Raid on the Medway (1667): Dutch Fleet Humiliates England

The Raid on the Medway was a Dutch naval attack in June 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, in which a fleet under Michiel de Ruyter sailed up the River Medway to the Royal Navy’s base at Chatham. The Dutch burned several of England’s greatest warships and towed away the flagship Royal Charles. It was one of the worst defeats in the history of the Royal Navy and forced England to make peace at Breda a few weeks later.

Background: the Second Anglo-Dutch War

England and the Dutch Republic were the leading commercial and naval powers of northern Europe, and they competed for trade in the North Sea, West Africa, the East Indies and North America. War broke out in 1665. In 1664 English forces had already seized the Dutch colony of New Netherland and renamed its main town, New Amsterdam, as New York.

The fighting at sea was costly for both sides. England won at Lowestoft in 1665, the Dutch won the gruelling Four Days’ Battle in June 1666, and the English won the St James’s Day Battle that August, followed by “Holmes’s Bonfire”, the burning of a Dutch merchant fleet off Terschelling. At home, England was hit by the Great Plague of London in 1665 and the Great Fire of London in September 1666.

By 1667 Charles II’s government was nearly bankrupt. Peace talks had opened at Breda, and to save money the king decided not to send the main battle fleet to sea that summer. The largest ships were laid up at Chatham with skeleton crews.

The Dutch plan

The leading Dutch statesman, Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, saw an opportunity to strike a blow that would force England to accept peace. He planned an attack on the English coast and the anchorages of the fleet. His brother Cornelis de Witt joined the expedition as the representative of the States General, and Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter commanded the fleet, with Willem Joseph van Ghent leading the advance squadron.

The fleet of some 60 or more warships, with fireships and marines, sailed in early June and appeared in the Thames estuary.

What happened

On 10 June (Old Style) the Dutch attacked the unfinished fort at Sheerness, at the mouth of the Medway. After a bombardment, marines landed and the small garrison withdrew. The way into the Medway was now open.

The English defence was confused. George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, hurried to Chatham to organise resistance but found few men, little ammunition and much disorder. A heavy iron chain was stretched across the river near Gillingham, guarded by batteries and guard ships, and several vessels were sunk to block the channel.

On 12 June Dutch ships led by Captain Jan van Brakel attacked the guard ships, and fireships broke through the chain. The Dutch captured the Unity, burned the Matthias and the Charles V, and seized the Royal Charles, which lay almost unmanned. The Royal Charles was the pride of the navy; under its earlier name, Naseby, it had carried Charles II home from exile at the Restoration in 1660.

On 13 June the Dutch pushed further upriver towards Upnor Castle. Despite fire from the shore, fireships set alight three great ships that had been partly scuttled: the Royal James, the Royal Oak and the Loyal London. On board the Royal Oak, the Scottish army officer Archibald Douglas refused to abandon his post and died in the flames, an act later celebrated in English verse.

With the tide and the stiffening defences against them, the Dutch withdrew on 13–14 June, taking the Royal Charles with them. They kept up a blockade of the Thames for weeks afterwards and made an unsuccessful attack on Landguard Fort near Harwich in early July.

Key people

• Michiel de Ruyter (1607–1676): The most famous Dutch admiral of the age, who had risen from ship’s boy to lieutenant-admiral. The raid confirmed his reputation as a master of naval operations.
• Johan de Witt (1625–1672): Grand Pensionary of Holland and the political leader of the Republic, who conceived the raid as a way to end the war on Dutch terms.
• Cornelis de Witt (1623–1672): Johan’s elder brother, who sailed with the fleet as the government’s representative and was later honoured for the victory. Both brothers were murdered by a mob in The Hague in 1672.
• Willem Joseph van Ghent: The Dutch officer who led the advance squadron up the Medway.
• George Monck, Duke of Albemarle: The veteran general who had helped restore Charles II, sent to organise the defence of Chatham with very few resources.
• Peter Pett: Commissioner of the Chatham dockyard, blamed for the disaster and briefly imprisoned in the Tower.

Panic in London

The raid caused alarm in London. People feared a Dutch landing or an attack on the city, and some expected a rising by discontented Protestants or a French invasion. The naval administrator Samuel Pepys recorded the panic in his diary and sent his wife and father out of London with his gold, which they buried on the family’s land in Brampton.

The public looked for someone to blame. Peter Pett, the navy commissioner at Chatham, was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, although the deeper causes were the government’s lack of money and preparation. The episode also damaged the reputation of the Earl of Clarendon, Charles II’s chief minister, who fell from power later in 1667.

Consequences

The raid gave the Dutch the leverage they needed at Breda. The Treaty of Breda was signed on 31 July 1667 (New Style). England kept New York and New Jersey, while the Dutch kept Suriname, which they had captured during the war, and the spice island of Run. The English Navigation Acts were also slightly relaxed in Dutch favour.

The Royal Charles was too large for the shallow Dutch waters to be useful as a warship. It was displayed as a trophy at Hellevoetsluis and later broken up, but the carved royal arms from its stern were kept and are now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Trophy flags from the raid also survive in Dutch collections.

For England, the raid led to investment in shore defences, including new forts on the Medway and the Thames. In the Dutch Republic the victory was celebrated with medals, paintings and prints, and Cornelis de Witt was honoured with a commemorative painting in the town hall of Dordrecht, which was largely destroyed by rioters in 1672 when the brothers fell from power. Five years later England and the Dutch were at war again, this time as part of the French attack on the Republic in 1672.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1665, March: The Second Anglo-Dutch War formally begins.
• 1666, June: The Dutch win the Four Days’ Battle.
• 1667, spring: Peace talks begin at Breda; Charles II lays up the main fleet.
• 1667, 10 June (OS): The Dutch capture the fort at Sheerness.
• 1667, 12 June (OS): The chain at Gillingham is broken and the Royal Charles captured.
• 1667, 13 June (OS): Royal James, Royal Oak and Loyal London are burned near Upnor.
• 1667, 14 June (OS): The Dutch fleet withdraws down the Medway.
• 1667, 31 July: The Treaty of Breda ends the war.

Why it matters

The Raid on the Medway showed how a well-planned naval strike could decide a war, and it marked a high point of Dutch sea power in the Golden Age. For England it was a deep humiliation that exposed the cost of underfunding the navy, and it remains one of the most famous episodes in the long rivalry between the two maritime nations.