Michiel de Ruyter
Third Anglo-Dutch War

The Treaty of Breda which ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War in July 1667 failed to remove the root causes of the long-standing Anglo-Dutch rivalry, which included colonial quarrels, including the exclusion of the English traders from Dutch colonies and the English occupation of the former Dutch New Netherland colony, and English enforcement of the Navigation Act. Although tensions between the two nations lessened between 1668 and 1670, the desire of Louis XIV to acquire all or a substantial part of the Spanish Netherlands and neutralise the Dutch Republic, led to his subsidising Charles II and to an unprovoked and unsuccessful English attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet in March 1672. An English declaration of war against the Netherlands in the same month began the Third Anglo-Dutch War, and this was followed by a French declaration of war against the Dutch in May 1672.

Shortly thereafter, a combined Anglo-French fleet was formed, commanded by James, Duke of York the Lord High Admiral of England with 62 major warships and Jean, Comte d'Estrées with 30 major warships forming the van squadron.

The Dutch were surprised by these events but eventually managed to prepare a strong fleet of 75 ships under De Ruyter. However, because delays in his fleet mustering, he was unable to realise his plan of preventing the junction of the English and French fleets to create a force superior to his, so he used three different strategies to meet changing situations in the following two years. Firstly, he aimed to inflict sufficient damage on the English ships to require their lengthy repairs in the congested English dockyards, as in his attack at Solebay. Allied to this, when De Ruyter detected the French fleet's reluctance to become involved in close-quarters fighting, he detached small squadrons in each major sea battle to keep the French out of the main action, concentrating his attack on the English fleet with only slightly inferior numbers. Thirdly, he used the shelter of the shoals, which the larger of the allied ships had to avoid, as a safe haven, keeping the Dutch fleet intact until he could attack the allied fleet at a time and under conditions of his own choosing. In this way, he prevented the English and French fleets from creating the conditions needed to land an invasion force.

After initially withdrawing into shoal waters near the Netherlands coast until the combined Anglo-French fleet retired to replenish its water, De Ruyter attacked its 92 ships on 7 June 1672 at the Battle of Solebay. The Dutch fleet concentrated on the English rear squadron, while the French van of 30 ships steered away from the main action, engaging only in long-range fire with the 10 major and five small Dutch ships of Adriaen Banckert 's squadron from the Admiralty of Zeeland. Although the battle was tactically indecisive, it disrupted Anglo-French plans to blockade Dutch ports and land soldiers on the Dutch coast, and also created dissention between the allies, so was a strategic victory for De Ruyter. D'Estrées was condemned, both by the English fleet and some of his own officers for steering away from the Dutch and failing to engage them closely.

The war on land went badly for the Dutch in 1672, which they called the Rampjaar or "disaster year", and this led to the resignation and then murder of Johan de Witt in August 1672 and the replacement of republicans by Orangists. De Ruyter was saddened by the killings of his friends, De Witt and his brother, but agreed to continue serving as commander of the fleet. He made an attempt to blockade the English fleet in the Thames with 30 ships in May 1673 but it had already put to sea, so he decided to rendezvous with the rest of the Dutch fleet in the coastal waters of the Schooneveld, where by late May he had assembled a fleet of 50 large ships together with frigates and fireships, 64 in total. These restricted waters neutralised the numerical advantages of the allied fleet, which had 81 ships of the line and several frigates, in the two Battles of the Schooneveld of 1673, he manoeuvered skillfully to damage the allied fleets sufficiently to force them to end their blockade of Dutch ports. Finally, at the Battle of Texel in August that year, De Ruyter's smaller fleet prevented the larger allied fleet landing troops on the Dutch coast and forced it to retreat. After the Battle of Texel, d'Estrées was accused by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, commanding the English fleet, of betraying it by fighting at long range against no more than ten Dutch ships. D'Estrées admitted later that Louis XIV had ordered him to protect the French fleet, in case England should make peace with the Dutch.

The new rank of lieutenant-admiral general was created especially for De Ruyter in February 1673, when the new stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, William III of Orange, became admiral-general. Although successive Princes of Orange, when stadtholder, generally commanded the Dutch army in person as its captain-general, they never took command of the Dutch fleet as admiral-general.

By the end of 1673, English popular opposition to the war and to the French alliance, the changes in government policy and the likelihood that parliament would not continue to provide war funding inclined Charles II towards peace with Holland and ending his alliance with France. After relatively brief negotiations, the Treaty of Westminster ending the war was ratified in March 1674.
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