Anglo-Dutch Rivalry During the First Half of the Seventeenth Century / being the Ford lectures delivered at Oxford in 1910

BEING THE FORD LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD IN 1910
BY THE REV. GEORGE EDMUNDSON, M.A. F.R.G.S. F.R. Hist. S. LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE HONORARY MEMBER OF THE DUTCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY (UTRECHT) FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF NETHERLANDS LITERATURE (LEYDEN)
OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1911
HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
The varying fortunes of the obstinate and fiercely contested struggles with the Dutch for maritime and commercial supremacy in the days of the Commonwealth and the Restoration are familiar to all readers of English history, and especially of English naval history. Never did English seamen fight better than in these Dutch wars, and never did they meet more redoubtable foes. The details of the many dogged contests marked by alternate victory and defeat are now more or less unintelligible save to the expert in the naval strategy and tactics of the times, but legends have grown round the story of Martin Tromp sailing down the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, and of the exploit of Michael de Ruyter in burning the English ships at Chatham, which are never likely to be forgotten. The names of these two famous seamen are probably better known to Englishmen than those of any of the contemporary English admirals save that of Robert Blake alone. This fact should bespeak for the attempt that is here made to trace the causes and the growth of the Anglo-Dutch rivalry at sea and in commerce, which culminated in the collision between Blake and Tromp off Dover on May 29, 1652, and the declaration of war that followed. It has been my object in these Ford Lectures to treat of the relations between England and the United Provinces during the half-century that preceded the first outbreak of hostilities, and to make it clear that these wars of 1652-4, 1665-7, 1672-4 were the inevitable outcome of a long-continued clashing of interests, which were of fundamental importance and indeed vital to the welfare of both nations.