Chapter 4

Prince Rupert

Like the stunned silence that follows the finale of a dramatic piece of music, or the last act of a great play, a pregnant pause hangs over the last act of the great Revenge tragedy and, as on those occasions when no one wants to be the first to break the silence, no order was given over the next fifty-nine years for a replacement to be constructed.

Perhaps what was also awaited was not only the time but the man, and the man who was to confer the famous name on another ship could overmatch Sir Richard Grenville in élan, dash and in lineage. He was, after all, the nephew of King Charles I.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine, son of Frederick V, elector of Palatine and King of Bohemia, and of Elizabeth Stuart, is probably best remembered for his inspirational leadership of Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, his precipitous charge at the Battle of Edgehill becoming a trademark for brilliance bordering on recklessness, his gleeful pursuit of the enemy leaving the Royalist centre dangerously exposed. After defeats at both Marston Moor and Naseby, the favourite was dismissed by his patron, Charles I, and, after the Royalist surrender, banished from England. The erstwhile cavalry commander now took on a different variety of steed and, as Admiral and General-at-Sea, he took command of the Royalist fleet in 1648.

After occasional skirmishes with the Commonwealth fleet round the British Isles, Rupert set sail across the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon, where he was welcomed by the newly crowned King John IV, who, while maintaining cordial relations with the English Commonwealth, was predisposed to support the English Royalist cause.

Rupert and the Royalist fleet proceeded to play a game of cat and mouse with the Commonwealth fleet under Bacon, sent to blockade Rupert. The Portuguese played a delicate game of attempting to aid Rupert without antagonizing the Commonwealth. After various brushes between the two fleets, and several unsuccessful attempts to get away, Rupert finally made his escape on 12 October 1650, much to the relief of the Portuguese.

After setting off into the Atlantic, Rupert sailed down the south coast of Spain, hunting English ships in ports such as Málaga and Motríl. Rupert in the Constant Reformation and his brother, Maurice, in the Swallow were not, however, to be found. At this point they were in pursuit of a merchantman, the Marmaduke, which was attempting to escape south towards the coast of Africa. This merchantman was, at 400 tons, well armed and full of fight. Rupert and Maurice caught up with her by nightfall and fierce hostilities flared in the morning. The battle raged until about midday when the Marmaduke finally surrendered due to the death of her captain.

The Marmaduke, now a prize, then accompanied Rupert and Maurice to Formentera. Not finding the other Royalist ships at the agreed rendezvous, the two princes and their prize sailed on towards Cagliari in Sardinia, whereupon the Constant Reformation became separated from the other ships in a storm. Maurice sailed to Toulon with the prize where he was eventually joined by Rupert, who had pulled in to Messina in Sicily to repair storm damage.

At Toulon, Rupert set about repairing and refitting the prize ship, which was renamed the Revenge of Whitehall. With this and four other ships, Rupert sailed on 7 May, deceiving the lurking Commonwealth fleet under the command of Penn by first sailing east and then doubling back close to the coast of Africa, before heading into the Atlantic.

Although there was some dispute among the captains as to their destination, they finally arrived at the Azores, an appropriate location for the second Revenge.

Rupert’s squadron landed at Sâo Miguel and he made this the base of his operations. Soon afterwards, however, one of his ships, the St Michael the Archangel, deserted and sailed off for England.

On 26 January, the squadron sailed for the Cape Verde islands, Prince Maurice having moved into the Revenge. After this, they sailed down to the Gambia where the Portuguese pilots managed to run both the Swallow and the Revenge aground. At this stage Marshall moved across to the Revenge.

At Mayo, in the Cape Verde islands, two English ships anchored near the Revenge, which promptly captured them and took their crews prisoner. This was to prove the undoing of the Revenge, for William Coxon, the mate of the Supply, one of the captured ships, organized the prisoners to take over the ship. Once this had been achieved, they sailed for England.

Thus ended the exploits of the second Revenge in the Azores, having revisited, like a ghost, the hunting ground of her illustrious namesake.

For Rupert, too, the time was approaching when he should return to northern waters. After a visit to the West Indies, Rupert’s squadron approached the Azores, only to be fired upon by the Portuguese authorities who had decided in favour of the English Commonwealth.

