| The Western Design | Hispaniola | Jamaica | The Spanish Blockade |
| Cadiz | Santa Cruz | Flanders | Mardyke | Battle of the Dunes |
All dates are given in the "Old-Style" (OS) Julian calendar, which was used in England until 1752. The dates of these events are often given in the "New-Style" (NS) Gregorian calendar, which was widely used in Europe. During the 17th Century, the Julian date was 10 days behind the Gregorian equivalent, e.g. the Battle of the Dunes is 4 June 1658 OS, equivalent to 14 June 1658 NS.
After the ending of the Anglo-Dutch war in April 1654, Cromwell and the Protectorate Council of State turned their attention to England's traditional enemies France and Spain, who were at war with one another in the Spanish Netherlands. French and Spanish revulsion at the execution of King Charles I had given way to pragmatism, and both nations sought an alliance with the increasingly powerful English Protectorate. Throughout 1654, the ambassadors Antoine de Bordeaux-Neufville of France and Alonso de Cardenas of Spain vied with one another to secure Cromwell's favour.
The Council of State was divided over which nation to support. The majority agreed with Cromwell in favouring an alliance with France against Spain. A minority, headed by John Lambert, argued that the loss of trade with Spain would be too high a price to pay. Eventually, Cromwell decided to pursue a commercial treaty with France rather than a military alliance against Spain. Although he abandoned the idea of intervening in the European war, Cromwell secretly planned an attack on Spanish territories in the West Indies, which was put into operation in 1655.
The Western Design
The English attack on the Spanish West Indies was intended to secure a base of operations in the Caribbean from which to threaten Spanish trade and treasure routes in central America, thus weakening Catholic influence in the New World. The Council of State first discussed the plan in June 1654. Cromwell's belief that he could attack Spain in the Caribbean yet avoid a war in Europe was influenced by the faulty advice of Thomas Gage — a renegade Dominican who had once been a missionary in the West Indies and was regarded as an expert on the region. Gage maintained that the Spanish colonies of Hispaniola and Cuba were weakly defended and could easily be seized by a determined force.
A committee headed by Major-General Disbrowe was appointed to supervise arrangements for the expedition. Rather than send established regiments, it was decided to form new units by drafting troops from around the country. In practice, colonels took the opportunity to send the most troublesome members of their regiments away on the expedition. When insufficient numbers were supplied from the regular army, vacant places were filled by pressed men from the London streets. Robert Venables, a veteran of the Irish wars, was appointed general commander of land forces. His complaints regarding the poor condition of the troops he was expected to lead were ignored. The naval force was commanded by General-at-Sea William Penn. Like Venables, Penn was an experienced and competent officer, but neither was given overall command of the venture, which resulted in friction and mutual hostility between them. Two civilian commissioners, Edward Winslow and Gregory Butler, as well as Daniel Searle, governor of Barbados, were also named as leaders of the expedition. They were expected to supervise colonisation of the captured lands once victory had been achieved.
The force of 18 warships, 20 transport vessels and 3,000 men set sail from Portsmouth on Christmas Day 1654 and arrived at Barbados a month later. A further 6,000 troops were raised from volunteers among the indentured servants and freemen in the colonies of Barbados, Montserrat, Nevis and St Kitts. Although the troop numbers looked impressive, they were untrained and badly disciplined; furthermore, supplies were running low and the joint commanders Penn and Venables were arguing with one another. Morale among the soldiers sank lower still when the civilian commissioners stipulated that they were not to plunder the Spanish colonies they were about to attack but rather to preserve them intact for subsequent English colonisation.
