Anglo-Dutch Wars

Anglo-Dutch Wars, three maritime conflicts (1652-1654, 1665-1667, 1672-1674) between England and the Netherlands, fought on grounds of commercial rivalry. They were caused by friction between the two countries’ trading interests, particularly in the East Indies, the Baltic Sea, and the Arctic, which had become dominated by Dutch shipping during the first half of the 17th century. The English Commonwealth government set up after the English Civil War sought to reverse this trend with the Navigation Act of 1651, which stipulated that goods could only be imported to England in English ships or ships from the country of origin. However, the English were simultaneously seeking an alliance with the Dutch to end their diplomatic isolation in continental Europe, and war only became inevitable when the Dutch and English fleets clashed in May 1652.

The first Anglo-Dutch War saw the Dutch merchant fleet suffer huge losses, forcing their navy to concentrate on convoy protection. An English attack on a large Dutch convoy heading westwards down the English Channel was beaten off at Dungeness in November 1652, but the same convoy was savaged on its return in February 1653. The Dutch fleet was scattered at the Battle of the Gabbard in June, and the English imposed a blockade of the Dutch coast, forcing their enemies to sue for peace in April 1654. The terms offered by England’s new Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, were lenient: the Dutch agreed to end their assistance to Charles Stuart, but the commercial disputes were left unresolved.

The Navigation Act was one of the first laws renewed by Parliament when Charles Stuart was restored to the throne of England as Charles II in 1660. Though an Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1662 envisaged a negotiated settlement of disputes between the two nations, the English ambassador at the Hague preferred confrontation. The Dutch were also worried by Charles’s support for his nephew William of Orange, whose family had traditionally exercised power in the Netherlands. The English seizure of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664 provoked a renewal of war the following year.

At the start of the second Anglo-Dutch War, the advantages lay with the English: Parliament voted £2.5 million for the war, and the Dutch navy was heavily defeated off Lowestoft in June 1665. However, the English failed to impose a blockade on the Dutch coast, and potential allies were alienated by their claims to control the seas. The Dutch gained the advantage when their French allies entered the war in January 1666, followed a month later by Denmark; the divided English fleet was defeated in the so-called Four Days’ Battle in June, and the Dutch briefly gained control of the Channel until their defeat off the North Foreland in July. By the end of the year, the English, distracted by plague and the Great Fire of London, could no longer afford to put their fleet to sea. The Dutch exploited their enemy’s exhaustion by burning the English naval base at Chatham, and at the peace of Breda in July 1667 they obtained a relaxation of the terms of the Navigation Act. The English kept New Amsterdam, which they renamed New York.

Within six months of Breda, the English and the Dutch had concluded an alliance in opposition to a French invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. However, their previous antagonism remained, and by the secret Treaty of Dover in 1670 Charles agreed to support the French in an attack on the Dutch in the spring of 1672. The English government, which was near bankruptcy, depended on a quick victory, but Sole Bay, the first battle of the war, was indecisive, and the English could not afford to blockade the Dutch coast. Despite misgivings about the French invasion of the Netherlands, Parliament voted funds for another campaign. An invasion force was assembled at Great Yarmouth, but the campaign was abandoned after the defeat of the English fleet at Kijkduin in August 1673. Amid growing suspicions that the French alliance was intended to establish a Catholic absolutist regime in England, Parliament condemned the war, and without any further funds Charles was forced to sue for peace in February 1674.