Rupert’s sally into the Mediterranean and the Atlantic was effectively a sideshow, with such little strategic interest as to be barely worth more than a few lines in a general history of the period. The interest it does have is mainly due to the sheer force of personality of Rupert and, for the purposes of this book, the passing presence of the ship named Revenge.

Rupert sailed to France and joined the court of the English Kingin-waiting, Charles II. The captured Revenge was bought by the Admiralty in 1652 and renamed the Marmaduke. There would not be another Revenge until the Newbury was renamed in 1660.

While the Royalist fleet had been engaged on its somewhat fruitless diversions, significant developments were underway in the Commonwealth Navy, largely due to the skills and experience of two Generals-at-Sea, Robert Blake and George Monck.

Blake had led the hunt for Rupert in the Mediterranean and Rupert was fortunate to have escaped him, for Blake’s exceptional talents were to turn the English Navy into an elite fighting force and in the forthcoming First Dutch War he won three out of four engagements with the distinguished Admiral Tromp, between May 1652 and June 1653. George Monck, who had fought for Charles I and who was to be a lead player in the Restoration of his son, although primarily an expert on land warfare, employed his organizational and tactical skills to develop a formula for naval engagements, to be known as the ‘Fighting Instructions’.

A set of fighting instructions had been issued by Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon (1572–1638) in 1625 for the expedition against Cadiz, and these contained one of the first references to fleet line ahead, though as has been noted above, a form of line ahead had been performed by Howard’s ships in their attack on the San Martín of the Spanish Armada. The realization of this tactical idea was to come in the first Dutch War, not only under the influence of Blake and Monck but of William Penn (1621–1670), whose formulation of fighting instructions was to be the basis of James Duke of York’s ‘Instruction for the better Ordering His Majesties Fleet in Sayling of 1673’.

To begin with, however, despite the previous attempts to formulate fighting instructions, the first engagements with the Dutch at sea, concerning disputes over the honour to the flag (as stipulated in the Navigation Act of 1651) were haphazard.

In May 1652, Robert Blake met a fleet under the Dutch Admiral von Tromp and the Dutch lost two ships in the battle. In November of the same year, Von Tromp had his revenge by defeating Robert Blake’s force at Dungeness. Before the English next went into action against the Dutch, at the Battle of Portland (18 February 1653), William Penn, Vice Admiral of the Fleet, had been issued with a set of fighting instructions, and, although these did not refer directly to ‘line-ahead’ tactics, the move suggests that the English were attempting to formulate tactics so as to maximize the effective use of the fleet. It may be significant that fighting instructions were issued at Portland and at the next two battles, since the Battle of Portland was won as well as the battles of the Gabbard (2 and 3 June) and of Sheveningen (31 July).

The ‘Sailing Instructions’ issued before the Battle of the Gabbard were clear and straightforward, uncluttered by less important administrative details, and their effect may have been to give the fleet a sense of unity and order that it had lacked in previous years. The captains of the English fleet were all reading from the same song sheet and, in a time of limited communication, they had at least an outline of what their Admiral was working from.

By the time of the Second Dutch War, the Restoration of the monarch had taken place and, along with his new monarch, Charles II, Prince Rupert returned to England. It seems highly appropriate that a new Revenge should be commissioned that year, the name being clearly associated with the Royalist camp during the Civil War and Commonwealth period.

Overall command of the fleet was given to James, Duke of York, at that time only twenty-seven years old and with no direct experience of maritime warfare. With his arrival came a new set of fighting instructions and the organisation of the fleet went a step further. There were specific instructions relating to the position of each ship in the line, all of which was to have been achieved before engaging with the enemy. Freelance pursuit of the enemy was discouraged. Gone were the days of Sir Francis Drake, when defence of the realm could be put on hold in the interests of private plunder. Ships were also organized into squadrons, within which they knew their exact position and were not expected to leave it for any other reason than force majeure.

The novelty of tactical instructions, which were supplemented on various occasions by the Duke of York, also produced a rigorous formalism which was disliked by some. The efforts to organize the fleet had produced a by-the-book attitude that stifled initiative and reduced the opportunities for attack that only spur-of-the-moment initiative could take advantage of. On the other hand, the fog of war would often break up the rigorous structure and produce opportunities for individual initiative by default.

