The _Canopus_ class, of slightly larger displacement but less draught and more lightly armoured, was a lighter version of the _Magnificent_, and but very little faster. The next year, 1898, saw the launching of the _Formidable_, which carried the same powerful armament as the last two, but was considered to have it better protected, as her belt consisted of 9 inches of steel and her main guns were protected by steel armour 12 inches thick. The displacement and horse-power of the engines were greater, but there was little improvement in the matter of speed. This was remedied in the _Duncan_ and her class. She was 405 feet in length and 75 feet 6 inches beam, being 5 feet longer and 6 inches wider than the _Formidable_, and of about the same draught, but her engines were of 18,000 h.p. indicated, giving her an estimated speed of nineteen knots and an actual speed of over twenty knots on occasion. These two classes of vessels attracted more than usual public attention because of their cost, as although the cost of warships had been steadily increasing, the _Formidables_ and the _Duncans_ were the first in which the cost per ship exceeded a million sterling. A somewhat smaller vessel followed in the _Triumph_, launched in 1903, which attained a speed of nearly twenty-one knots, and in which also the complete belt was revived. Her principal guns were four 10-inch and fourteen 7.5-inch quick-firers, and she had also twenty-four anti-torpedo-boat guns and two torpedo tubes. [Illustration: H.M.S. “KING EDWARD VII.” _Photograph by the Carbonora Co., Liverpool._] [Illustration: H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._] The increasing power and range of naval guns rendered it necessary that better protection and more destructive weapons should be given to the ships, and accordingly there was introduced in 1903, and completed in 1905, the _King Edward VII._, and eight of this class were built. Their displacement was 16,350 tons, and in this respect they were the largest ships yet built for the Navy, but though they were shorter than the _Triumph_, they were of 2 feet greater draught. Their armour belt was of 9 inches of steel, and their main guns were protected by 8 to 12 inches. These ships carried four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch, and ten 6-inch quick-firers, and thirty anti-torpedo-boat guns. They cost not far short of a million and a half sterling each. Their engines of 18,000 h.p. gave them a speed of about nineteen knots. In 1906, there was launched the _Lord Nelson_, carrying fewer guns but better protected. Her armament comprised four 12-inch and four 9.2-inch, besides twenty-nine smaller guns and five torpedo tubes, and the armour both of her belt and for her main guns was of steel 12 inches in thickness.