The English Commonwealth took a very different approach to settling the threats which had faced it in 1649, and the future of the three kingdoms. In Ireland, the guiding principle was retribution; in Scotland some effort at least of collaboration. To a new threat the response was uncompromising – it was war.
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Transcript
Now this is interesting, I feel the need to explain why I fully intend for this episode to be a bit of a Dog’s Breakfast. And in the words of that much loved Canadian, Hugie Green, I mean that most sincerely. Anyone who remembers that cultural reference, pick up a Gold Star with your pension book. It is going to a rather bit-ing and bobbing episode; we will go to Ireland, to Scotland, and then to the cold waters of the Channel and North Sea, where we will get fighty.
The reason for this is that one of the irritating things about Oliver Cromwell, apart from his wart, obviously, is that he gets lumped with a load of things that are variously nothing at all to do with him, like Christmas cancelling, only partially to do with him – such as iconoclasm, because Cromwell himself wasn’t an iconoclast, and then there is the true stuff. So I am determined to give you all the peerless opportunity pull people up in the pub, or a dinner party or social media and say ‘hey! Stop Right there! You’re gonna know right now!’. So today, we together we will make sure that we render unto the Rumpers that which is the Rumpers, and carry the story of the Rump to 1653, when, if you will forgive me a plot spoiler, it’s existence will come into question nudge nudge wink wink say no more say no more.
So let’s go to the emerald isle first, into what has got to be one of the worst periods of its history, and that, much to England’s regret and sorrow, is quite a high bar.
We left Ireland in Cromwell’s company at the end of May 1650, after his 9 month campaign, handing command over to his son in law, Henry Ireton. By the time he left, the position of the Confederacy was reasonably desperate. Only 3 major towns were left under Confederate Control – Waterford, Limerick and Galway. In theory they had a significant number of men under arms, but they were widely dispersed, and were rarely a existential threat to the English forces although they caused considerable pain in guerilla attacks. Added to that was the disarray in the Irish command; the Irish Catholic Bishops had completely lost faith in Ormonde. After all his military record wasn’t great, and as a Protestant the bishops were anyway suspicious. Nowe they’d had enough. They declared they would no longer accept his leadership, and so when Ormonde tried to gather a land army sufficient to contest Ireton’s progress, the Irish commanders simply ignored him. He was the lamest of lame ducks as Lieutenant General of Ireland. People began suggesting he might brush up on his French, and left train tickets for Paris lying around his bedroom. One way tickets.
In fact for the Catholics the brightest star of hope on a horizon otherwise dominated by clouds of doom, was the idea that the Catholic Duke of Lorraine would arrive with an international army to save them. Negotiations were under way. The idea was that he would become royal Protector of Ireland, an idea that left Ormonde and his second in Command the Marquis of Clanricarde apoplectic – this would essentially be a foreign catholic ruler planted in Ireland, a dagger pointing at the spine of a restored Stuart King. But the alternatives weren’t pretty, and anyway if Ireton got a wiggle on there’d be no towns left at which to land a foreign army anyway.
Ireton did no wiggling at all. It started OK; at Waterford II the Return, it’s Commander Thomas Preston, who had been a stalwart of the Confederate military, declared he’d fight to the last. As the citizens of the town watched Ireton set out his big guns, they told Preston he himself was welcome to fight to the last, but no one in Waterford was going to join him. Ireton then allowed the army to walk away, without their guns, and ensured there was no damage to the lives and property of those inside.
When it came to Limerick on the west coast, there was no such luck, no easy surrender. The commander foisted on Ormonde was Hugh Dubh O’Neil, who had made such a brilliant defence of Clonmel which had caused Cromwell such pain. Although Ireton invested the town in October 1650, O’Neil was confident winter would prove his best defence. And he was right – Ireton was forced to withdraw to winter quarters.
In December, Ormonde finally bowed to the inevitable and left for France. In the Spring Ireton spent his time chasing down any remaining armies of the new commander, Clanricarde in Connacht and then advanced back towards Limerick in June. The last pitched battle of this long, long war was fought at Knocknaclashy when the Irish commander Muskerry also tried to march to Limerick’s to prevent Ireton from renewing the siege; but was intercepted and, defeated by Broghill. So in June 1651 the siege was renewed, but O’Neill’s resistance thwarted a quick victory and Ireton set down to starve them out.