The two schools of tactical thought were summarized as ‘formalist’ or ‘mêlée’:

There was the ‘formalist’ view, upheld by seamen of the calibre of James, Duke of York, and Penn, who believed in the importance of rules and orderliness, even to the extent of stifling individual initiative; then there was the ‘mêlée’ point of view, with Prince Rupert and Monck as its protagonists. They believed in the orderly approach but in engaging the enemy immediately on arrival within close enough range, without relying on concerted tactical manoeuvres, accepting the inevitable shift of control from commander in chief to subordinate in the heat of battle and exploiting an unexpected advantage as soon as it presented itself.¹

As suggested above, circumstances would largely dictate the actions on the day and much would depend on the commanders of individual squadrons. As it was, the ‘formalist’ school were to lose out to the ‘mêlée’ school by mere dint of the fact that James Duke of York and Lord Sandwich were removed from their command of the fleet, leaving Prince Rupert along with Monck in charge.

The Battle of Lowestoft, at which Revenge was present, had provided a salutary reminder as to how tactical theory and practice could diverge. Sandwich reported that, although ships attempted to get into line-ahead before the battle, many of them were three or four abreast. None the less, the English did manage to achieve a victory and there is little doubt that the fighting instructions would have helped in achieving a certain level of order.

The Dutch lost thirty-two ships at Lowestoft and sustained casualties of about 4,000 dead and 2,000 prisoners. The English only lost one ship, the Charity, 36 guns and 283 killed, including two flag officers, Vice Admiral Sir John Lawson, Rear Admiral Robert Sanson, and three captains, along with 440 wounded.

As a result of the presence of the English fleet in the Channel and North Sea, the Dutch East India Fleet had been forced to sail around Ireland and the north of Scotland, and had taken refuge in the Norwegian port of Bergen.

Conspiring with the King of Denmark and Norway, the British sent an expedition to Bergen to capture the Dutch ships. Led by Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Tydiman in the Revenge, along with thirteen other sail of the line, three fireships and four ketches, the English expedition entered Bergen harbour on the morning of 3 August 1665 and anchored. Unfortunately for the English, the governor of Bergen had decided to support the Dutch and the 300 guns of the castles and forts of Bergen provided a significant addition to Dutch firepower.

The English were badly mauled, losing about 400 killed or wounded, including six captains and two of Revenge’s officers. Tydiman was forced to slip the cables of Revenge and to scamper for the relative safety of the open sea, along with his squadron. To add insult to injury, Arthur Langhorn (Holmes’s successor) was killed on Revenge’s quarterdeck in another engagement on 9 September.

There followed a period of relative quiet before the storm broke once again in the fateful year 1666. The two sides began the year fairly evenly balanced, with Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albermarle commanding eighty ships with 4,460 guns manned by 21,085 officers and men; while Admirals de Ruijter, Cornelius Evertsen and Cornelis Tromp had eighty-five ships, with 4,615 guns, manned by 21,909 officers and men. The declaration of war on England by France on 16 January 1666 was, however, to swing matters in favour of the Dutch, for the first action of the Four Days’ Battle in June was fought on decidedly unequal terms.

Diverted by the French fleet, Rupert took twenty of the most powerful English ships on a strategically fruitless detour, leaving only fifty-four ships to fight a Dutch fleet of eighty-four. The action proved indecisive and on the second day Albermarle decided to husband his numerically weaker forces rather than snatch a favour-able opportunity. On the third day he was continually shadowed by the Dutch, who, still smarting from the previous day’s exchange, did not attempt to attack him. The orderly retreat into the Thames estuary was, however, marred when the Royal Prince ran aground on the galloper sands. The Dutch caught up like baying hounds on a wounded stag and attacked her with fireships. The Royal Prince lost about 150 men in the fight but eventually surrendered and was subsequently burned by the Dutch.

At this point a fleet of twenty sail was sighted to the westward, which the Dutch hoped was the French coming to their aid but which, fortunately for the English, proved to be Prince Rupert returning to the fray. Now the sides were more evenly matched for the fourth day, with the English able to deploy about sixty sail and the Dutch about seventy-eight.

