Royal Oak, Frindsbury unclear, but one reported theory is that it was named after the 17th-century warship HMS "Royal Oak", which was sunk at the nearby Raid on the Medway in 1664. Local people say that one of the beams in the pub comes from the ship, the remains of which may have been broken up at a nearby shipyard after the battle. Another theory is that it was named after the Royal Oak that Charles II of England hid in following the Battle of Worcester. In the late 18th or early 19th century it was given a Flemish Bond brick face and
HMS Royal Oak (08) scenes of naval action. In 1938, "Royal Oak" returned to the Home Fleet and was made flagship of the Second Battle Squadron based in Portsmouth. On 24 November 1938, she returned the body of the British-born Queen Maud of Norway, who had died in London, to a state funeral in Oslo, accompanied by her husband King Haakon VII. Paying off in December 1938, "Royal Oak" was recommissioned the following June, and in the late summer of 1939 embarked on a short training cruise in the English Channel in preparation for another 30-month tour of the Mediterranean, for which her crew