Introduction1
7
The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1664-1667) has recently been revisited: an excel
lent international political and diplomatic analysis (and overview) of the war short
ly preceded the De Ruyterjaar in 2007 and renewed study of the greatest admiral
of his age.2 The greatest single events of the war have been well studied and are fair
ly well known: three titanic naval battles - with as many as 100 ships in each fleet
- during the summers of 1665 and 1666. One battle, incredibly, raged for four
days. The Dutch lost two of these three great battles (none was strategically deci
sive), but still ended the war totally victorious in 1667 - the Medway Raid was one
of the greatest humiliations in British/English history. These four major events and
the whole naval war have been recently reviewed.3 Indeed, the tocht naar Chatham
was perhaps the apogee of Dutch naval power:
never did the Dutch State make a morepowerfid appearance in the world than in the expedition to
Chatham.''
The causes of the three seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch wars have been much
discussed, but combined economic, political and ideological factors. We also have
a concise but wide-ranging overview of the three wars.5 The vast bulk of the naval
action took place in European waters, but colonial possessions and trade were also
attacked from the Atlantic to the East Indies, involving privateers and the armed
merchant companies. Over the three wars there was a gradual increase in the com
bat power of the navies, the size of warships, the resources committed and, of
course, expense.6 The number of combatants also broadened, the wars lengthened
and grew in intensity or scope. At the start of the era' there was one acknowledged
first-rank naval power; by its close there were three. The first war (1652-1654) was
fought almost entirely at sea; Dutch naval supremacy (after 1639) was challenged
and defeated - but not broken - by a vigorous, resurgent Britain now in posses
sion of the most powerful fleet; there were now two first-rank naval powers. The
second war (1664-1667) escalated primarily in West Africa, 1664. After repelling
an initially successful land invasion by Britain's ally Miinster in 1665, the Dutch
secured major (but not very active) allies in the rapidly resurgent France of Louis
XIV and Denmark-Norway (both 1666) and defeated the British. There was now
a triad of first-rank naval powers: the Republic, Britain, and France; the last, with
her population and resources now well on the way to becoming the dominant
power in Europe. The third war (1672-1674) developed into a general European
conflict. It began with Britain and France, Cologne and Miinster allied against the
Republic, which only narrowly survived the French land onslaught. A defensive
Dutch naval campaign against superior allied forces was able to exhaust the British
by 1674. The Franco-Dutch war continued until 1678, but had already expanded:
the Dutch secured allies in Brandenburg and the Emperor (1672) and Spain
(1673), whilst Sweden allied to France (1674) and Denmark-Norway to the
Republic (1675).