Their only possible hope now was the Duke of Lorraine. And in July, an agreement was duly reached in Brussels to make him the ‘true and Royal protector of Ireland’[1]. Suddenly in July, the game looked on once more, a stunning comeback of Lazarine proportions; Ireton’s army was doing that thing which all armies did when going into long drawn-out siege mode – dying. Some died from O’Neill’s aggressive and active defence and sallies, but mainly they died from disease. In Scotland meanwhile, this was the time when Charles II and Hamilton launched the brave Scottish army at the heart of England, otherwise known as Worcester, so this could be a crisis for the Republic – attacked on two fronts, when the Duke of Lorraine arrived with a shiny new catholic army of liberation.
It never happened. Lorraine dithered, Hamilton got his bottom kicked, Charles hid in an oak tree and hope died. By the end of October Ireton’s guns were in place at Limerick and it was time to call it a day, and surrender. The deal was, as normal, that the army march away without their weapons; though seven principal defenders would be executed. You would expect the commander O’Neil to be the first up against the wall; But he had fans in the New Model. Ireton’s officers admired Hugh O’Neil, recognised him as a talented and fierce adversary. And so despite the English deaths he had inflicted at Clonmel, he was not to be put against the wall at all.
By November 1651, though, the time had arrived for Henry Ireton to leave our story. He’d caught a bad cold in the wild weather, and yet refused to stop working. When he rode through a storm to country Clare it was one risk too many, and it cost him his life. He died outside Limerick on 26th November 1651. I think I introduced Ireton with a few quotes when he entered our story, so I won’t over do it, but the depth of his talents and influence was a bit of a discovery for me. He and Cromwell had started on a journey together from East Anglia, from relative obscurity and local concerns, they had become family by Ireton’s marriage to Bridget Cromwell. They had risen by talent and force of character to play on the biggest national stage, negotiating with Kings. His was an incredibly fertile mind. If only his brilliant and balanced Heads of Proposal had prevailed in 1647, so much chaos would have been avoided, and a more tolerant, equal society might have emerged.
His fellow commander Edmund Ludlow was a great fan. Ludlow was a good puritan and so rather offended by the pomp of Ireton’s funeral in London, and the grand monument erected. So he claimed that the greater monument was that
glorious monument in the hearts of good men, by his affection to his country, his abilities of mind, his impartial justice, his diligence in the public service
Sic transit and all that. Hugh Dubh O’Neill, incidentally, accompanied Ireton’s body to England as a Prisoner, and was thrown into the Tower. On the good offices though of the Spanish ambassador the Rump released him, and he returned to fight in the Spanish army, helping to crush a popular uprising by the Catalonian peasantry called the Reaper’s War. In 1660 he asked Charles for his land back, Charles said, hmmm, no, and before any more could be said O’Neill was dead.
As the official Irish resistance shrank to Connacht and the area around Galway, possibly the most vicious aspect of the war had been raging for sometime. It was the guerilla war. The English army by this time was as many as 35,000; ranged against them, across most of the supposedly conquered provinces of Leinster and Ulster, were maybe as many as 30,000 armed Irish fighters living their best life, spread and hidden in the countryside. They fitted into a tradition of raiders who had thrived as bandits during the turbulent 1640s; those bandits had preyed on local populations, stealing cattle and goods. They had been called toraigh, from the word to hunt or chase.
Now all these leaderless armed Irish soldiers became a new form of Tory – a guerilla army against the English and Scottish invaders. They preyed not on the local population, but on the New Model army, and posed a terrible threat. They ambushed contingents of soldiers, stole provisions, killed the isolated; they raided and then disappeared in the woods and bogs. No one could travel safely when more than 2 miles from a town without a convoy, reported one panicked English commissioner. Many local people supported, hid and helped them; as one town governor wrote of the local people
Though a law were made to make it immediate death to relieve the enemy, yet would they undergo danger and give them money
The battle against the Tories would add to the general devastation, as governors tried to hunt them down and burn them out; not until 1653 and the fall of Galway was control finally established. After which their name, as an insult, was given to a British political party – which it carries to this day.
