HMS Black Prince (81) instead of five, and improved anti-aircraft armament. She was built by Harland & Wolff of Belfast, Northern Ireland, with her keel being laid down on 1 December 1939. She was launched on 27 August 1942, and commissioned on 30 November 1943. "Black Prince" was named after Prince Edward (1330-1376), the eldest son of King Edward III. After commissioning, "Black Prince" served on Arctic convoys and then came south in preparation for the invasion of Europe, being employed on offensive sweeps against German coastal convoy traffic. On the night of 25 and 26 April 1944, accompanied by Canadian destroyers, she was
Edward the Black Prince "Edward the Prince, cognomen: The Black"); in the other, in English to "the Blake Prince". In both instances, Leland is summarising earlier works – respectively, the 14th-century "Eulogium Historiarum" and the late 15th-century chronicle attributed to John Warkworth – but in neither case does the name appear in his source texts. In print, Roger Ascham in his "Toxophilus" (1545) refers to "ye noble black prince Edward beside Poeters"; while Richard Grafton, in his "Chronicle at Large" (1569), uses the name on three occasions, saying that "some writers name him the black prince", and elsewhere that he was "commonly called the