On the fourth day, the wind was blowing fresh from the southwest as the two fleets ran past each other, with the Dutch to windward. Due to the superior weatherliness of the English ships, they were able to break the Dutch line in several places and on several occasions, and to get to windward. This reduced the consistency of naval gunfire but was an almost inevitable consequence of individual initiative and opportunism in the midst of battle. One such example was the duel fought between Albemarle and de Ruijter. While this was going on, Tromp and Admiral Jan Jassze van Nes came up to leeward of the Dutch centre with fourteen ships of the van, the English centre lying between them. De Ruijter then ordered the ships near him to break before the wind, which broke up the English centre, the Dutch passing through in irregular order. Although safely to windward, the battered English now found themselves in the teeth of a rising gale. Despite the fact that Albemarle shadowed the Dutch for a while, he was reluctant to commit his limping forces to another contest.

The Dutch had every reason to be content with their achievement. The English had lost seventeen ships, including two flagships, and nine captains. They had also lost about 5,000 casualties and between 2,000 and 3,000 taken prisoner. The Dutch had lost six ships and suffered about 2,000 casualties.

The Revenge herself had been in the thick of the action. Acting as second-in-command to Victory, she had followed in the wake of the flagship, repeating her signals and covering her every move. On the morning of the fourth day, Vice Admiral Sir Christopher Byngs was shot in the throat while standing on the quarterdeck of the Victory. He stayed on deck another half hour, pressing the wound closed to staunch the flow of blood, until a second shot struck him in the neck and killed him.

The result of the battle at first sight was in favour of the Dutch. The English fleet was more deeply scarred than their own and their casualties greater. But when the relative size of the forces is considered, and the length of time in which one side not only deterred the other but continued to inflict appreciable damage, the English appear to have had the moral victory. Their superior tactics, discipline and overall seamanship had made up for their lack of numbers and the authors of the various versions of ‘Fighting Instructions’ would appear to have been vindicated.

For all that it was battered, the English still had a fleet in being and the Dutch were to be astonished at the speed with which it was refitted and made ready for action. The ubiquitous press gang was the main source of new seamen and Monck and Prince Rupert made it their duty to write to port authorities either requesting or demanding seamen. On 14 June 1666 they wrote to the Bailiffs of Yarmouth to remind them that they had not provided the necessary number of seamen and to deliver the threat that, if they did not produce the men, ‘we shall represent your neglect to the King’s Council, which we shall be very unwilling to do.’ On 16 June, they wrote on similar lines to the Governor of Falmouth, and on the 27th they wrote the following to the Bailiffs of Ipswich:

Whereas we are credibly informed, that there are many seamen fit to do his Majty Service lie concealed within your Town of Ipswich, we therefore desire you forthwith, to cause strict and diligent search to be made for the said seamen, and that you would send them on board the degger, whereof Thomas Tyler is Mastr., belonging to his Majs. Ship the Revenge lying in Aldeborough Road or Haven in purpose to receive them. We will take care to see you repaid all such charges as you shall be at in pursuing of these are [sic] desires, and your diligence in the speedy performance hereof will be an acceptable service to his Majty.

There was no mystery surrounding the scarcity of willing volunteers for the Navy – conditions aboard were nothing less than appalling.

As a Third Rate of the 1660s, the Revenge had a complement of 300. She had a Captain in command, along with a Lieutenant as second-in-command, a warrant master, quartermaster, warrant boatswain, carpenter, master gunner and a surgeon, as well as their various mates. Many of these lived in tiny, damp, insanitary cabins that were more like chicken coops. In addition there was a complement of men called ‘idlers’ who worked only in the daylight hours on certain trades, as armourers, sail-makers, coopers, officers’ servants, butchers, barbers, tailors and cooks.

Most of the ship’s company slept in hammocks, every man normally near his place of duty: the quarterdeck men aft, the forecastle men forward. Personal space for sleeping in this place of de rigueur intimacy was 14 inches in which to sling a hammock. The only compensation was that the men were organized in two watches, so that the hammock belonging to the man in the other watch would normally be empty during sleeping hours. Seamen also slung their hammocks at different heights to give more space.