List of ships in Penn's fleet to the Caribbean [offsite]
Hispaniola, 1655
The military objectives of the expedition had not been specified by Cromwell but left to the initiative of the commanders when they arrived in the Caribbean. They agreed to an attack on Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and on 13 April 1655, the English fleet arrived off Santo Domingo, the main Spanish stronghold on the island. Heavy surf prevented General Venables from landing his troops at his preferred landing site, so they disembarked at a point 25 miles west of Santo Domingo. The soldiers suffered greatly from heat and drought during the three-day march on the town through difficult tropical terrain. It was discovered that not enough water bottles had been provided for the expedition and many soldiers fell ill, including Venables himself who contracted dysentery. They reached the outskirts of Santo Domingo on 17 April, but Venables was forced to order a withdrawal when his inexperienced troops were barely able to repulse an ambush by the Spaniards. Re-supplied by Penn's fleet, Venables led a second attempt on Santo Domingo on 24 April, but this ended in failure when the English were routed by another Spanish ambush. With the troops refusing to make another attack and threatening to mutiny, the joint commanders agreed to abandon the attempt on Hispaniola.
The Capture of Jamaica, 1655
Hoping to salvage the situation after the failure of their attack on Hispaniola, Penn and Venables agreed to attempt to capture the neighbouring island of Jamaica, which was a relatively insignificant Spanish provisioning base. It was weakly defended by the Spaniards, so presented an easy target. The English fleet arrived off the island on 11 May 1655. The following day, Venables occupied Santiago de la Vega (later known as Spanish Town). The Spanish were hopelessly outnumbered, but Venables unwisely gave them time to consider his offer of terms for surrender. Although the Spanish officially surrendered on 17 May 1655, they had nearly all taken the opportunity to turn their cattle loose and escape to Cuba, leaving their settlements bare of plunder. The Spanish also released their slaves and left them behind in the mountains to harass the English until troops for the reconquest of Jamaica could be raised. The freed slaves, later known as "Maroons", were quickly organised into a fighting force. Although the Spanish had given up all attempts to recapture the island by 1660, the Maroons continued to raid English plantations and settlements into the 18th century.
Without orders, Penn and Venables left Jamaica soon after its capture. Upon returning separately to England, both officers were charged with deserting their posts. After a brief imprisonment in the Tower, they were relieved of their commands. The dispirited English forces left on Jamaica began building Passage Fort, also known as Fort Cromwell, to control access to the harbour. A small community, known as The Point or Point Cagway grew up around the fort. The former Spanish governor Don Cristobal de Ysassi attempted to recapture the island with forces from Cuba in the summer of 1657, but the attack was repulsed by acting governor Colonel Edward Doyley. A second attempt was decisively defeated by Colonel Doyley at the battle of Rio Nuevo in June 1658, after which Doyley was confirmed as the first English governor of Jamaica.
Cromwell urged settlers to go to Jamaica from New England and from other colonies in the Caribbean, but despite the arrival of 1,600 civilian colonists from Nevis in November 1656, the development of Jamaica was slow until after the Restoration when The Point was renamed Port Royal and Fort Cromwell became Fort Charles. Port Royal grew faster than any other town founded by the English in the New World. It became a notorious centre for buccaneering and piracy against the Spanish, even after Spain formally ceded Jamaica to England in 1670.
The Spanish blockade
Negotiations between England and Spain continued while the Western Design expedition was under way. Since 1654, Cromwell had insisted that Spain should grant religious liberty to English Protestants in Spanish territory and that English merchants should be allowed to trade freely in the West Indies. Supported by the Inquisition and the Vatican, however, King Philip IV of Spain would not concede religious freedom to Protestants and asserted that England had no right to trade in the Americas, which were claimed as Spanish sovereign territory.
In May 1655, after Spain's special ambassador the Marquis de Lede confirmed to Cromwell that there would be no concession, secret instructions were sent to General-at-Sea Robert Blake to intercept supplies or reinforcements sent from Spain to the West Indies and to prepare to capture the homeward-bound Spanish plate fleet. Blake failed in his attempt to provoke a confrontation with the Spanish battle fleet off Cape St Vincent in August 1655, but by the time he returned to England in October to refit his ships, news of the attacks on Hispaniola and Jamaica was out and it was clear that Cromwell was intent on war. Despite the protests of English merchants over the loss of Spanish trade, the Council of State supported Cromwell. War with Spain was declared on 15 October 1655. Cromwell issued a manifesto on 26 October claiming that the war was justified because of past Spanish aggression against English colonies in the West Indies.
