A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships manoeuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the faction with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage.
The Four Days' Battle was a naval engagement fought from 11 to 14 June 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It began off the Flemish coast and ended near the English coast, and remains one of the longest naval battles in history.
Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch States Navy officer. 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 is a large wooden vessel set on fire to be used against enemy ships during a ramming attack or similar maneuver. Fireships were used to great effect against wooden ships throughout naval military history up until the advent of metal-hulled ships; they could also serve a considerable function in shock and awe strategies to harm the morale of enemy crews. Ships used for fireship tactics were sometimes surplus, obsolete or purpose-built vessels filled with gunpowder or other combustibles, but could also be improvised from active warships purposefully set on fire during engagements, such as if a vessel expended its munitions or had some other reason to be abandoned in battle.
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 fought on 11 October 1797 between the British Royal Navy's North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy fleet led by Vice-Admiral Jan Willem de Winter. Duncan's fleet won a complete victory over de Winter's in what was the most significant engagement between British and Batavian forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, capturing eleven ships without losing any of their own.
The Battle of Solebay took place on 6 June 1672 New Style, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, near Southwold, Suffolk, in eastern England. A Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter attacked a combined Anglo-French force in one of the largest naval battles of the age of sail. Fighting continued much of the day, but ended at sunset without a clear victory. However, the scattered Allied fleet had suffered far more damage and was forced to abandon any plans to land troops on the Dutch coast.
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 a British fleet of equal size commanded by James, Duke of York, forty miles east of the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk.
The Battle of the Downs took place on 21 October 1639, during the Eighty Years' War. A Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, was decisively defeated by a Dutch force under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Victory ended Spanish efforts to re-assert naval control over the English Channel and confirmed Dutch dominance of the sea lanes, while it is also alleged to be the first major action to feature line of battle tactics.
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.
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.
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. Spanish admiral Miguel de Horna, commander of the Armada of Flanders, intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six Dutch States Navy warships, sinking or capturing 20 ships before returning 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. During its course, a small Spanish fleet owned by Viceroy of Naples Pedro Téllez-Girón, Duke of Osuna, under the command of Francisco de Rivera, was attacked by an Ottoman fleet that vastly outnumbered it while cruising off Cyprus. 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 First Battle of Algeciras was a naval battle fought on 6 July 1801 between a squadron of British Royal Navy ships of the line and a smaller French Navy squadron at anchor in the fortified Spanish port of Algeciras in the Strait of Gibraltar. The British outnumbered their opponents, but the French position was protected by Spanish gun batteries and the complicated shoals that obscured the entrance to Algeciras Bay. The French squadron, under Contre-Amiral Charles Linois, had stopped at Algeciras en route to the major Spanish naval base at Cadiz, where they were to form a combined French and Spanish fleet for operations against Britain and its allies in the French Revolutionary Wars. The British, under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, sought to eliminate the French squadron before it could reach Cadiz and form a force powerful enough to overwhelm Saumarez and launch attacks against British forces in the Mediterranean Sea.
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.