Ireland was devastated after 10 years of war; the ‘war that finished Ireland’[2], according to one poet. We spoke of estimates before; a young Englishman and natural Philosopher William Petty at the time, estimated since the Irish revolt of 1641, about 25% of the population of Ireland had died, about half a million people; and to add to that, 100,000 English and Scots. Wealth and prosperity was gone; Dublin was starved of trade, little more than a military outpost now, half its houses standing empty. Towns all round Ireland were devastated too, and numerous farms left waste and uncultivated. Robert Boyle, another soon to be famous scientist and the youngest son of Lord Broghill the Irish peer, wrote with horror of the gaunt beggars swarming in his local Cork and Youghal.
The question then came to the Rump; how to settle Ireland now the fighting was done. The decision was framed by the Adventurers Act which had been discussed in the wake of the Irish Revolt in 1641, agreed with Charles and passed with Royal Assent in 1642. The idea was that people, Adventurers, should come forward with money to pay for armies, on the basis of payment of land – and 21/2 million acres of Irish would be seized from its rebellious owners to make those acres available. Then later as the costs grew higher, it was decided that the soldiers of the New Model would also be paid in land. For all of these adventurers and soldiers, it was part of the deal they should actually go and live on the land.
The Act of Settlement passed in 1652 was framed by the demands of these adventurers; as Woolrych points out the act of settlement was only partly driven by the ordinary protocols of retribution against rebels, but by the chorus of demand from the Adventurers, some of whom had handed over the money 10 years ago and had never expected to be without it for so long.
MPs were split between those emphasising harsh retribution on the rebels, and those who emphasised reconciliation, a relatively mild settlement that would be long lasting. But opinion was swayed when a report was read out in parliament by Vice Chancellor of Dublin University, Henry Jones. It was called ‘An abstract of the cruel massacres of the Protestants and English in Ireland. Henry Jones did not seek to discover the truth; but to provide justification for harshness. It was not a great way to start. It led to a pretty ruthless Settlement.
The principles driving the settlement would assume that it was the Irish nobility and the Catholic clergy who had fostered rebellion, and who should be held responsible, rather than the ordinary Irish. And so any families with less than £10 were to be pardoned; but every landowner who had not actively supported parliament were to suffer mass confiscation of land. They would lose it all – and receive ¾ back.
But that land would be in another part of Ireland, because another principle behind the settlement was racial; the parliament was done with the idea of making the Irish English; there was to be a complete ethnic separation between Irish Catholic and Protestant colonists. Mass transplantation was planned. In the event, as we will hear in a future episode, the idea of transplanting ordinary Irish people was never a runner, and none of the new landowners wanted that; there would afterall be no one to work the land.
Meanwhile the rules of retribution around those who had fought for the Confederacy when worked through would have meant 80,000 would be executed, yes 80,000. Courts were set up. Thankfully the result would be a way smaller number – only something over a hundred were actually executed, which is one small mercy.
The catholic clergy, widely seen as responsible for encouraging rebellion, were subject to summary execution. Though it appears again this blood curdling rule was not less commonly applied; the Vatican archives list 119 martyrs from the period 1649-1653[3]. Meanwhile the articles of surrender from various towns through the conflict were to be honoured, and as a result many of the Irish soldiers were allowed to leave and went to fight abroad – about 35,000
To implement this draconian Settlement, Colonel Charles Fleetwood was made the Lieutenant General of Ireland. He would incidentally marry Ireton’s Widow Bridget and therefore also become Cromwell’s son in law. He had many questions to resolve – how was all of this to be worked through in detail, how was it to be implemented. Fleetwood was not a forgiving man, nor an imaginative one. But his story, and that of his much more impressive successor Henry Cromwell, will be for a future episode.
We should probably say a word about the man to whose name the act of settlement and its implementation is almost always attributed – Oliver Cromwell. It is one of those areas where popular and academic history are widely divergent in recent times. In popular history and pretty much everywhere else it is the Cromwellian Settlement. Academics now have a much more nuanced view. So what is the situation – how much is the settlement due to Cromwell.
There are three pieces of legislation relating to the English Settlement of Ireland. Two of them were driven by parliament – the Adventures act of 1642 already referred to, and the act of Settlement in Ireland we have been discussing was enacted in August 1652. The third was the Act of Satisfaction in September 1653. John Prendergast in 1870 describes them as ‘Cromwell’s Acts’, very much part of the popular historical tradition.