Cádiz, 1656
Blake's fleet returned to the Atlantic coast of Spain in March 1656. Flying his flag in the new first-rate Naseby, Blake shared command with the inexperienced Edward Montagu, who had been promoted over the head of the politically-suspect Vice-Admiral Lawson. Blake's orders were to attack the annual Spanish plate fleet on its return journey from the Americas. A blockade was imposed on the Spanish port of Cádiz. During May 1656, the most powerful ships in Blake's fleet were diverted to Lisbon to coerce King John IV of Portugal into ratifying a contentious treaty with England and to pay £50,000 compensation for losses to English trade incurred during 1649 when Prince Rupert had sheltered in Portuguese waters and raided Commonwealth shipping. In return, Cromwell was prepared to support Portugal's fight for freedom from Spain, which had started in 1640. After King John had agreed to the demands, the full blockade of Cádiz was resumed.
In September 1656, a squadron of eight ships under the command of Vice-Admiral Richard Stayner intercepted the plate fleet as it tried to slip through the blockade. Two Spanish ships were captured, three were sunk and three escaped into Cádiz. The treasure from the captured galleons was estimated to include silver worth a quarter of a million pounds and other goods totalling almost a million. Members of the Second Protectorate Parliament hoped to finance the war entirely from captured Spanish treasure. In October, Montagu returned home in the Naseby with the treasure. However, its value proved much smaller than expected. At least half of it was plundered or embezzled by its captors.
Santa Cruz, 1657
For the first time in naval history, Blake kept the fleet at sea throughout an entire winter in order to maintain the blockade against Spain. In February 1657, he was reliably informed that another plate fleet was on its way from America. Although his captains wanted to search for the Spanish galleons immediately, Blake waited until victualling ships from England arrived to re-provision his ships. Then on 13 April 1657, he sailed from Cádiz Bay with his entire fleet to attack the plate fleet which had docked at Santa Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands to await an escort to Spain.
Blake's fleet arrived off Santa Cruz on 19 April. The harbour was defended by a castle armed with forty guns and a number of smaller forts connected by a triple line of breastworks to shelter musketeers. Seventeen Spanish ships were moored in a semi-circle in the harbour under cover of the shore batteries, including seven great galleons of the plate fleet. Blake's plan was to send twelve frigates into the harbour led by Vice-Admiral Stayner in the Speaker to attack the galleons while he followed in the George with the rest of the fleet to bombard the shore batteries. The attack began at 9 o'clock in the morning of 20 April. Before opening fire, Stayner's frigates manoeuvred alongside the Spanish ships which protected them to some extent from the guns of the castle and forts. While the frigates attacked the galleons, Blake's heavier warships sailed into the harbour to bombard the shore defences. Blake ordered that no prizes were to be taken; the Spanish fleet was to be utterly destroyed. Around noon, the flagship of the Spanish admiral Don Diego de Egues caught fire; shortly afterwards it was destroyed when the powder magazine exploded. English sailors boarded Spanish ships from boats to set them on fire. By 3 o'clock in the afternoon, with all seventeen Spanish ships sunk or ablaze, the English fleet worked its way back out to the open sea, hauling on anchors dropped outside the harbour before entering, a tactic Blake had introduced during his raid on the Barbary pirates of Porto Fariña in Tunisia in 1655. The Speaker, which was the first ship to enter the harbour and last to leave, had been badly damaged, but no English ships were lost in the battle. Casualties were relatively light, with fifty men killed and about 120 injured.
The Spanish treasure had been unloaded and secured ashore. Blake was unable to seize it, but it was also unavailable to the government in Madrid. The long-term effect of Blake's blockade of Spain and his victory at Santa Cruz was the disruption of the Spanish economy, which depended upon silver and gold from the Americas. Without money to pay his troops, King Philip's military campaigns in Flanders and Portugal faltered. Blake's victory also established England as a leading European naval power.
