In a recent article titled How the Dutch Ate Their Prime Minister in 1672, we recounted a military event carried out by the navy of the Netherlands that occurred in 1667: a bold naval incursion in which sixty-two warships, under the command of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter and the brother of the Dutch prime minister, Cornelio de Witt, sailed up the Thames, conquered the town of Sheerness, and reached the Royal Navy’s anchorages in Kent. There, they destroyed three ships and ten smaller boats, taking the English fleet’s flagship, the HMS Royal Charles, as a trophy. This event has gone down in history as the Raid on the Medway or the Battle of Chatham.
The Republic of the United Provinces was a state that emerged in 1581, breaking away from the Spanish territories in the Netherlands—the southern part of which remained under Spanish control—during the Eighty Years’ War. In 1653, Johan de Witt, a lawyer and mathematician, took charge of the new country as Raadpensionaris (Grand Pensionary) instead of the usual Stadhouder (Stadtholder), giving the country a republican veneer in the style of classical Rome, in contrast to William III, the young nephew of William of Orange, whom he saw as too close to monarchy.
Johan de Witt led the United Provinces to prosperity by implementing rational economic policies and promoting the construction of a fleet that ensured the maintenance of trade with the Indies (both East and West), the main source of wealth. At the same time, he tried to pursue a peaceful foreign policy, knowing that war always posed a threat to progress. That’s why, in 1654, he signed the Treaty of Westminster with England, ending the war they had been fighting for two years over control of the seas, with the consent of Spain and France.
At its core, this was a clash between two opposing concepts: the Dutch mare liberum versus the British mare clausum; in other words, free trade versus protectionism. Although the agreement benefited England, which imposed compensation for the killings of its merchants in Amboina and Banda, charged for fishing in the islands’ waters, and excluded the Oranges from any public office, the United Provinces had already been experiencing the period known as the Gouden Eeuw, or Dutch Golden Age (starting with the 1602 founding of the Dutch East India Company).
Thus, it was almost inevitable that the rivalry would reignite. In 1660, two years after Cromwell’s death, the English monarchy was restored under Charles II. Upon marrying Catherine of Braganza, he received as her dowry the cities of Tangier and Bombay, along with the resources of the Portuguese Empire (which at the time was fighting for independence from Spain). Despite Johan de Witt’s hopes that the Stuarts’ rise to power would improve their relations, the king sought to defend his own interests, and in 1663, he expanded the already protectionist Navigation Acts.
The king and his brother James had founded the Royal African Company, which led to a clash in 1664 between England and the United Provinces over control of the slave trade in the Gulf of Guinea. Admiral Michiel de Ruyter managed to seize the English African factories, causing the royal company to go bankrupt and leading to a declaration of war the following year, bolstered by the fact that English colonists in America had taken over New Amsterdam, renaming it New York. The situation was compounded by French King Louis XIX’s support for the United Provinces, in exchange for them leaving the Spanish Netherlands alone.
Strategically, the English believed their enemies lacked the capacity for a long conflict, while the Dutch were convinced the British Parliament would be reluctant to approve additional funding for the war. For this reason, both sought to wage a short war that would not severely affect their economies. Militarily, it was clear the conflict would be fought at sea, where both sides had powerful fleets, although the Royal Navy was superior in numbers, discipline, and firepower.
It should also be noted that this was a time of innovation, with the transition from galleons to ships of the line, which increased the number of cannons carried on each side and led to the adoption of the line of battle combat tactic. The first engagement was the Battle of Lowestoft, which was a disaster for the Dutch navy, and Admiral Jacob van Wassnaer Obdam was killed. Ironically, this spurred Johan de Witt to carry out a restructuring plan—financed by the profits of a newly arrived shipment of spices—placing Admiral Michiel de Ruyter at its head.
The victory boosted the confidence of Charles II, which caused such unrest in France that Louis XIV announced his alignment with the United Provinces and brought the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway along with him. As a result, Johan de Witt felt emboldened and rejected the Orangist proposal—prompted by England—to sign peace unless there was a return to the status quo ante bellum. Negotiations were ongoing to find a solution, but simultaneously, the Dutch navy received about thirty new ships; large, seventy-two-gun vessels, whose power was feared, especially if, as planned, they joined the French fleet destined for the English Channel.
