Born in Bridgwater, Somerset, Robert Blake was the eldest of eight surviving children of a prosperous West Country merchant. After attending the local grammar school, he went to Wadham Hall, Oxford, in 1615 where he is said to have developed strong republican principles. He returned to Bridgwater when his father died in 1625 in order to take over the family business.
Blake was elected to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640 as MP for Bridgwater, but lost his seat in the elections for the Long Parliament the following autumn. During the First Civil War, Blake commanded a company under Colonel Fiennes at Bristol, which was besieged by Prince Rupert in July 1643. When Fiennes surrendered Bristol, Blake continued defending Prior's Hill Fort for another day, claiming that he had not been officially ordered to surrender. Rupert is said to have ordered that Blake be hanged for breaking the terms of the surrender, but was persuaded to countermand the order. Appointed lieutenant-colonel of Colonel Popham's regiment, Blake led an unsuccessful surprise attack on Bridgwater, during which his brother Samuel was killed.
Blake was then stationed with 500 men at the garrison of Lyme in Dorset, which was besieged by Rupert's brother Prince Maurice in April 1644. The Royalists were powerless to prevent Parliament's navy from shipping in supplies and reinforcements, enabling the Parliamentarians to defend the town until it was relieved by the Earl of Essex on his ill-fated march into the West in June 1644. The following month Blake, now promoted to colonel, undertook a daring march from Lyme to Taunton, an important centre of communications in the heart of the Royalist-held West Country. Blake's force took Taunton and held the town for a year, surviving three sieges. Blake famously declared that he had four pairs of boots and would eat three pairs before he would surrender Taunton. The siege was finally lifted when Sir Thomas Fairfax sent a relief force in May 1645. Blake commanded at the siege of Dunster Castle, Somerset, which surrendered to him in April 1646.
Blake's defence of Lyme and Taunton made him a popular hero in the west and he was elected MP for Bridgwater in the "recruiter" by-elections of 1646. He took no part in the political struggles of 1647 or in the Second Civil War, and he seems to have remained neutral in the contest between the Presbyterians and Independents. Although in religion he was a Presbyterian, Blake was also a staunch republican and opposed any compromise or attempt at reconciliation with the King. He remained a Member Parliament after Pride's Purge in December 1648, but played no direct part in the King's trial and execution.
After the establishment of the Commonwealth, the Council of State put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission. With his background in maritime commerce, proven military record and loyalty to the "Good Old Cause", Blake was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Navy, or Generals-at-Sea, along with Edward Popham and Richard Deane.
He sailed against Prince Rupert's fleet stationed at Kinsale in southern Ireland in May 1649, chasing Rupert to Portugal and proceeding to seize the Portuguese treasure fleet from Brazil when the King of Portugal refused to expel Rupert or to acknowledge the Commonwealth of England. When Rupert sailed from Portugal into the Mediterranean, Blake continued his pursuit. He attacked a detachment of Rupert's squadron in the neutral Spanish port of Cartagena and plundered French shipping when Rupert took refuge in Toulon. Finally, with most of his fleet destroyed, Rupert sailed away into the Atlantic. Both Portugal and Spain were obliged to recognise the English Commonwealth as a result of Blake's activities.
Blake was back in British waters in 1651. With the assistance of Sir George Ayscue, he captured the Royalist base on the Isles of Scilly in May 1651, from where Sir John Grenville had been running an effective privateering campaign against Commonwealth shipping. In October, Blake attacked Sir George Carteret's stronghold at Elizabeth Castle on Jersey, which surrendered in December after a fifty-day siege.
In 1652, the first Anglo-Dutch War broke out. Before war had officially been declared, a Dutch fleet of 42 ships commanded by Admiral Maarten Tromp appeared off the anchorage in the Downs. With only 12 ships, Blake engaged the Dutch near Dover after
Tromp provocatively refused to make the conventional salute of lowering his flag to the English General-at-Sea.
The Dutch withdrew after a five-hour fight. In July 1652, Blake sailed into the North Sea and captured a large part of the Dutch fishery fleet and the escorts that guarded it. Tromp was sent against him, but the Dutch fleet was dispersed in a violent storm. On 28 September, Blake defeated Vice-Admiral de Witte's fleet off the Kentish Knock, chasing them for two days before they took refuge in Goerée.
Blake suffered a setback at the end of November 1652 when Tromp appeared with 80 warships off Dungeness, determined to keep the Channel open for Dutch trade. A large part of the English fleet had been stood down for the winter, leaving Blake with only about 40 ships to defend the Channel. He risked a battle with Tromp but was defeated and driven back into the Thames. Disheartened by his defeat, Blake offered his resignation, which was refused. Instead, the government ordered a thorough review of naval tactics and administration which resulted in the issuing of the first official Articles of War and Fighting Instructions to naval commanders.
The fleet was refitted and put to sea again in February 1653. Blake clashed with Tromp in a three-day battle off Portland. During the battle, Blake suffered a leg wound from which he never fully recovered, but his victory over the Dutch re-established English control of the Channel. In June 1653, Monck and Deane engaged with Tromp at North Foreland. Deane was killed in the early stages of the battle but the timely arrival of Blake's squadron ensured an English victory. Ill-health compelled Blake to return to England before the final battle of the First Anglo-Dutch War at Scheveningen in July 1653, during which Tromp was killed.
After a period of retirement and recuperation, Blake sailed for the Mediterranean in October 1654 with orders to extract compensation from the corsair states that preyed upon England's shipping and took English slaves. When the Dey of Tunis refused to co-operate, Blake's warships bombarded the fort at Porto Fariña in Tunisia, destroying the shore batteries and sinking the fleet of the Barbary pirates — the first time that naval gunnery had successfully destroyed shore-based defences. To escape from the confined harbour against an unfavourable wind, Blake introduced the tactic of "warping out", i.e. pulling on anchors dropped outside the harbour before entering.
By the time Blake returned to England in October 1655, the Anglo-Spanish war had broken out. Blake sailed from Portsmouth against the Spaniards in March 1656 with a fleet of 48 ships. He spent a year cruising off the coast of Spain and the eastern Atlantic. The blockade of the port of Cádiz allowed Captain Richard Stayner to capture part of the homeward-bound Spanish plate fleet from the West Indies — said to be worth nearly two million pounds. For the first time in naval history, Blake kept the fleet at sea throughout an entire winter in order to maintain the blockade.
Blake won his greatest victory in April 1657 when he attacked another Spanish treasure fleet which had docked in the strongly-defended harbour of Santa Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. In a similar manoeuvre to the attack on Porto Fariña in 1655, Blake braved the shore batteries and sailed his fleet into Santa Cruz harbour. The guns of the Spanish forts were silenced with a naval bombardment, and every one of the Spanish ships in the harbour was destroyed without the loss of a single English ship. Blake's victory resounded around Europe, making the English navy feared and respected everywhere.
Obliged by his failing health to return to England, Blake's squadron was within sight of Plymouth, where a hero's welcome was planned for him, when he died on 7 August 1657 aboard his flagship the George. He was buried at Westminster Abbey after a state funeral attended by Protector Cromwell and the whole Council of State. After the Restoration, Charles II ordered Blake's body to be removed from the Abbey along with other prominent Parliamentarians and reburied in the churchyard of St Margaret's.
References:
Maurice Ashley, Cromwell's Generals, 1953
Michael Baumber, Robert Blake, Oxford DNB, 2004
Bernard Capp, Cromwell's Navy, the Fleet and the English Revolution, 1989
J. K. Laughton,
Robert Blake, admiral and general-at-sea, DNB, 1885
Links:
The Blake Museum, Bridgwater, Somerset