17 - Historiographical overview

Summary

Excitement and anticipation spread throughout Europe on the eve of the first international conflict to be fought by Britain's newly restored king. “All the world and the Pope himself is big with expectation of what issue his Majesty's grand engagement with Holland will have,” gushed Charles II's envoy in Italy Joseph Kent. The English themselves were brimming with confidence and enthusiasm. The Earl of Arlington informed the English ambassador in Spain, Sir Richard Fanshawe, that “the whole people of what opinion or interest soever are greatly fond of this war.” A Venetian observer noted “the great inclination of the people here to the rupture and war against the Dutch.” Even the exceedingly cautious William Coventry marveled at the unanimity of the fleet. “I have not heard one rodomontade from any of them,” Coventry wrote to Arlington, instead all of the seaman displayed “an assurance of beating [the Dutch].”

English confidence was matched by the government's naval preparations. The Irish Viscount Conway wrote to his countryman Sir George Rawdon that Charles II had prepared “the powerfullest fleet that ever went out of England.” “I believe the English fleet the most considerable that any one monarch has ever put to sea,” Samuel Tuke informed his friend Sir John Evelyn. The English Admiral James Duke of York proudly recorded in his memoirs that the nation “never hitherto had seen [a fleet] so glorious and formidable.”