The Battle of Lowestoft on June 6, 1665, painting by Adriaen van Diest. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
The Royal Navy sent a squadron to counter this threat, and that summer, they faced the Dutch in the Four Days’ Battle: George Monck’s seventy-nine English ships against De Ruyter’s eighty-four. De Ruyter had studied his opponent thoroughly and learned their tactics, achieving victory. It wasn’t a decisive triumph, as the battle ended when both sides ran out of ammunition, but De Ruyter managed to sink seventeen ships and capture six more while losing only four. He also took nearly two thousand prisoners.
A month later, the English had the chance for revenge in the Battle of St. James’s Day, though it was limited: having received reinforcements, they again sought out the Dutch, sinking two ships and losing one. Such a modest result was not enough to mitigate, let alone solve, the problem their navy would soon face. De Ruyter’s fleet was not sailing aimlessly; rather, it was following a bold plan designed by Johan de Witt over the course of a year, who even placed his brother aboard, alongside the admiral, to ensure its success.
The plan was to meet up with the French fleet and sail up the River Thames to attack the Chatham dockyards, where the Royal Navy was repairing its ships. As mentioned before, the French failed to appear, and De Ruyter had to settle for blocking the river mouth until August 1, 1667, when he saw the enemy fleet set sail and rushed to intercept it. After the battle, he decided to take the initiative, perhaps to take advantage of the two major disasters ravaging London: the Great Plague (a plague epidemic that began in 1665) and the Great Fire (which destroyed the City and other districts in September of the previous year).
Between the financial strain caused by these events—merchants could no longer afford to lend to the Crown—and the naval losses—not just in terms of deaths, injuries, and prisoners, but also in unpaid dismissals and the dismantling of ships of the line—England was in a delicate position, perfect for delivering the final blow, despite George Monck and Prince Rupert’s efforts to present the St. James’s Day battle as a brilliant victory, which, as we’ve seen, it was not. The situation was desperate.
In a special effort, Parliament voted in favor of new taxes totaling nearly two million pounds. However, the payments were subject to so many conditions that disputes delayed collections, and as a result, it became impossible to plan anything for the navy in 1667. It was ordered that the bulk of the fleet be anchored at Chatham, leaving only privateers and a small squadron to attack Dutch merchant ships; their own merchants were left without escorts, exposed to the same fate. It was either time to negotiate or make a drastic move, and the latter came through the agreement of a secret alliance with France, which suddenly shifted from being an enemy to an ally.
Johan de Witt didn’t know about this maneuver, but he didn’t trust either Charles II or Louis XIV, so he decided it was time to make a bold move. As a result of landings on the Danish islands in 1659, the Dutch had just created their Korps Mariniers (Marine Corps), and a contingent of six thousand of them was embarked with the fleet after the Four Days’ Battle to conduct an amphibious assault on Kent and incite the people to rise up against the king. As mentioned earlier, they couldn’t carry out the plan because the Royal Navy had stopped them, but now the navy was licking its wounds, unaware that the enemy was preparing to try again.
Johan de Witt’s brother, Cornelius, boarded to oversee the operation and convince all the captains of the necessity of carrying it out, something they were reluctant to do due to fears of the Thames estuary’s shoals. However, they had the help of two English pilots: a smuggler on the run from the law and a dissenter (as Protestants who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Anglican Church, such as the famous Puritans who had sought refuge in the Netherlands before emigrating to America on the Mayflower, were called).
The fleet commanded by Michiel de Ruyter was made up of sixty-two ships of the line, fifteen light vessels, and twelve fireships (vessels filled with explosives that were deliberately set on fire to be launched against enemy units when they were anchored in formation), totaling three thousand three hundred and thirty cannons and seventeen thousand five hundred men. De Ruyter was a sailor of humble origin—the son of a simple seaman—but he had been sailing since childhood and had gradually risen through the ranks.
Having gained extensive experience in both the merchant navy and whaling ships, as well as practicing privateering against the Spanish, he ultimately established himself in the navy, receiving command ahead of others because he supported the political faction of Johan De Witt. With Cornelis, he had his ups and downs, just like the rest of the captains, who obeyed the order to begin the operation only because their admiral instructed them with the succinct phrase bevelen zijn bevelen (“orders are orders”).
