St . James ' s Day Battle The naval St James ' Day Battle ( also known as the St James ' Day Fight ) , the Battle of the North Foreland and the Battle of Orfordness ) took place on 25 July 1666 — St James ' day in the Julian calendar then in use in England ( 4 August 1666 in the Gregorian calendar ) , during the Second Anglo - Dutch War and was fought between fleets of England , commanded jointly by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck , 1st Duke of Albemarle , and the United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant - Admiral Michiel de Ruyter . In the Netherlands , the battle is known as the " Two Days ' Battle " . Dutch intentions . After the Dutch had inflicted considerable damage on the English fleet in the Four Days Battle , the leading Dutch politician , Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt , ordered Lieutenant - Admiral Michiel de Ruyter to carry out a plan that had been prepared for over a year : to land in the Medway to destroy the English fleet while it was being repaired in the Chatham dockyards . For this purpose , ten fluyt ships carried 2 , 700 marines of the newly created Dutch Marine Corps , one of the first in history to be specialised in amphibious landings . Also , De Ruyter was to combine his fleet with the French one . The French , however , didn ' t show up and bad weather prevented the landing . De Ruyter had to limit his actions to a blockade of the Thames . On 1 August , he observed that the English fleet was leaving port - earlier than expected . Then a storm drove the Dutch fleet back to the Flemish coast . On 3 July , De Ruyter again crossed the North Sea , leaving behind the troop ships . First day . In the early morning of 25 July , the Dutch fleet of 88 ships discovered the English fleet of 89 ships near North Foreland , sailing to the north , and pursued it from the southeast in a leeward position , as the wind blew from the northwest . Suddenly , the wind turned to the northeast . The commander of the English fleet , Prince Rupert of the Rhine , then turned sharply east to regain the weather gauge and De Ruyter followed to keep it . This proved to be a fatal manoeuvre for the Dutch . They now sailed right into the core of a high - pressure area . The Dutch van , commanded by Lieutenant - Admiral Johan Evertsen , lost all speed and couldn ' t maintain a line of battle . This awkward situation lasted for hours ; then , again , a soft breeze began to blow from the northeast . Immediately , the English van , commanded by Thomas Allin , and part of the centre formed a line of battle and sailed right to the Dutch van , still in disarray and basically defenseless . Ship after ship of the Frisian fleet was mauled by the combined firepower of the English line . Vice - Admiral Rudolf Coenders was killed . Lieutenant - Admiral Tjerk Hiddes de Vries had an arm and a leg shot off , yet still tried to bring cohesion to his forces , but to no avail . Unable to reach them with his centre , the horrified De Ruyter saw the Frisian ships drifting to the south , now no more than floating wrecks full of dead , the moans of the dying clearly audible above the other sounds of battle . Now Rupert combined his full van and centre to deliver the coup - de - grâce to the Dutch centre . George Monck , accompanying Rupert , predicted that De Ruyter would give two broadsides and run , but the latter put up a furious fight on the Dutch flagship " De Zeven Provinciën " . He withstood a combined attack by " Sovereign of the Seas " and " Royal Charles " and forced Rupert to leave the damaged " Royal Charles " for " Royal James " . This way , De Ruyter managed to cover the retreat of the Dutch van . Meanwhile , Lieutenant - Admiral Cornelis Tromp , commanding the Dutch rear , had seen the sad events evolve from a great distance . Annoyed by the lack of competence shown , he decided to give the correct example . He turned sharply to the west , crossed the line of the English rear , commanded by Jeremiah Smith , separating it from the rest of the English fleet and then , having the weather gauge , kept on attacking it rabidly until , at last , the English were routed and fled to the west . He pursued well into the night , destroying " Resolution " with a fireship . After Tromp thrice shot the entire crew from its rigging , Smith ' s flagship " Loyal London " had to be towed home . The vice commander of the English rear was Edward Spragge , who felt so humiliated by the course of events that he became a personal enemy of Tromp , dying himself while trying to kill his foe in the Battle of Texel . Second day . On the morning of 26 July , Tromp broke off pursuit , well - pleased with his first real victory as a squadron commander . During the night , a ship had brought him the message that De Ruyter had likewise been victorious , so Tromp was in a euphoric mood . That abruptly changed upon the discovery of the drifting flagship of the dying Tjerk Hiddes de Vries . Suddenly he feared that his ship was now the only remnant of the Dutch fleet and that he was in mortal peril . Behind him , those ships of the English rear still operational had again turned to the east . In front , the other enemy squadrons surely awaited him . On the horizon only English flags were to be seen . Manoeuvring wildly , Tromp , drinking a lot of gin to restore his nerve , dodged any attempt to trap him and brought his squadron safely home in the port of Flushing on the morning of 26 July . There , to great mutual relief , he discovered the rest of the Dutch fleet . It took Tromp six hours to gather enough courage to face De Ruyter . It was obvious to him that he should never have allowed himself to get completely separated from the main force . Indeed De Ruyter , not being his usual charitable