John Cunningham of the National University of Ireland in Galway is one of those who argue that it is almost impossible to see Cromwell’s direct influence on any of the three acts, though he must have been a massively influential voice on the third by which time the historian Samuel Gardiner described Cromwell as a ‘virtual dictator’. Cunningham also notes that throughout the specific actions of Cromwell are usually to urge for moderation in individual cases – and there are plenty of them. And concludes that the shape of the settlements were set by the time Cromwell becomes Dominant after April 1653; in particular the draconian policy of separation, [4]and transplantation was heavily influenced by a list of qualifications which had been drawn up in 1651 by Henry Ireton; though Ireton also urged that the non noble Irish should be left alone to continue to work the land. Cromwell seems to have been a force for moderation, and was frequently appealed by both protestant and catholic Irish, with an expectation that this was worth doing, and had a good chance of success. There’s an infamous phrase, ‘to Hell or Connnacht’ – the historian Padraig Lenihan is clear that Cromwell almost certainly never said this.
We’ll come to the detailed implementation of the settlement in a future episode, so we can discuss this again, but in general the conclusion, and my theme, is that the woes inflicted on Ireland were due to English attitudes, not driven on by Cromwell specifically. That does not let Cromwell off the hook. He may have influenced moderation, but that was in individual cases, not on general strategy. He clearly absolutely shared the common attitudes, and supported the overall strategy; he had a sort of visionary view of Ireland as a potential Protestant paradise, fully supporting the transplantation of English Protestants there. Both he and Ireton were of course Adventurers. Although it may have been impossible for him even as Protector to prevent the settlement, there is equally no evidence at all that he ever tried, so he also bears responsibility, particularly when he’s Protector. So while I recognise that this is a pebble thrown into the deepest well where my words will disappear for every with nary a ripple, my thesis is to agree with John Morrill when he describes it as the ‘miscalled Cromwellian settlement’; and it should be called the English Settlement of Ireland.
We should talk briefly of Scotland, where the Rump took a very different path to settlement; partly because Scotland had been an ally, partly because it shared England’s religious flavour at least to some degree – and also it had always been an independent nation. Though by the time the all-conquering Cromwell returned from Worcester to the general celebrations, the Rump was discussing a bill before the house to change all of that and annex, Scotland into England. It is probably Cromwell who nixed that idea soon after his return to the Council of State; his principle, often stated, was that he had no quarrel with the Scots, only with those that had threatened to make war om the Commonwealth. Instead the Council issued a plan to Parliament that it consider how to create a new commonwealth that brought England and Scotland – and Ireland – together into one Union.
Ok said the Rumpers, and off to Scotland went a delegation of Commissioners, including Oliver St John, Harry Vane, John Lambert and George Monk. They convened a meeting at Dalkieth, with delegates from all the shires and towns, Magnates, Lairds and Burgesses.
The result of all this talking was revealed at the Mercat cross in Edinburgh, and around all the other towns of Scotland, in February 1652. It was called the Tender of Union. I mean the Union wasn’t necessarily Tender, tender in the sense of a proposition. There was then the slightly bizarre public ceremony where the new flag of the Union was presented – St Andrews and St George flags quartered – and the old royalist flag was ceremonially burned.
The new Commonwealth would have a single parliament in Westminster whence 30 Scottish MPs would hie. There was to be religious toleration for all, but apart from that there was to be no messing with religion – the Assembly of the Kirk would carry on managing the Scottish church as they saw fit – as long as there was toleration which is quite a big ‘as long as’. Scotland would be managed by an Anglo Scottish Council of State. Vane & St John were a bit horrified at the extent of magnate rights in the regional legal system, regalities as they were called to deliver justice, so it was felt more equitable for ordinary Scots to sweep away the old feudal courts and heritable rights of the magnates. This is similar to the infamous actions taken in 1746 after the Jacobite rebellion. English judges would go on circuit with their Scottish counter parts, and central law courts reformed. Taxes would be regularised across the kingdoms and there would be free trade.
Now look while very, very different to the Irish Act of Settlement, let’s be clear – this was a Union of unequal partners, not reciprocal; there’s no proposal that Scottish judges would be hearing cases in Wiltshire, no Scots sitting on the English Council of State. There would be a continual military presence in Scotland, led initially by Robert Lilburne, and major military forts were established, at Inverness for example, and the carrying of weapons banned in the Highlands. As in 1746 again, though no banning of the Philibeg or kilt since it may not have existed at that stage. Though the belted plaid would have done. Anyway that’s a digression – see the History of Scotland for members.