Things didn’t look promising after a score of English merchant ships that they had tried to capture escaped to Gravesend through one of the estuary’s branches and gave the alarm on June 7th. However, the locals couldn’t do much; most of the ships were in Scotland and Essex, protecting coal shipments (transport difficulties had multiplied its price by ten), so only light ships like frigates or sloops were available. Even so, there was no panic because they didn’t expect the Dutch to dare attack London.
That’s why, when the thirty ships of Willem Joseph Van Ghent’s squadron (seventeen frigates, four fireships, and other smaller units) were sighted—sent by De Ruyter to land a thousand marines—the English reaction was slow and chaotic. In truth, the attackers’ behavior wasn’t praiseworthy either: disobeying Cornelis de Witt’s clear instructions, they got distracted by pillaging the villages on Canvey Island, which gave time for an English militia to expel them.
They only avoided a harsh punishment by offering to lead the attack the following day on the other island, Sheppey, while the English gathered as many men, boats, and cannons as they could—few, since, besides the fact that no one expected this and everything was improvised, many people who were owed wages refused to cooperate. One of the priorities was to provide horses to the militiamen so they could respond quickly to where they were needed, as reports indicated landings at various points.
And, indeed, on June 10th the actual assault began with the shelling of Garrison Fort Point, a fort defending Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, which couldn’t hold out for long, forcing the English under George Monck to retreat while trying to block the river with the usual chain and the sinking of eleven ships. The first, laid across Gillingham, was so heavy that it couldn’t prevent the light enemy vessels from passing over it; the latter proved insufficient, and more had to be added in different branches of the river. Finally, the sappers of a fireship broke the chain, clearing the way for the larger ships to enter the Medway, one of the arms of the Thames.
They reached Chatham and attacked their enemy counterparts, which, lacking much of their artillery—it had been moved to land-based bastions—and their crews—who were reinforcing the militias—couldn’t defend themselves. The HMS Monmouth managed to escape, but the HMS Unity and the HMS Royal Charles, the flagship of the Royal Navy, were captured, and the remaining sixteen had to be sunk to avoid capture. England had lost thirty ships, and now, indeed, fear spread among Londoners, as rumors circulated that the Dutch were going to bring the French army from Dunkirk.
The fortifications and coastal batteries that lined the Medway were incapable of stopping the advance led by six fireships followed by frigates. The Loyal London, the Royal James, and the Royal Oak, three of the largest ships in the Royal Navy, with more than seventy-five cannons, ended up burned, leaving the English with only four of that class remaining, plus the Royal Sovereign (formerly the Sovereign of the Seas, enlarged), the jewel of the English navy, which was fortunate enough to be in Portsmouth during those fateful moments.
Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Navy to His Gracious Majesty, saw everything lost upon hearing of the chain’s breach and the loss of the ships, securing his family:
All our hearts are now breaking; for the news is certain, that the Dutch have broken the chain and burned our ships, and particularly the Royal Charles; I do not know other details, but these are certainly the saddest. And the truth is that I fear so much that the whole kingdom may fall apart, that tonight I resolve to study with my father and my wife what to do with the little money I have on my part (…) In such fear, I quickly decided that my father and my wife would go to the countryside; and, with two hours’ notice, they went that day by coach, with some thirteen hundred pounds in gold in her night bag.
He then leaves an impressive account of the prevailing fear in London:
Never were people so downcast as today in all the City; and they are speaking very openly, even of treason, that we are bought and sold, that we are betrayed by the Papists and others around the King; they cry out that the Ordnance department has been so slow that there was no gunpowder at Chatham nor at Upnor Castle until now, and all the carriages are broken; that Legg is a Papist; that Upnor, the old and good castle built by Queen Elizabeth, should have been despised lately; that the ships at Chatham should not have been carried further. They consider us lost and are taking their families and rich goods to the city; and I truly believe that the French, having marched with their army to Dunkirk, are going to invade us and that we will be invaded.