Worn out by his years of campaigning, General-at-Sea Robert Blake died within sight of Plymouth on his return to England in August 1657.
Flanders
Despite Cromwell's dream of forging a grand alliance of European Protestant nations, the war against Spain led to closer ties with another Catholic nation: Spain's principal enemy France. It also led to an alliance between Spain and British Royalists exiled in Europe.
In 1654, negotiations between Cromwell and Cardinal Mazarin's ambassador M. de Bordeaux-Neufville resulted in the expulsion from Paris of the exiled Charles II and his entourage; France then agreed to withdraw all support from the Stuarts in a secret clause of a commercial treaty signed in October 1655. With Spain and England openly at war, Charles travelled to the Spanish Netherlands In March 1656 to negotiate with representatives of King Philip of Spain for help in regaining the throne of England. The Spanish agreed to provide the nucleus of an army of invasion. In exchange, Charles agreed that on regaining the throne he would return England's newly-acquired territory in the West Indies to Spain and would also grant concessions to Catholics in his dominions. By a further agreement with Spain, Charles summoned all British subjects fighting in the French army to serve in the Spanish-Royalist force. This raised an additional 2,000 troops by the end of 1656: an English regiment, a Scottish regiment and two Irish regiments with Charles II's brother James, Duke of York, as commander of the British contingent. The two senior regiments of the British army originate in these forces: the Grenadier Guards and the Life Guards.
The projected Spanish invasion depended upon the seizure of an English port and upon the Channel fleet declaring for Charles. The plan came to nothing, however, upon the failure of a Leveller-Royalist conspiracy allegedly involving Vice-Admiral Lawson.
Meanwhile, Cromwell sent Sir William Lockhart as special ambassador to France with instructions to negotiate a military alliance against Spain. The negotiations were delayed because Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin were reluctant to enter an alliance with Protestant England and hoped for peace with Spain instead. But when Spanish demands proved too high, Mazarin turned to the English alliance. The Anglo-French treaty was finally signed in March 1657. It was binding for one year only. England agreed to join with France in her continuing war against Spain in Flanders. France would contribute an army of 20,000 men, England would contribute 6,000 troops and the English fleet in a campaign against the coastal fortresses of Dunkirk, Mardyke and Gravelines. On their capture, it was agreed that Dunkirk and Mardyke would be ceded to England, Gravelines to France. England guaranteed freedom of worship to the Catholic population of Dunkirk. Both nations agreed that they would not negotiate with Spain without the other's consent.
The combined Anglo-French army for the invasion of Flanders was commanded by Marshal Turenne. The English contingent was commanded by Sir John Reynolds. Ranged against them, the Spanish Army of Flanders was commanded by Don Juan-José of Austria and Louis, Prince de Condé.
Mardyke, 1657
Early in May 1657, Marshall Turenne mustered 24,000 troops on the borders of Picardy. Rather than march directly against the Flemish ports, which were heavily defended by the Spaniards, Turenne besieged the inland stronghold of Cambrai as a diversionary move. The Prince of Condé relieved the siege of Cambrai in early June and Turenne withdrew to St Quentin where on 11 June, six infantry regiments under the command of Sir John Reynolds joined him. The 6,000 auxiliaries were all English; the Anglo-French treaty had specified that Scots and Irishmen were to be excluded because they could not be trusted to fight against allies of the House of Stuart. Roughly one quarter of the auxiliaries were drafted from the standing army, the rest were volunteers, including many former soldiers who had served in the civil wars. All wore the red coat of the New Model Army.
