Prince of Wales soil and speaking no other language"). William Camden wrote in his 1607 work "Britannia" that originally the title "Prince of Wales" was not conferred automatically upon the eldest living son of the King of England because Edward II (who had been the first English Prince of Wales) neglected to invest his eldest son, the future Edward III, with that title. It was Edward III who revived the practice of naming the eldest son Prince of Wales, which was then maintained by his successors: Nevertheless, according to conventional wisdom, since 1301 the Prince of Wales has usually been the eldest living
HMS Prince of Wales (1902) , as flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron. When World War I broke out in August 1914, the squadron was assigned to the newly reconstituted Channel Fleet on 7 November and based at Portland, from which it patrolled the English Channel. "Prince of Wales" was now the flagship of Rear-Admiral Bernard Currey and the first task of the squadron was to protect the transfer of the British Expeditionary Force over the English Channel to France. They patrolled the eastern end of the Channel while the 7th and 8th Battle Squadrons covered the cruiser squadron at the western entrance. The Germans