As can be seen, everyone expected London was the target, so the next step for the Dutch should be Gravesend, which was only forty-four kilometers away. However, Cornelis de Witt feared that the enemy might finally react and decided to end the campaign. The retreat was carried out along the same route, finishing the destruction of whatever was still intact; only the Chatham shipyards were spared because no Dutch ship came near, a tactical mistake since the Royal Navy would use them to rebuild its fleet (a feverish construction program restored its former strength in just three years, laying the foundation for its rise to naval dominance in the 18th century).
In fact, that “great victory in a just war of self-defense” proclaimed by the victors was not to be repeated; attempts to do so weeks later in other places (Gravesend, Woodbridge, and Osley Bay) failed. Nonetheless, the scare had been tremendous, and Pepys remarked: Thus, in everything, in wisdom, courage, strength, knowledge of our own currents, and success, the Dutch have the better of us and finish the war with victory on their side. Not just them, one might add, as the villages along the retreat path were looted… but by the English militia themselves.
The port officials estimated the damages from the raid at about twenty thousand pounds, not counting the cost of refloating and repairing the sunken ships (the Loyal London was renamed simply London, as the city of the same name refused to help finance it). The Royal Navy’s losses were worse, estimated at around two hundred thousand pounds. In contrast, De Ruyter lost only eight fireships and about fifty men, gaining the status of national heroes alongside Cornelis de Witt and Van Ghent. However, the Royal Charles was dismantled to avoid humiliating the defeated enemies, with its stern preserved at the Rijksmuseum.
More serious for the defeated was the psychological impact. The enemy had been very close and left because they chose to, not because they were driven off. King Charles II suffered a significant loss of prestige because of this and for naively negotiating peace while the Dutch struck. Even so, the attack on Chatham convinced Lord Clarendon, the prime minister, to speed up the peace talks because he feared that general discontent against the Crown might lead to a rebellion. The result was the signing, on July 31, 1667, of the Treaty of Breda, in which both sides made concessions to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.
The English retained New York and received other Caribbean enclaves from France, which compensated for those losses at the expense of Spanish territories in Europe (Franche-Comté, Valenciennes, Ypres, Saint-Omer, Cassel, Maubeuge, and Cateau-Cambrésis). The United Provinces kept Fort Amsterdam in Guinea and Suriname in America, recovering other Caribbean colonies. Additionally, their merchant ships could trade freely as the English Navigation Acts were modified for this purpose.
None of this would prevent a third war from breaking out in 1672, in which England, allied with France, emerged victorious, with France taking the opportunity to invade the United Provinces. The conflict was unfavorable for the Dutch, whose army was no match for their navy and was unable to stop the French troops. Popular discontent, spurred on by the Orangists, led to the murder of the De Witt brothers and the restoration of the office of Stadtholder for William III.
Let Rudyard Kipling close this article with his poem The Dutch in Medway, published in 1911 as a denunciation of King Charles II, who was heavily criticized for his frivolous and wasteful lifestyle:
The moneys that should feed us
You spend on your delight,
How can you then have sailor-men
To aid you in your fight?
Our fish and cheese are rotten,
Which makes the scurvy grow…
We cannot serve you if we starve,
And this the Dutchmen know!
Our ships in every harbour
Be neither whole nor sound,
And, when we seek to mend a leak,
No oakum can be found;
Or, if it is, the caulker,
And carpenters also,
For lack of pay have gone away,
And this the Dutchmen know!
Mere powder, guns, and bullets,
We scarce can get at all;
Their price was spent in merriment
And revel at Whitehall,
While we in tattered doublets
From ship to shop must row,
Beseeching friends for odds and ends..
And this the Dutchmen know!
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on September 19, 2024: La incursión de la flota neerlandesa que remontó el Támesis, destrozó a la Royal Navy, y desató el pánico en Londres
SOURCES
James Geddes, History of the administration of John de Witt, grand pensionary of Holland
Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740
P. G. Rogers, The Dutch in the Medway
Robert Lataham y William Mathews (eds.), The diary of Samuel Pepys
David Ormrod y Gijs Rommelse (eds.), War, trade and the state. Anglo-Ducht Conflict 1652-89
J.R. Jones, The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century
Gijs Rommelse, The Second Anglo-DutchtWar (1665-1667)
Wikipedia, Ataque de Medway
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Publish date : 2024-09-18 13:00:00
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