While squadrons of Cromwell's navy blockaded the Flemish ports, Marshal Turenne spent the summer of 1657 campaigning against the Spanish in Luxemburg and in elaborate manoeuvres for strategic positions inland. The manoeuvres were designed to draw Spanish forces away from the coastal region of Dunkirk and Gravelines, but Cromwell grew increasingly impatient. At the end of August he threatened to withdraw the English regiments unless Turenne marched against the Flemish ports, which were the primary objectives of the campaign. By the time Turenne marched towards Dunkirk in September 1657, sickness and desertion had reduced the English contingent to 4,000 men. Cromwell agreed to send siege artillery, extra supplies and reinforcements. The Channel fleet was mobilised to assist the military operation.
Before moving against Dunkirk, Turenne planned to capture the nearby fort of Mardyke, which commanded one of the best harbours in the region. The Anglo-French army approached Mardyke on 19 September 1657. A line of entrenchments was constructed between Mardyke and Dunkirk to hinder any attempt by the Spaniards to send a relief force, then the allied artillery began bombarding the fort. The outlying defences were overrun on 21 September and the main fort surrendered the following day. As agreed in the treaty, Mardyke was immediately handed over to England.
Cromwell wanted Turenne to march against Dunkirk straight away and offered to send a further 5,000 regular troops as reinforcements for the attack, but Turenne preferred to proceed against Gravelines, which was less strongly garrisoned than Dunkirk. Early in October, however, the attack on Gravelines was abandoned when the defenders broke the dykes to flood the surrounding country. On 22 October, Don Juan-José led a force of 4,000 men from Dunkirk in an attempt to recapture Mardyke before the English could finish repairing and extending the fortifications. Charles II, the Duke of York and the Marquis of Ormond accompanied the Spanish force. The English garrison was assisted by gunfire from ships in the harbour, and the attack was easily repulsed. Sir Edward Hyde later pleaded with Charles II not to risk his life so recklessly in future.
In mid-November 1657, Turenne withdrew the French army into winter quarters. Reynolds was appointed governor of Mardyke and the fort was garrisoned by the English regiments, but troop numbers continued to decline through sickness until fewer than 1,800 men were fit for active service. The garrison lay within five miles of Dunkirk and informal parleys were occasionally held between officers of the two camps. At one such meeting, Reynolds met and conversed with the Duke of York. Although nothing but compliments and civilities were exchanged, the meeting aroused suspicion among some of the officers at Mardyke so that Reynolds felt compelled to return to England to assure the Protector of his loyalty. On 5 December, the ship conveying him home was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands and Reynolds was drowned. He was replaced as governor of Mardyke by Major-General Thomas Morgan.
Battle of the Dunes, 1658
The Anglo-French alliance of March 1657 was valid for one year only. Cromwell was dissatisfied with the results of the 1657 campaign in Flanders; before renewing the treaty, he insisted upon guarantees from the French that the capture of Dunkirk would be the first military priority of the new campaign. The alliance was duly renewed on 18 March 1658. The English navy resumed its blockade of the Flemish ports and an additional 4,000 infantrymen were sent to reinforce the Anglo-French army. Marshall Turenne mustered his forces at Amiens early in May 1658 and joined forces with Marshal Castelnau and the English contingent before Dunkirk on 15 May.
The allied army besieging Dunkirk was 25,000 strong. Turenne ordered the construction of two lines of entrenchment: an interior line to guard against sorties and attacks from the garrison itself, and an exterior line to hinder any attempt to re-supply or relieve the town. The English fleet blockaded the harbour and kept up a steady bombardment of Dunkirk's seaward defences. The sands and marshes around Dunkirk slowed the progress of the siege works and the garrison, under the command of the Marquis de Lede, made frequent raids on the allied lines. Meanwhile, Don Juan-José of Austria gathered all the men he could muster at Ypres and set out for the relief of Dunkirk. On 3 June 1658, the Spanish army advanced to take up a position in the sandhills to the north-east of Dunkirk. Detailing 6,000 men to guard the siege works, Marshal Turenne ordered the rest of the allied army to be ready to march against the Spaniards at dawn the next day.
