The Butterboxes are Coming! The Butterboxes are Coming!
…butterboxes, of course, being one of the principal terms of neighbourly respect (umm…) that seventeenth century Brits used for the Dutch. They were certainly coming in 1667, culminating in the famous attack on the Medway in June, and they’re coming this year, too, for the 350th anniversary! So I thought I’d use this blog to […]
The British Fleet at the Battle of the Texel / Kijkduin, 11/21 August 1673 – Part 1
A major event on the blog this week and next! My old website contained a piece which attempted to list the British line of battle at the important Battle of the Texel (known to the Dutch as the Battle of Kijkduin), the final engagement during the three Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century. This, in […]
Texel 341, Part 1
Today, 11 August 2014, marks the 341st anniversary of the sea battle known in Britain as the Battle of the Texel and in the Netherlands as the Battle of Kijkduin. (The date was 21 August on the calendar then in use in the Netherlands.) This proved to be the last battle of the Anglo-Dutch wars […]
Remembering War During War: Recalling the Anglo-Dutch Wars During the First World War (Part 1)
I’m typing this blog on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, during a period when the centenary commemorations of the First World War are already well under way. Moreover, we’re only a year away from the anniversaries of Agincourt and Waterloo. Regular readers might remember that I’ve already made a plea for the 350th anniversaries of […]
Solebay 340, Part 2
Despite their impressive outward appearance, the French ships simply had no experience of operating in such a large fleet in wartime. Even before d’Estrées arrived at Spithead, King Charles II himself, at a meeting of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, expressed the view that the Duke of York should ‘ripen the Fr[ench] in passage and […]
