A Mountain of Gold & a

Mountain of Iron: Reassessing the First Anglo-Dutch War

1652-1654

Andrew Van Horn RuossAndrew Van Horn RuossHistory Department Senior History Department Senior ThesisThesis2009-20102009-2010

The House of Orange v. Holland Regents

Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie

- Charter 1602

- 1648 Treaty of Münster

EIC - December 31, 1600 Charles I (r. 1625-1649)

English Civil War-Massive Expenses

Trade Losses

What do Historians Have to Say?

Charles Wilson: Profit and Power -martial manifestation of the increasingly

heated, developing trade competition between the emerging empires of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic and England.

J.R. Jones: The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century

-tenuous political play within republican England

Steven Pincus: Protestantism and Patriotism -influential clout and zealous viewpoints of

the radical Protestant faction of the interregnum government

A New Perspective

THESIS: The English East India Company

merchants’ strategy to compete against Dutch trade hegemony, manifest in English foreign policy, was the fundamental underlying cause of the First Anglo-Dutch War.

The Origins of A Trend

James I: 1603-1625- Timid and defensive policy

Amboyna

-Banda ArchipeligoMarch 9, 1623

The Rise of EIC Power

-London Aldermen

-Growing Influence with the Crown

Radical Takeover

Purge: EIC Directors

December 6, 1648 – Pride’s Purge

-Rump Parliament

1651 Navigation Act

-Maurice Thompson

(1624) (EIC Proxy)

1620s & 1630s(Skinner, EIC Proxy)

John Milton

Clerk to the Council of State:Concilium Status Parlamenti Republicae Angliae

The Commonwealth’s Demands

Summary of EIC Losses

1653 - Protectorate EIC

A DEFINING

LEGACYA Mountain of Gold and a Mountain of

IronThe Legacy of The First Anglo-Dutch War

(1652-1654)

Thank You to…