High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! HMS Bedford was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 12 September 1698. She carried twenty-two 24-pounder guns and four (18-pounder) culverins on the lower deck; twenty-six 12-pounder guns on the upper deck; fourteen (5-pounder) sakers on the quarter-deck and forecastle; and four 3-pounder guns on the poop or roundhouse.