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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Anglo-Dutch Wars
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A series of three 17C conflicts between the two leading maritime and commercial nations of the time. Each was busy empire-building, with rival interests both in the Far East and in America, and each needed to protect its trade by asserting control over the English Channel.
The first war (1652–4) was essentially local, involving a series of skirmishes in the Channel between Robert Blake (1599–1657) and the Dutch admiral Maarten *Tromp. The story of Tromp sailing up the Thames with a broom at his masthead (to demonstrate his power to sweep the seas) relates to a victory of his in 1652 but is probably apocryphal. The war ended, with advantages on the whole to Britain, in the treaty of Westminster (Apr. 1654).
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The second war (1665–7) had more international aspects. It was partly provoked by the British capture in 1664 of the main Dutch possession in *America, the settlement of *New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. The war spanned a period of double disaster in London (the *Great Plague of 1665, the *Great Fire of 1666) and it was a severe affront to national pride when a Dutch squadron sailed up the Medway in 1667 and destroyed several warships in Chatham dock. Both sides made concessions in the peace of Breda (July 1667); the most significant was the ceding to England of New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York.
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The war of 1672–4 was part of a wider European conflict, in which England briefly sided with France in an attack on the United Provinces of the Netherlands; the Dutch remained at war with France until 1678, but England made separate terms in 1674 in the treaty of Westminster.
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