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Introduction
The Dutch naval raid up the Medway in June 1667 was one of the greatest humil
iations in British military history - the great ships Royal Oak (76 guns), Royal
James (82) and Loyal London (92) were burnt and destroyed. The fleet flagship
Royal Charles (86) was captured and Dutch command of the sea flaunted off the
English coasts 'a dishonour never to be wiped off'.2 The proud symbol of this
apogee of Dutch naval power still hangs today in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam:
the Stuart royal arms from the stern of Royal Charles. It might surprise us today,
then, on both sides of the North Sea, that the Dutch officer credited with first
boarding and taking possession of Royal Charles was an Irishman though with
the 'Dutchified' name of Thomas Tobiaszoon. The States General and the Holland
States showered awards on De Ruyter, Van Ghent, De Liefde, Vlugh, Cornelis de
Witt, Van Brakel, and the fireship captains. Tobiaszoon was also honoured, receiv
ing a gold medal and chain for his part in the victory.3 Commanding the Dutch
warship Bescherming (54) at the Medway, he had been refused a commission in the
Royal Navy at the Stuart Restoration in 16607 But he was not an isolated British
subject aboard the Dutch fleet. The 3-4,000 Dutch marines were commanded by
a politically motivated Englishman, the Republican Colonel Thomas Dolman, a
former Cromwellian officer.5 He led marine elements landing at Sheerness during
the Medway Raid and also at the abortive Dutch attack at Harwich that followed
soon after. Two English pilots were serving aboard Admiral De Ruyter's flagship
De Zeven Provinciën (80) one of whom was a religious 'fanatiek'; the other was
on the run from the law having evaded customs duties in England.6 One of these
two men proved indispensable when De Ruyter's Vice-admiral ran aground dur
ing the Harwich operation; the accident was 'a great hindrance long
detained them' - he had to be sent aboard to bring her off.7
Yet these notable figures were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of numbers,
and their evident professional or ideological motivations were not the norm for
the bulk of the British personnel in the Dutch navy at that time. Eyewitnesses at
the raid told the diarist Samuel Pepys (Clerk of the Acts on the Navy Board, a key
British naval administrator), that there were many English aboard the Dutch fleet;
their motives were simply to earn their daily bread the Royal Navy could not pay
these men but the Dutch could. Referring to the bond pledges they were given by
the Royal Navy instead of hard cash, these English had called out to the Medway
shore 'heretofore we fought for tickets, now we fight for dollars!'.8 Seamen's wives
agreed that the disaster was due to the Royal Navy's failure to pay its crews: Pepys
and others were harangued in the streets
'the wives have cried publicly "this comes of your not paying our husbands Most people
that I speak with are in doubt how we shall do to secure our seamen from running over to the
Dutch.'
The presence of the British seamen in the enemy fleet and the reasons for it were
accepted across British society: the former Cromwellian Andrew Marveil, Member
