Battle of Solebay

The United Provinces of the Netherlands, officially the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 and declaring their independence in 1581. It comprised Groningen, Frisia, Overijssel, Guelders, Utrecht, Holland and Zeeland.

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch admiral. His achievements with the Dutch Navy during the Anglo-Dutch Wars earned him the reputation as one of the most skilled naval commanders in history.

Adriaen van Trappen Banckert was a Dutch admiral. In English literature he is sometimes known as Banckers. His first name is often rendered in the modern spelling Adriaan. Van Trappen was the original family name, but the family was also and better known under the name of Banckert. In the 17th century Netherlands such a situation was solved by combining the two names.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

James II was King of England and King of Ireland, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

Jean, Comte d'Estrées,, was a Marshal of France, and an important naval commander of Louis XIV. He was born into a noble family from Picardy. His aunt was Gabrielle d'Estrées, a mistress of King Henry IV of France.

Enno Doedes Star was a Dutch admiral.

HMS Prince was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Phineas Pett the Younger at Deptford Dockyard and launched in 1670.

Cornelis de Witt was a Dutch politician and naval officer of the Golden Age. During the First Stadtholderless Period De Witt was an influential member of the Dutch States Party, and was in opposition to the House of Orange. In the Rampjaar of 1672 he was lynched together with his brother Johan de Witt by a crowd incited by Orange partisans.

Johan de Witt, lord of Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp en IJsselvere, was a Dutch statesman and a major political figure in the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century, the First Stadtholderless Period, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of globalization made the republic a leading European trading and seafaring power – now commonly referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt was elected Grand pensionary of Holland, and together with his uncle Cornelis de Graeff, he controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until the Rampjaar 1672. This progressive cooperation between the two statesmen, and the consequent support of Amsterdam under the rule of De Graeff, was an important political axis that organized the political system within the republic.

Aert Jansse van Nes was a 17th-century Dutch naval commander, notable for commanding the second squadron in the raid on the Medway in 1667.

Abraham Duquesne, marquis du Bouchet was a French naval officer, who also saw service as an admiral in the Swedish navy. He was born in Dieppe, a seaport, in 1610, and was a Huguenot. He was the son of a naval officer and therefore became a sailor himself, spending his early years in merchant service.

Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, Comte de Tourville was a French naval officer and nobleman who served under King Louis XIV. Born in Paris, he was made Marshal of France in 1693. Tourville is considered by some as one of the most talented naval officers in French military history.

HMS London was a 96-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Christopher Pett at Deptford Dockyard until his death in March 1668, and completed by Jonas Shish and launched in 1670.

Sir Edward Spragge was an Irish-born English admiral of the Royal Navy. He was a fiery, brilliantly accomplished seaman who fought in many great actions after the restoration of King Charles II in 1660.

HMS Monmouth was a 66-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, and was likely named for James, Duke of Monmouth. She served from 1667 to 1767, winning ten battle honours over a century of active service. She was rebuilt a total of three times during her career—each time effectively becoming a completely new ship.

Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington was an Royal Navy officer, peer and politician. Dismissed by King James II of England in 1688 for refusing to vote to repeal the Test Act, which prevented Roman Catholics from holding public office, he brought the Invitation to William to William of Orange at The Hague, disguised as a simple sailor. As a reward he was made commander of William's invasion fleet which landed at Torbay in Devon on 5 November 1688, which initiated the Glorious Revolution.

HMS Adventure was a 34-gun fourth-rate of the English Navy, built by Peter Pett II at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1646. With the outbreak of the English Civil War she served on the Parliamentary side until 1649. She was incorporated into the Commonwealth Navy in 1650. She partook in the Battle off Dover in 1652, the Battle of Portland and the Battle of Gabbard in 1653. Adventure was employed on Bulstrode Whitelocke's embassy to Sweden, 1653–1654. After the Restoration she was incorporated into the Royal Navy. She was present at the Battle of Lowestoft (1665) and the Battle of Solebay (1672). She also participated in the Golden Horse and Two Lions actions in 1681. She was in the Battle of Barfleur in 1692. She captured several ships in the later part of her career, before being captured by the French in 1709.

HMS Dartmouth was a small frigate or fifth-rate ship, one of six ordered by the English Council of State on 28 December 1654, and built in 1655.

Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around 92 miles (148 km) north-east of London, 9 miles (14 km) south of Southwold and 7 miles (11 km) north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast.

A broadside is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Britain, Ireland and North America because they are easy to produce and are often associated with one of the most important forms of traditional music from these countries, the ballad.

The naval Battle of Texel or Battle of Kijkduin took place off the southern coast of island of Texel on 21 August 1673 between the Dutch and the combined English and French fleets. It was the last major battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, which was itself part of the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), during which Louis XIV of France invaded the Republic and sought to establish control over the Spanish Netherlands. English involvement came about because of the Treaty of Dover, secretly concluded by Charles II of England, and which was highly unpopular with the English Parliament.

Sir Alvary Douglas Frederick Trench-Gascoigne GBE, KCMG was a British diplomat.

A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels.

The Strong Winds series is a series of children's books written by English author Julia Jones. The books reference many of the settings and characters of the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. The books use adventure stories about sailing to provide action and structure amid developing themes of foster care, mental illness, disability and corrupt officialdom.

Julia Jones, formerly also known as Julia Thorogood, is an English writer, editor, book publisher, aged-care advocate and classic yacht owner.