There was no doubt a lot of resistance in the hearts of patriotic Scots with their glorious and long history; but it is curiously muted, though there will be one rebellion we’ll come to. All the Shires and towns were asked to subscribe to an oath to the Commonwealth; 29 of 33 shires did so. 44 of the 59 Burghs also did so; some with positive enthusiasm. Only 3 places – Glasgow, Morayshire and Kircudbright objected; and their objections were against the religious toleration proposed.
There are reasons for this slightly unexpected response. One was that for the more radical protestants, the English parliament was infinitely preferable to Charles II who when swearing to the Covenant clearly had his fingers crossed behind his back, possibly also toes crossed, and maybe even his buttocks. Secondly there was a feeling in more providential religious quarters that this defeat was God’s judgement on the Scots for their sins, what ever those might have been. Thirdly, the fact that the English did not mess with the kirk was a source of potential furious friction avoided, Charles I take note. For the towns, free trade was a draw. For the magnates it was not attractive; but then the whole Scottish revolution had put them on the back foot, and they had definitely blotted their copybook with the Engagement and then with the Invasion of England. And then critically – Argyll, the leading leader of Covenanted Scotland, he supported the settlement.
The tender of union was very much not the objective Argyll and the Scots had been aiming for ever since 1638; what they wanted was union, but a federated Union, where they maintained their independence, but had a say in the running of the federated state – to make sure no English king messed with their kirk. But fighting the new model army after a string of defeats and over 10 years of war was a deeply unattractive thought. And this was at least an arrangement with some compensating benefits. So most, with various degrees of responses on a scale from hurt and furious outrage to weary resignation to mild enthusiasm, went along with it.
Since we are country hopping with our Rump, let us go back to where we left off last time – with the Dutch. You might remember that things had been hotting up; the Dutch are actually kings of trade and Monarchs of the Seas, but English thought they were and that the Dutch were just showing off, which was irritating, and the Navigation Act of 1651 was a direct affront to Dutch trade and the carrying of goods. Plus the greatest of Dutch Admirals, Maarten Tromp, was an Orangist and as such, despised and hated the Republican rebels. All of which led to an altercation between Tromp and Blake in May 1652, the Battle of Dover. Which saw Tromp leg it, 2 ships lighter.
You are entitled to ask is how come Tromp came off worse? That wasn’t meant to happen to the Monarch of the Seas. Well, one thing is that comparing fleet sizes – Dutch 222, English 72 – is a bit like comparing apples with crushed avocado on sour dough with balsamic vinegar drizzle.
While the Dutch were masters of the seas and their Navy was three times that of England’s, the Dutch fleet was based around their specific needs. Their ships had to negotiate the shoals around their coast and to protect merchantmen convoys, be fast and outsail pirates. So they were shallow drafted, quick, and relatively lightly armed. Just for instance; Tromp’s flagship was big by Dutch standards – it had 52 guns. By English standards it wasn’t exactly a tiddler, but was a bit meh; fully fifty of the English ships had a bigger broadside than that, and every English admires a big broadside.
Anyway after May 1652 the starting gun had been fired, and it was duly joined by cannon fire. Blake headed north to the Shetlands where the all famous Dutch herring fleet was doing it’s thing, to visit fire and sword on them, and in July he drove off their Dutch escorts and sank nine fishermen. But he also had a bigger game, since intelligence told him the Dutch VOC fleet was coming round the north on their way home, to avoid running the gauntlet of the channel. So Blake was waiting for them. Aha thought Tromp and set off with 102 ships to catch send Blake and visit his own fire and sword. Sounds like a good plan, though while he was off hunting, a massive convoy of 42 merchant ships was expected to arrive in Dutch ports in July, without his protection. Well, everyone waited and waited, and the worry grew and grew. And then they arrived in port! But after the good news – the bad. Just 7 battered and exhausted boats limped into port. When the poor ships Masters had recovered the story emerged; they’d been caught in the channel by the English admiral George Ayscue with 9 Royal Navy ships. Six merchantmen were captured, 3 burned and 26 driven onto the Calais sands.
