Anglo-Dutch war
| Anglo-Dutch Wars | |||||
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 Dutch attack on the Medway during the Second Anglo-Dutch War by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest c. 1667. The captured English ship Royal Charles is right of center. |
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The Anglo-Dutch wars (Engels–Nederlandse Oorlogen or Engelse Zeeoorlogen) were a series of conflicts fought, on one side, by the Dutch States (the Dutch Republic, later the Batavian Republic) and, on the other side, first by England and later by the Kingdom of Great Britain/the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. They were predominantly fought in the second half of the 17th century, mainly over trade and overseas colonies. Almost all the battles were fought at sea.
There was a later round of conflicts between 1780 and 1810, which some argue was a separate set of wars.
The English and the Dutch were both participants in the Wars of Religion between the Catholic Habsburg Dynasty and the opposing Protestant states. At the same time, as the Age of Exploration dawned, the Dutch and English—influenced by mercantilism and linked by centuries of interaction with each other over fisheries, the textile industry and trade in the Baltic—both sought profits in the New World.
In the early 1600s, the Dutch, while continuing to fight the Eighty Years' War with the Catholic Habsburgs, also began to carry out long distance exploration by sea. The Dutch innovation in the trading of shares in a allowed them to finance expeditions with stock subscriptions sold in the United Provinces and in London. They founded colonies in North America, in India, and in Indonesia (the Spice Islands). They also enjoyed continued success in privateering—in 1628 Admiral Piet Heyn became the only commander to successfully capture a large Spanish treasure fleet. With the many long voyages by Dutch East Indiamen, their society built an officer class and institutional knowledge that would later be replicated in England, principally by the East India Company.
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