The Uneasy Peace: England and the Dutch, 1654–8

Abstract

Necessity impelled the maintenance of reasonable relations between the English and Dutch from April 1654. Both parties were financially exhausted and had other priorities — the English with the Franco-Spanish conflict and the Dutch with Charles X of Sweden’s efforts to control the Baltic. Once Cromwell had committed his navy to offensives in the Mediterranean and Caribbean late in 1654 there was none to spare to take on the Dutch, even when the latter showed a lack of concern for the niceties of the treaty by supplying military stores to Spain in 1655–8. (To be first to de Witt, he could not control the actions of individual captains.) Cromwell dared not respond aggressively to Dutch blockade-running to Spanish ports lest this play into the hands of his enemies in The Hague, the Orangist faction and exiled Royalists being aided by the Spanish ambassador Stephen de Gamarra. Any renewed dispute could lead to Dutch shipping aiding Charles II, thus making up for the fact that his motley force in Flanders lacked the means to invade.