Food consisted of ship’s biscuit, salt pork and beef, all cooked on a stove. Livestock such as hens, pigs, sheep and, in larger ships, cows, were kept in a special manger. Fresh water became foetid after a few days at sea, so the major liquid intake was beer, to which each man was entitled to a gallon each day.

Although there were the occasional mutinies in the Royal Navy, they were not normally about living conditions and the average sailor put up with these strictures for months and even years on end, with little complaint.

As a Third Rate in the 1660s, the Revenge had fifty-eight guns, including twenty-two 32-pounder demi-cannons on the lower gun tier, four 18-pounder culverins, twenty-four 9-pounder demiculverins, distributed along the upper decks, and eight demi-culverin cutts. Cutts normally had shortened barrels, but there were a multitude of other differences between them and conventional cannons.

Shot was stored in such a way as to keep the ship’s centre of gravity low, amidships, forward and in the hold. This also meant that rapid expenditure of shot would not alter the ship’s trim. Powder was stored in a magazine situated in the forward hold, next to which was a filling room for making up cartridges. Entrance to the magazine was strictly controlled but there were few other safety precautions.

Like every other ship in the fleet, the Revenge sailed for the Four Days’ Battle undermanned. Despite the efforts of the press gangs and protests by various commanders, the seventeenth-century Navy remained chronically short of men. Even popular captains, such as Elliott of the Revenge, had difficulty in meeting the recommended manning level of the ship. The sticking point was not bad living conditions, poor food or the near certainty of either disease or death in battle, but pay. Sailors were sometimes underpaid, but their pay was always in arrears. This contributed to discontent and desertion, mutinies and executions. The Four Days’ Battle itself did little to increase enthusiasm for the Navy, but in this respect at least, the Navy was able to change public opinion.

Although the Dutch claimed to be the predominant force in the English seas, the Four Days’ Battle had not proved enough of a victory to settle the argument. Another battle would be needed and it was not long in coming.

On 22 July, the majority of the English fleet assembled off the mouth of the Thames and anchored at the Gunfleet that evening. The Dutch fleet was at anchor about 18 miles to the north-east.

With joint command of the English fleet, Albemarle and Prince Rupert both flew their flags in the Royal George. The fleet consisted of eighty-nine ships and seventeen fireships, mounting 4,460 guns. It was divided into three squadrons –White, Blue and Red. As before, the Revenge was in the Red squadron. The Dutch fleet, commanded by Admiral de Ruijter, had eighty-five ships, twenty fireships and ten smaller vessels, mounting 4,700 guns altogether. The two fleets were thus fairly evenly balanced.

By 24 July, both fleets were manoeuvring to achieve the advantage of the weather gauge and by that night they were both in a wide stretch of the Thames Estuary, between Orfordness and the North Foreland, the English at anchor. Early on 25 July, St James’s Day, the English weighed, and both fleets slowly approached each other. The battle began at about 10 a.m.

Aided no doubt by the discipline of the ‘Fighting Instructions’, the English managed to maintain a better line than the Dutch, who were arranged in an irregular half-moon. Led by Admiral Sir Thomas Allin, the White Squadron engaged the Dutch van, which was led by Evertson. Sailing parallel, the squadrons exchanged fire and then broke away to become involved in close-range duels. The English centre carried out a similar manoeuvre against the Dutch centre, led by de Ruijter. Meanwhile, the English rear, the Blue Squadron, led by Admiral Sir Jeremy Smyth, encountered the Dutch van led by Tromp, who once again acted independently and broke through in the face of the English van, becoming detached from the main Dutch fleet.

Tromp’s inspired act of tactical opportunism might have placed the Dutch at a distinct advantage, especially in view of the fact that he was ranged against the weakest English squadron under Admiral Sir Jeremy Smyth, but unfortunately for the Dutch, de Ruijter was not on the same wavelength and did not sail to support his fellow admiral. The two squadrons, therefore, detached themselves from the main battle, fighting a furious micro battle as they went.

