinational force that intervened in the 1897–1898 Greek Christian uprising against the Ottoman Empire's rule in Crete.

Empress of India was the first of the sisters to be refitted and was the only ship of the class present at King Edward VII's Coronation Fleet Review in August 1902.

She was recommissioned the following year, after the start of the First World War, to bombard the coast of Flanders as part of the Dover Patrol, during which she was hit four times, but was not seriously damaged.