A royal humiliation. When the bankrupt Stuart administration could not afford to fit out the battle fleet in 1667, expecting peace, the Dutch penetrated the difficult Medway navigation in mid-June and, despite the best efforts of the English, burnt ships and carried away the English flagship from Chatham. Their reward was an improved peace. The Stuart state could not afford a long war with so expensive a weapon as a battle fleet.
Deliberate English aggression precipitated the second war. In 1663 Sir Robert Holmes, with two warships and 24 slavers, raided the West African coast, capturing the Dutch fort at Gorée. In 1664, another force under Richard Nichols sailed to North America, capturing New Amsterdam in August. Lieutenant Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter’s Mediterranean squadron of 23 ships recaptured Gorée on 24 October, then sailed to the Caribbean, seizing several English ships as it sailed northward along the American coast before recrossing the Atlantic to return to the Netherlands in August 1665.
War officially began in March 1665. James, Duke of York, commanded the English fleet, while Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam led the Dutch. A major victory on 3 June 1665 at Lowestoft, in which 18 Dutch ships were sunk and 14 captured for the loss of one English ship, was foiled when a courtier aboard the English flagship halted the pursuit while James slept. Edward Montagu, First Earl of Sandwich, replaced him, while de Ruyter assumed command of the Dutch fleet.
After France and Denmark joined the conflict in January 1666, fears that a French squadron would sail up the Channel to join the Dutch led to the division of the English fleet. Prince Rupert sailed with 20 ships to intercept them, while Sandwich guarded the Dover Straits with 30, leaving George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, with 54 ships to face de Ruyter’s 85 at the start of the 1–4 June 1666 Four Days’ Battle. Rupert’s arrival on 3 June failed to prevent an English defeat; they lost eight ships sunk and 14 captured, the Dutch seven.
Dutch Raid up the Medway
In Holland, DeWitt considered Charles’s diplomatic overtures and naval de-escalation not as an opportunity to negotiate but as a chance to strike. He directed De Ruyter to develop a plan for an attack against England itself.
The English sought safety in the Thames, then engaged de Ruyter in the 25–26 July 1666 Battle of St. James’s Day. The well-ordered English battle line inflicted a serious defeat on the Dutch, forcing de Ruyter to disengage. The English assumed station off the Texel, and a raid led by Sir Robert Holmes on Dutch shipping led to the destruction of 150 vessels.
Success led the financially strapped King Charles II to make a serious miscalculation. Peace negotiations convened in May 1667, and the king kept all but two squadrons laid up while talks proceeded. In early June De Ruyter took the fleet, with more than sixty ships, into the mouth of the Thames. As detachments made their way up the river, Londoners were panic-stricken by the news: “The Dutch are in the Medway!” The impact of this bold stroke was tremendous, although both sides were financially crippled by the disruption of trade.
Jan de Witt was determined to exact revenge for the burning on Vlie and Schelling. His elder brother, Cornelius, was sent aboard the fleet as a commissary from the States General with orders to atttack England. The absence of an English fleet made it possible for de Ruyter to sail on 4 June (o.s.) with the Maas squadron, before the arrival of the Zeeland and Freisland squadrons. On 8 June, Witt sent a small force up the Thames, another force landed on Sheppey, while other ships made their way up the Medway. By 14 June the Dutch made their way back to the North Sea. They had broken the chain at Gillingham Reach and burned the ships that lay near Upnor Castle. The material damage was limited: Canvey Island and Sheppey were scoured for victuals by the Dutch, and about £3,000 of stores were captured when Sheerness fell. One small ship was destroyed at Sheerness. Fifteen other small or older ships and boats were destroyed in the Medway with three major warships, Royal James (70), Royal Oak (76) and Loyal London (90). Apart from these losses, perhaps 150 men were killed in the operation and damage worth £22,000 had been done. Compared to “Holmes’ Bonfire”, where losses were in excess of £1,250,000, the impact on England was small. The real damage was psychological. The Dutch had been able to penetrate to within a few miles of the major royal dockyard where thousands of pounds of damage could have been done with immeasurable consequences for the fleet. The Dutch had also sailed away with the Royal Charles (86) and the Unity (44). A Dutch force continued to cruise off the English coast, threatening Harwich and Gravesend and compelling the English to remain in port. De Ruyter took a force southward and landed at Torquay on 18 July, burning two vessels before resuming his cruise into the Western Approaches.
The 31 July 1667 Treaty of Breda concluded hostilities. Restrictions on Dutch trade in England were relaxed, and the Dutch obtained Surinam while the English gained New York.
Tactically, the war proved the validity of line-of-battle tactics and the value of heavily gunned warships, the Dutch recognizing the need to revise their doctrine and construct larger vessels. Other changes came as well. Despite defeats, the Dutch returned their fleet to sea, while the overconfident English suffered for their false economy at the Medway. Bureaucratic reform began, helping to modernize naval administration and logistics.
