Battle of Portland - Background

Background

The First Anglo-Dutch War was caused by friction between the two naval powers of the century, competing for strategic supremacy over the world's merchant routes. England and the United Provinces had always been 'natural allies' against the Habsburgs, as deemed by the Council of State under the rule of Charles I. It has been argued that had Charles I stayed in power the war between the two nations would have never sprung, as he would never have obtained the necessary funding from parliament. However, the rise of the English Parliament under Oliver Cromwell saw the deterioration of diplomacy between the two as the Dutch stadtholder financially supported the Royalists. During the English Civil War, the Dutch had taken advantage of the internal strife within their neighbours, and greatly expanded their maritime presence throughout the world's merchant harbors and routes, ultimately even challenging British dominance in its colonies, and the Dutch even boasted of driving all nations out of the sea. Nonetheless, Cromwell did not challenge the Dutch, still consolidating his power at home.

This changed when Parliamentary armies finally routed the Royalists at the Battle of Worcester, effectively ending the English Civil War. With Cromwell fully in power, the Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651, requiring all goods destined to English ports to be transported by English ships, which severed part of the Dutch ability to trade, since they were cut off from all of England's colonies in the Americas and elsewhere. Later that year the Parliament gave an order which allowed English privateers and warships to seize Dutch shipping and 'recover their losses' from Dutch vessels. Finally, the English Parliament began to enforce its sovereignty over the "British Seas", which granted the English Navy dominion from the North Sea to Cape Finisterre. The translation of Parliament's words into action came when English Admiral Sir George Ayscue claimed Barbados as part of the Commonwealth and seized 27 Dutch ships.

The Dutch response was divided; the moderate States of Holland tried to appease the English; but when the negotiations failed and the Navigation Acts were adopted the ferocious Orangist faction became more powerful, and the States General passed a resolution which would allow the Dutch war fleet, to be tripled in size, to protect Dutch interest over the areas in question. This fleet was put under the command of Admiral Maarten Tromp, who had defeated the sixth and final Spanish Armada at the Battle of the Downs, 31 October 1639. That same year, the Dutch signed a treaty with Denmark with the intent to hurt English shipping. War finally broke out after a confrontation between admirals Robert Blake and Maarten Tromp, May 1652, at the Battle of Dover.

Minor skirmishes followed at the Battle of Plymouth, the Battle of Elba, and the Battle of Kentish Knock. The two fleets met for the first time in a major battle at the Battle of Dungeness, November 1652. The battle turned out to be a heavy English defeat, forcing the English to rethink their naval strategy, led by Admiral Sir Henry Vane and an Admiralty Committee, including developing a tactic that would mark naval warfare for the following century. Taking a page out of the Dutch book the English reorganised each fleet into squadrons for greater tactical control. In fact, the tactic, renamed the line-of-battle tactic, would remain key to English/British naval strategy until the end of the Second World War. The two fleets would meet again off Portland.