[Captain] Taylor wrote to [Captain] Williamson:

This dispute continued till night even as long as they could see to fire, during which time 4 of the enemy’s ships were seen on fire, and we lost the Resolution by a fireship of the enemy’s (she being much disabled before). This day about 6 or 7 in the morning they began again, and the guns were heard here till 10 and ceased that we could hear no more, and what the issue of this day’s engagement may be we do not yet hear, yet hope well because the Dutch in our judgment seemed to draw our fleet further from our coast by the loss of the report of the guns.²

Taylor was right to some extent, though the Dutch were not so much drawing the English away from the English coast as being chased by Smyth. Eventually, with no support on offer from either Albemarle or Rupert, who were both too far to leeward, Smyth called off the chase.

The actions of the Blue squadron were later criticized by Rupert in the House of Commons on 31 October 1667: ‘I must not forebear to tell you my judgment that the Blue squadron was in that action guilty of a great miscarriage, otherwise, in probability, the whole Zeeland squadron had fallen into our hands.’³ Rupert also took the opportunity to gripe again about both the lack of provisions and manning:

This want of provisions did manifestly tend to the extraordinary prejudice of his Majesty’s service in that whole summer … The want of seamen was also too great to be forgotten, which I believe was occasioned partly by the hopes they had to go into merchant ships and colliers, where their pay was greater, and the hazard less, and partly by the ill-management of those who were intrusted to impress them.⁴

The outcome of the battle was that the Dutch lost twenty ships, with 4,000 men killed, including four flag officers and numerous captains, and 3,000 wounded. The English lost five captains, two or three fireships and about 300 men. The Revenge suffered structural damage to her upper deck and several wounded among her gun crews in what proved to be her last battle. This Revenge did not take part in the Third Dutch War, but she had contributed to a decisive victory. By midnight on 26 July 1666, the English van and centre were at anchor off the Dutch coast and the English had regained control of the Narrow Seas.

This strategic advantage was, however, short-lived. Once peace negotiations began in 1667, to save money Charles II’s government thought themselves into a false sense of security and laid up the main fleet in reserve, with all stores taken ashore and their crews reduced to a handful. Once the Dutch got wind of this, they decided not only to cock a snook at the English, but to thoroughly tweak the King’s nose.

In June 1667, de Ruijter sailed up the Thames and into the Medway, broke a chain boom at Gillingham, landed armed parties at Upnor, captured or burned ten ships and, as the final insult, towed away the Royal Charles, with the Royal Standard still flying at the main mast. As if this were not enough, de Ruijter continued to blockade the Thames and London for a month. The Treaty of Breda of July 1667 ended the Second Dutch War, with the Dutch again commanding the Narrow Seas.

Having needlessly squandered the English advantage, and having his face rubbed in it, Charles proceeded to pursue policies that were almost guaranteed to bring the Dutch back to war. Despite a triple alliance between England, Holland and Sweden designed to offset the success of King Louis XIV’s campaign in the Spanish Netherlands, Charles began to negotiate with Louis for an Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch. So dazzled was Charles by the Sun King that he even agreed to become a Catholic in return for money to fit out the English fleet.

On 28 May 1672, a large English and French fleet of seventy line-of-battle ships and even more fireships, transports and smaller vessels, under James, Duke of York, flying his flag in the Royal Prince (120 guns), lay at anchor off Solebay, on the Suffolk coast, preparing for an invasion of the Netherlands. The Earl of Sandwich flew his standard in the flagship Royal James (100 guns) and the French Admiral d’Estrées, flew his in the St Philippe (78 guns).

The Dutch, however, decided to get their retaliation in early and launched a pre-emptive strike on 28 May. Due to a failure in communications, the French turned away to the south-east and took no part in the main action, which centred round a fierce duel between Van Ghent and Sandwich in which Van Ghent was killed. The Royal James was burned to the waterline and Sandwich was drowned when a boat crowded with survivors was capsized.

The Duke of York was also under fire and had to shift his flag twice during the day. In the evening, the English disengaged and allowed the Dutch to withdraw, the English fleet having suffered severe losses, with 2,500 men dead. The Dutch lost two ships but de Ruijter’s skilful handling of his fleet that day disabled the English fleet for a month, gave the Dutch command of the Channel once more and, most important, thwarted the Anglo-French invasion of the Netherlands.