The Spanish army occupied a crescent-shaped range of sandhills running down to the sea to the east of Dunkirk. Veterans of the Spanish army of Flanders were deployed on the extreme right, then came the British Royalist contingent led by the Duke of York with one English, one Scottish and three Irish regiments, then a number of German and Walloon regiments. The Prince de Condé's rebel French forces held the left flank. English warships opened fire on the Spanish right flank and prevented the deployment of Don Luis de Caracena's cavalry, which redeployed behind the infantry in the hollows amongst the sand dunes. In total Don Juan-José's army comprised around 7,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. The Spanish were not eager to fight because part of their infantry and all their artillery were still moving into position. Turenne's Anglo-French army halted 500 yards from the Spanish lines on a lower ridge. Supported by Marshal Castelnau's cavalry, seven English regiments under the overall command of Sir William Lockhart and Major-General Morgan held the left of the position facing the Spanish veterans. Turenne's French infantry and two regiments of Swiss Guards occupied the centre, with the Marquis de Créquy's cavalry on the right flank. Turenne commanded a total of 9,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and a number of guns.
Without waiting for Turenne's orders, the redcoats advanced to attack the key Spanish position, which was a sandhill 150 feet high held by the regiment of Don Gaspar Boniface. Picked detachments of marksmen fired on the Spaniards while Lockhart's regiment led the assault up the steep slope. Castelnau's cavalry advanced along the beach to support the English advance. On the opposite wing, Créquy's cavalry drove back the first line of Condé's horse. The entire French line surged forward to support Lockhart and Créquy.
Lockhart's regiment was the first to attain the summit of the sandhill, where they fired a volley at the defenders before closing with Boniface's veterans. In a fierce struggle, the Spaniards were driven from the hill. Castelnau's cavalry advanced along the seashore and swept round behind the hill to complete the rout of the Spanish right flank. The redcoats reformed on the hilltop and marched down the far side, where they were immediately charged by the Duke of York's cavalry. York's attack was repulsed with heavy losses but he succeeded in rallying his own troops and the remnants of Boniface's regiment to lead a second attack on the flank of the advancing redcoats. Once again, they resisted stubbornly and, with the arrival of a body of Castelnau's cavalry, the Duke of York retreated.
In the centre, Turenne's French and Swiss infantry quickly overran the Germans and Walloons. The Royalist Irish infantry attempted to make a stand, but they too were overwhelmed. On the Spanish left flank, the Prince de Condé's reserves held firm against Créquy's cavalry and drove them back. Condé regrouped his forces and made several charges against the French and Swiss infantry but with the collapse of the Spanish right flank and centre, Condé's position was hopeless. Around midday, he rallied what forces he could and retreated to Furnes. The Spanish had lost about 1,000 men in the battle, with 4,000 taken prisoner. Turenne's army lost 400, half of whom were from the English regiments.
Following the defeat of the Spanish army, the siege of Dunkirk was resumed. The town held out for a further ten days then surrendered after its governor the Marquis de Lede was killed during a skirmish. As agreed under the terms of the treaty, Dunkirk was ceded to England. On 15 June 1658, King Louis XIV in person handed the keys of the town to Sir William Lockhart, who agreed to honour England's promise to respect the rights of the Catholic population of Dunkirk.
Marshal Turenne continued his campaign against the Spanish in Flanders. After 3,000 English troops had been drawn off to garrison Dunkirk and Mardyke, Major-General Morgan and four English regiments continued to serve with the French army throughout the summer of 1658. Morgan's regiments fought with distinction at the capture of several Flemish fortresses and towns, including Gravelines in August and Ypres in September.
The war between France and Spain ended with the signing of the Peace of the Pyrenees on 28 October 1659. After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne of the Three Kingdoms, the Anglo-Spanish war was formally terminated in September 1660. Charles sold Dunkirk back to Louis XIV in November 1662 — though less than £300,000 of the promised half million was ever paid. Jamaica remained a British colony; the Spanish formally recognised Britain's ownership of the island in 1670.