That was bad enough news, but more came from Shetlands. It was the gods of weather, not for the first time in English history; Tromp had been caught in a massive hooter of a storm while Blake was successfully taking advantage of the rug of shelter, as snug as the proverbial bug. Tromp’s fleet was devastated and there was more limping home. In point of fact, Tromp’s presence had meant that most of the VOC ships made it home, but that wasn’t good enough; the States General took a dim view and sacked the great man. Sacked him would you believe! First round had definitively gone to England.
Then things got a bit nastier. Ayscue then, tail up, floppy ears, full of enthusiasm took on another Dutch merchant convoy in the channel, 60 West Indiamen; they were escorted by 40 ships under Admiral de Ruyter. Ayscue dribbled slightly and stretched out his sails to seize the succulent prize. Well, turns out all those merchants were heavily armed, bruising for a fight and were not afraid to help out Ruyter. In fact, being East Indiamen, that was their jam. Ayscue was badly mauled, ran into Plymouth harbour where he waws blocked and come fire and white horses Ruyter was going to sail into Plymouth and sink those ships. White horses came in the form of bad weather. So Ayscue was saved by the storm bell but the English adopted the management style du jour, and instead of suggesting extensive therapy and training, they sacked him. So he went to fight for the Swedes.
Before the end of the war, Blake was in action two more times. In September, Tromp’s replacement Dutch Admiral de Witt caught Blake’s squadron on the Kentish Knock. What a great name that is – Kentish Knock. It’s actually a large shoal in the North Sea east off Essex, not accurately charted until the 1820s. So the name comes from either Gaelic or Danish for a hillock, little hill. Anyway De Witt saw a great opportunity and pounced. Well he tried to pounce, but it turned out his seamen hated him, so much they wouldn’t let him on his own flagship. Still, he found another that would, and ordered the attack.
And they got mauled. There’s a theme here. The Dutch tactic was traditional; with their smaller weight of broadside, the idea was to get in close and board. So their guns swept the opposing ship of rigging, becalmed it, in they went, boarded and before you could say avast ye lubbers it was all over. It was a great tactic – don’t knock it. But under Blake the English navy was increasingly professional, with a high rate of fire, and increasingly fighting in a line ahead formation, rather than the old line abreast, so maximising their fire power. So often the Dutch were pulverised by the big English ships with their heavy broadside, before they could get close. The English went for the knock out. So despite the fact that Blake’s crews were also showing signs of mutiny, 62 Dutch ships were reduced to 49, 10 ships decided they didn’t want to fight for de Witt anymore and left; while a new contingent arrived to bring Blake’s force to 84. When De Witt carried out repairs at sea a few days later and proposed to renew the attack his captains so ‘no, don’t think so’, and they all went home
The States general did what all good politicians do in the face of disaster, and they panicked. They fired De Witt, went on bended knee to Tromp, and put a building programme in place. And in December 1652, with a renewed fleet, Tromp caught Blake again near Dover at Dungeness Point. Blake had not been born to the sea, and though he was a quick learner, here his lubberliness let him down, out manoeuvred and trapped against a shoal, losing 5 ships before night fell. Just as bad as the lubberliness – 20 English ships refused to fight, mutiny.
So there had been ups and downs; but the year ended with the Dutch triumphantly on top, now dominating the channel. Now Blake as I may have mentioned, is an Admiral with a reputation of the very top rank – Drake, Blake Nelson. But he seems to have been very prone to strategic sailing mistakes; again, he was not born to the sea as was Tromp. He is credited with making the line ahead formation standard – a disputed claim but what does seem to be agreed is that he professionalised the Navy. Along with Vane on the Navy Council, a range of reforms were implemented. Naval pay was increased, and a new range of hospitals brought into service to make sure sailors were better looked after. New victualling infrastructure was built, to improve supply of food and drink, including presumably buns and grog. 30 new frigates were ordered, fast, flexible and nimble.
New Articles of war and sailing instructions were brought in defining roles of officers and methods of fighting. Armed merchant ships in action were to be commanded not by their own Masters, but by naval captains. But the most significant thing Blake achieved was to transformed the expectations placed on ships captains. Under the Elizabethan and Stuart navy, captains always had one eye on the prize; prize in the sense of a captured ship, which they could sell and make a bundle. The more gung Ho captains often charged off their own, looking for gold or glory or both, even if they risked meeting God earlier than planned. Obviously this did not produce a disciplined, coherent fighting force. Under the new articles of war captains were subject to immediate court martial if they did not stay in formation; and chasing prizes in battle was outlawed. The English squadrons must work for each other. Dutch ships looking to close would face a wall of wood, iron and fire.