self , immediately blamed him for the defeat and ordered Tromp and his subcommanders Isaac Sweers and Willem van der Zaan from his sight , and told them to never again set foot on " De Zeven Provinciën " . The commander of the Dutch fleet still hadn ' t mentally recovered from the events of the previous day . On the morning of 5 August , after a short summer ' s night , De Ruyter discovered that his position had become hopeless . Lieutenant - Admiral Johan Evertsen had died after losing a leg , De Ruyter ' s force was now reduced to about forty ships , crowding together and most of these were inoperational , being survivors of the van . Some fifteen good ships had apparently deserted during the night . A strong gale from the east prevented an easy retreat to the continental coast , and to the west the British van and centre ( about fifty ships ) surrounded him in a half - circle , safely bombarding him from a leeward position . De Ruyter was desperate . When his second - in - command of the centre , Lieutenant - Admiral Aert Jansse van Nes visited him for a council of war , he exclaimed " With seven or eight against the mass ! " He then sagged , mumbling : " What ' s wrong with us ? I wish I were dead . " His close personal friend Van Nes tried to cheer him up , joking : " Me too . But you never die when you want to ! " No sooner had both men left the cabin than the table they had been sitting at was smashed by a cannonball . The English , however , had their own problems . The strong gale prevented them from closing with the Dutch . They tried to use fire ships , but these , too , had trouble reaching the enemy . Only the sloop " Fan - Fan " , Rupert ' s personal pleasure yacht , rowed to the Dutch flagship " De Zeven Provinciën " to harass it with its two little guns , much to the hilarious laughter of the English crews . When his ship had again warded off an attack by a fire ship ( the " Land of Promise " ) and Tromp still didn ' t show up , for De Ruyter tension became unbearable . He sought death , exposing himself deliberately on the deck . When he failed to be hit , he exclaimed : " Oh , God , how unfortunate I am ! Amongst so many thousands of cannonballs , is there not one that would take me ? " His son - in - law , Captain of the Marines Johann de Witte , heard him and said : " Father , what desperate words ! If you merely want to die , let us then turn , sail in the midst of our enemies and fight ourselves to death ! " . This brave but foolish proposal brought the Admiral back to his senses , for he discovered that he wasn ' t so desperate and answered : " You don ' t know what you are talking about ! If I did that , all would be lost . But if I can bring myself and these ships safely home , we ' ll finish the job later . " Then the wind , that had brought so much misfortune to the Dutch , saved them by turning to the west . They formed a line of battle and brought their fleet to safety through the Flemish shoals , Vice - Admiral Adriaen Banckert of the Zealandic fleet covering the retreat of all damaged ships with the operational vessels , the number of the latter slowly growing as it turned out that only very few ships had actually deserted in the night ; most had merely drifted away , and now , one after the other , they rejoined the battle . Results . The battle was a clear English victory , though the separate clash of the two rears was a victory for Tromp . Dutch casualties were enormous , estimated immediately after the battle at about 5 , 000 men , compared with 300 English killed ; later , more precise information showed that only about 1 , 200 of these had been killed or seriously wounded . However , the Dutch only lost two ships : De Ruyter had been successful at saving almost the complete van , only " Sneek " and " Tholen " struck their flag , and they could quickly repair the damage . The twin disasters of the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London , however , combined with his financial mismanagement , left Charles II without the funds to continue the war . In fact , he had had only enough reserves for this one last battle . The Dutch soon recovered ; within a month , they again took sea , but only a minor skirmish resulted . During this later fight , De Ruyter inhaled a burning fuse filament that burnt a fistula in his throat ; he would recover just in time to inflict a severe blow on the English navy in the Raid on the Medway in 1667 , when , at last , he could carry out the plan he was prevented from executing in 1666 . During the weeks that the Dutch fleet was in repair , Admiral Robert Holmes , aided by the Dutch traitor Laurens van Heemskerck , penetrated the Vlie estuary , burnt a fleet of 150 merchants ( Holmes ' s Bonfire ) and sacked the town of Ter Schelling ( the present West - Terschelling ) on the Frisian island of Terschelling . " Fan - Fan " was again present . In the Republic , the defeat also had far - reaching political effect . Tromp was the champion of the Orangist party ; now that he was accused of severe negligence , the country split over this issue . To defend himself , Tromp let his brother - in - law Johan Kievit publish an account of his conduct . Shortly afterwards , Kievit was discovered to have planned a coup , secretly negotiating a peace treaty with the English king . He fled to England and was condemned to death in absentia ; Tromp ' s family was fined and he himself forbidden to serve on the fleet . In November 1669 a supporter of Tromp tried to stab De Ruyter in the entrance hall of his house . Only in 1672 Tromp would have his revenge , when Johan de Witt was murdered ; some claim Tromp has had a hand in this . The new ruler , William III of Orange , succeeded , with great difficulty , in reconciling De Ruyter with Tromp in 1673 .