The Four Days' Battle, also known as the Four Days' Fight in some English sources and as Vierdaagse Zeeslag in Dutch, was a naval battle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Fought from 1 June to 4 June 1666 in the Julian or Old Style calendar that was then used in England, in the southern North Sea, it began off the Flemish coast and ended near the English coast. It remains one of the longest naval engagements in history. Dutch accounts referred to its dates as 11 June to 14 June 1666 by using the New Style calendar.
Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch admiral. His achievements with the Dutch Navy during the Anglo-Dutch Wars earned him the reputation as one of the most skilled naval commanders in history.
A fire ship or fireship, used in the days of wooden rowed or sailing ships, was a ship filled with combustibles, or gunpowder deliberately set on fire and steered into an enemy fleet, in order to destroy ships, or to create panic and make the enemy break formation. Ships used as fire ships were either warships whose munitions were fully spent in battle, surplus ones which were old and worn out, or inexpensive purpose-built vessels rigged to be set afire, steered toward targets, and abandoned quickly by the crew.
Geuzen was a name assumed by the confederacy of Calvinist Dutch nobles, who from 1566 opposed Spanish rule in the Netherlands. The most successful group of them operated at sea, and so were called Watergeuzen. In the Eighty Years' War, the Capture of Brielle by the Watergeuzen in 1572 provided the first foothold on land for the rebels, who would conquer the northern Netherlands and establish an independent Dutch Republic. They can be considered either as privateers or pirates, depending on the circumstances or motivations.
The Battle of Camperdown was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter. The battle, the most significant action between British and Dutch forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, resulted in a complete victory for the British, who captured eleven Dutch ships without losing any of their own.
The naval Battle of Solebay took place on 28 May Old Style, 7 June New Style 1672 and was the first naval battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
The Battle of Lowestoft took place on 13 June [O.S. 3 June] 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A fleet of more than a hundred ships of the United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer, Lord Obdam, attacked an English fleet of equal size commanded by James, Duke of York, forty miles east of the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk.
The Battle of the Scheldt also known as the Battle of Walcharen was a naval battle that took place on 29 January 1574 during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo–Spanish War. The battle was fought between a Dutch rebel Sea Beggar fleet under Lodewijk van Boisot and a Spanish fleet under Julián Romero. The Spanish fleet was attempting to relieve the Spanish held town of Middelburg which was under siege but the fleet under Boisot intercepted them and were victorious with the destruction or capture of nearly fifteen ships. Middelburg as a result then surrendered only nine days later along with Arnemuiden.
The frigate Gloucester was a Speaker-class third rate, commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Gloucester after the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. The ship was ordered in December 1652, built at Limehouse in East London, and launched in 1654. The warship was conveying James Stuart, Duke of York to Scotland, when on 6 May 1682 she struck a sandbank off the Norfolk coast, and quickly sank. The Duke was among those saved, but as many as 250 people drowned, including members of the royal party; it is thought that James's intransigence delayed the evacuation of the passengers and crew.
The Battles of La Naval de Manila or Battle of Manila Bay were a series of five naval battles fought in the waters of the Spanish East Indies in the year 1646, in which the forces of the Spanish Empire repelled various attempts by forces of the Dutch Republic to invade Manila, during the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish forces, which included many native volunteers, consisted of two, and later, three Manila galleons, a galley and four brigantines. They neutralized a Dutch fleet of nineteen warships, divided into three separate squadrons. Heavy damage was inflicted upon the Dutch squadrons by the Spanish forces, forcing the Dutch to abandon their invasion of the Philippines.
Willem Joseph baron van Ghent tot Drakenburgh was a 17th-century Dutch admiral. His surname is also sometimes rendered Gendt or Gent.
Maximilien de Hénin-Liétard, Count of Boussu was a soldier and statesman from the Habsburg Netherlands. During the Eighty Years' War he was the royalist stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht from 1567 until he was made a prisoner of war during the Battle on the Zuiderzee in 1573. After being freed under the terms of the Pacification of Ghent he changed sides and became commander in chief of the forces of the States-General of the Netherlands.
The Battle of Gibraltar took place on 10 August 1621, during the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the Dutch Republic. A Dutch East India Company fleet, escorted by a squadron under Willem Haultain de Zoete, was intercepted and defeated by nine ships of Spain's Atlantic fleet under Fadrique de Toledo while passing the Strait of Gibraltar.
Admiral of Flanders (1383–1483) and Admiral of the Netherlands (1485–1573) was a title in the medieval Low Countries for the commander of the war fleet.
The Battle off Lizard Point was a naval action which took place on 18 February 1637 off the coast of Cornwall, England, during the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish admiral Miguel de Horna, commander of the Armada of Flanders, intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them, and returned safely to his base in Dunkirk.
The Battle of Cape Celidonia took place on 14 July 1616 during the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for the control of the Mediterranean when a small Spanish fleet under the command of Francisco de Rivera y Medina cruising off Cyprus was attacked by an Ottoman fleet that vastly outnumbered it. Despite this, the Spanish ships, mostly galleons, managed to repel the Ottomans, whose fleet consisted mainly of galleys, inflicting heavy losses.
The Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a military operation in the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60) which took place on 20 April 1657. An English fleet under Admiral Robert Blake penetrated the heavily defended harbour at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands and attacked their treasure fleet. The treasure had already been landed and was safe but the English engaged the harbour forts and the Spanish ships, many of which were scuttled and the remainder burnt. Having achieved his aim, Blake withdrew without losing any ships.
The action of 12–17 January 1640 was a naval battle between a Dutch fleet and a combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet during the Eighty Years' War. The battle took place on the Brazilian coast off Pernambuco and was an attempt by a fleet consisting of approximately eighty vessels transporting about 5,000 soldiers under the command of Portuguese Admiral Fernando de Mascarenhas to land reinforcements to bolster the Portuguese militia besieging the city of Recife. On 12 January this fleet was intercepted by a Dutch task force of about forty ships commanded by Willem Loos. The ensuing battle lasted with occasional breaks until the evening of 17 January, when the Spanish and Portuguese fleet retreated and sailed away to the north.
The period between the Capture of Brielle and the Pacification of Ghent was an early stage of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands.
Dutch Rebels 
Spain 