Of course not all of these reforms were implemented between December 1652 and February 1653. But nonetheless, February 1653 saw a complete turnaround in the fortunes of war.
The English call it the battle of Portland, because it started off Portland Bill, off the Dorset coast west of the Isle of Wight. The Dutch call in the Channel Fight I am told, because the battle would take place over several days up the channel, not just near Portland Bill
The English were waiting for the Dutch, because they’d caught wind of a large merchant fleet assembling off the coast of France, by the Ile de re. They were spread out, with three squadron commanders, Blake, William Penn and George Monck. It didn’t start well; Blake set no scouts, which does seem daft, and on 18th February it looks as though he would pay the price as Tromp surprised his squadron off Portland, with the squadrons under Monk and Penn far off. That first day could have ended in disaster; Blake’s flagship, the Triumph, was surrounded by Dutch ships, and under desperate fire; a shot tore through the coat of the captain, Captain Deane, and lodged in Blake’s knee. ‘tis but a scratch thought Blake and carried right on, but Tromp was on the point of boarding and death was in the air.
John Lawson was Vice admiral of the Red. Each of the new squadrons – the white, red and blue – each had a vice admiral and a rear admiral. Unlike Blake, John Lawson was born to the sea – a tarpaulin as they were called, from the North East coast, Scarborough. He’d fought through the civil war, was a religious radical and republican, and had a head on him. Rather than panicking and launching his ship, the Fairfax, into the melee, he tacked away, and came up on the action from behind and pummelled the Dutch.
The Triumph was reprieved, and the complexion of the fight changed; Monck and Penn’s ships began to arrive too, Tromp was forced to move off try and defend his large convoy of merchantmen from them, and in his haste he left behind four of his damaged ships. He organised his convoy into a crescent formation and moved up the channel, and we are getting Armada vibes here as the English frigates screamed into action first, hounding the crescent fleet, to be joined then by the bigger English ships with their heavier longer range ordinance. Over the next 3 days the battle raged on up the channel with Tromp increasingly unable to fight back. On the night of 20th his fleet was trapped off Cap Gris Nez off Calais and the following day would surely bring his destruction. But the following day – they were gone, courtesy of Tromp’s genius and the genius of Dutch shipbuilding; over night the fleet slipped over the shallows and away, and on the morning of 21st February 1652 all English eyes saw was an empty sea.
The Channel Fight swung the war back the English way; 17 Warships sunk and 40 merchantmen. The English had control of the channel once more. But Tromp’s genius had avoided a knock out blow. And it would be a brave man that bet against a Dutch come back.
One more wrinkle came out of this phase of the war. The French and the Spanish were also at war and would be until 1659. The capture by Blake of 7 French ships prompted Cardinal Mazarin and Louis to finally recognise the Commoinwealth by the end of 1652. In his letter, Louis conceded that England
Has been able to change from a monarchy to a republic but geographical facts remained unaltered.
The war and the rebellion of the Fronde was a marvellous motivator despite the presence of Charles and HM in France; and indeed despite some signs that England’s example had inspired some Frondeurs; placards had appeared in Paris demanding the people
Get rid of the king and of the parlement and to establish a republic like England
Interestingly, Edward Sexby, if you remember him from the Putney debates, would also appear in Bordeaux with advice for the rebels, bearing a copy of something called ‘accord du peuple’ – the agreement of the people. It’s fascinating – I mean nothing like the 18th evangelical fervour for the principles of the French Revolution to free Europe at the point of a sword, but some snippets of exported radicalism had made their way over the channel.
Anywho, we must return next time to Westminster and to Whitehall. Because although the Rump seemed to have taken its external threats in hand, in Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and France, yet at home all was not well in the Garden of the Commonwealth. Trouble was brewing.
[1] O Siochru, M: ‘God’s Executioner’, p184
[2] Keay, A: ‘The Restless Republic’, p225
[3] O Siochru, M: ‘God’s Executioner’ p228
[4] Cunningham, John “Oliver Cromwell and the ‘Cromwellian’ Settlement of Ireland”,
