Admiral De Ruyter through English Eyes, 1607-1676
C.R. Boxer describe show, three centuries ago, the great Dutch commander was mortally wounded in battle off the coast of Sicily.
A national hero of the Netherlands, and the tri-centenary of his death (April 29th, 1676) is being celebrated there in a fitting manner. His life and deeds are as familiar to our neighbours on the other side of the North Sea as those of Nelson are to us, or those of Washington to North Americans. With the exceptions of Erasmus and William the Silent, probably no other Netherlander has been so much written about; and he is universally recognized as one of the greatest admirals of all time.
He is the most outstanding figure on either side in the three great Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century; and by the time of his death he was regarded by many of his former English opponents with much the same esteem as was accorded to Field-Marshal Rommel in the Second World War.
Seventeenth-century English sources, including Samuel Pepys’s then unpublished Diary, or the official London Gazette, have plenty to say about him from 1652 onwards. It may therefore be of interest to glance at the growth of his reputation in the eyes of his English contemporaries, whether friends, enemies, or neutrals.
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