Battle of Lowestoft

Overview

The Battle of Lowestoft took place on 13 June [O.S. 3 June] 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A fleet of more than a hundred ships of the United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer, Lord Obdam, attacked an English fleet of equal size commanded by James, Duke of York, forty miles east of the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Lowestoft, fought on 13 June 1665, was a major fleet engagement of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in which a Dutch force of more than a hundred ships under Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer, Lord Obdam, met an English fleet of equivalent size under James, Duke of York, forty miles east of Lowestoft in Suffolk. Dutch casualties reached approximately 2,500, pointing to a substantial English advantage in the engagement's outcome. The battle was one of the largest naval clashes of the war, pitting the leading admirals of both sides — including Prince Rupert, the Earl of Sandwich, and Johan Evertsen and Cornelis Tromp among the Dutch commanders — against one another in open waters. Within the Second Anglo-Dutch War, an Anglo-Dutch rivalry over commercial and naval supremacy, engagements of this scale directly contested control of the North Sea and the sea lanes on which both nations' trade depended.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (6)