LONDON HAS FALLEN: PEASANT REBELS TAKE LONDON, June 12-14, 1381

In May 1381, a series of highly unpopular poll taxes designed to help pay for the war against France triggered a peasant’s revolt. England was already exhausted by the Black Plague’s deaths on a massive scale and by crippling taxes. The rebels marched on London to oppose the institution of the poll tax and to demand economic and social reforms. There was no Royal army to defend the capital. 

On June 12, rebels from Kent and Essex led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw merged their forces. They were armed with weapons including sticks, battle axes, old swords and bows. On the 14th, the rebels, who were looting and killing, destroyed John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace and stormed the Tower of London. They caught and beheaded Archbishop Simon Sudbury, and also Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer whom the peasants hated most of all. Boy-King Richard II of Bordeaux (who was only 14 at the time) met the rebel leaders to defuse the situation. Reforms such as fair rents and the abolition of serfdom were proclaimed by the King in an attempt to gain time. 

Illustration by Cecil Langley Doughty for Look and Learn of August 12, 1967.

 

During further negotiations, rebel leader Wat Tyler was murdered by the King's entourage. Noble forces subsequently overpower the rebel army, the rebel leaders were captured and executed. Richard revoked his concessions at once. 

 

The Townspeople of Cambridge then sacked the buildings of the University. Towards the end of June – beginning of July, revolts spread to St Albans and East Anglia, but they were quickly suppressed. The Norfolk rebels were defeated at the Battle of North Walsham (25 or 26 June). That effectively ended the revolt. 

 

On the 15th of July, “radical” priest John Ball was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of the King at St Albans for his part in the Peasants' Revolt. His head was displayed stuck on a pike on London Bridge, and the quarters of his body were displayed at four different towns. In response to the Peasants' Revolt, Parliament then passed the Treason Act making the starting of a riot high treason. 

THE ANGLO-PORTUGUESE ALLIANCE WAS ESTABLISHED 648 YEARS AGO

 

The Anglo-Portuguese alliance was born out of converging strategic interests: An alliance between France and Castile in 1369 had caused great concern at the English court. Through the alliance with Castile, which had one of the largest fleets in Western Europe, France had access to Castilian sea power. Therefore closer union with Castile’s western neighbor Portugal was a logical step to counter this threat. 

 

Added to this was a dynastic interest as the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, had a legitimate claim to the throne of Castile through his wife, Constance, daughter of Pedro I (1334-1369). With military victory in the Iberian Peninsula and a Plantagenet on the Castilian throne, it would only be a matter of time before France would be forced to the negotiating table. 

 

The treaty was signed on June 16, 1373 between King Edward III of England and King Fernando and Queen Leonor of Portugal. It established a treaty of "perpetual friendships, unions [and] alliances" between the two nations. 

Battle of Aljubarrota from A Batalha graphic novel by Pedro Massano, 2014.

 

In the aftermath, England sent a failed expedition to Portugal in 1381-2 under Edmund of Langley in an attempt to push Castile out of the war. Undisciplined English troops caused outrage by raiding Portuguese towns and killing inhabitants whilst exclusion from Portuguese-Castilian peace negotiations in 1382 drew English resentment. 

 

After the death of King Fernando I, Joao of Aviz sent ambassadors to England to request permission to recruit mercenaries. The Portuguese ambassador Fernando Afonso de Albuquerque, Master of the Portuguese military order of Sant'Iago da Espada succeeded initially in raising only a modest force of approximately 800 Anglo-Gascon troops. Nevertheless these soldiers would play a laudable role in the eventual defeat and withdrawal of Castilian forces from Portugal particularly with their contribution to the victory over Castilian troops at the battle of Aljubarrota (14th August 1385). 

Treaty of alliance between king Edward III of England and Fernando I of Portugal, 16th June 1373 (British National Archives: E 30-275)

Joao I was recognized as the undisputed King of Portugal, putting an end to the interregnum of the 1383–1385 Crisis. The Treaty of Windsor in 1386 established a pact of mutual support between the countries.

 

Although not invoked until several centuries later, the terms of the alliance were to be called upon during the 18th and 19th centuries when Portuguese independence was again threatened. In 1762 Anglo-Portuguese forces successfully defeated a Spanish invasion force and again during the Peninsula war of 1808-1814, Anglo-Portuguese troops under the Duke of Wellington thwarted Napoleon’s attempts to conquer Portugal, most notably at the battle of Buçaco (27 September 1810) which allowed Viscount Wellington and Portuguese General Luís do Rego Barreto to resume the retreat of their 52,000 men into the previously fortified Lines of Torres Vedras, a contiguous line of fortifications extending from the Tagus River to the ocean.  

Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd and the 52nd at Buçaco, 27th September 1810 by Christa Hook. The Royal Green Jackets Museum, Winchester.

 

 

 

FOUR DAYS' BATTLE: DE RUYTER'S TURNS THE TIDE DURING THE 2nd ANGLO-DUTCH WAR (June 11-14, 1666)

Michiel De Ruyter, the "Terror of the Ocean" is the most illustrious Admiral of the Dutch Golden Age. In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic, the world’s dominant trade nation, was at war for sixty years because of commercial and maritime rivalry. Although the Dutch had the largest fleet in Europe, they would face England, a maritime power on the rise, allied with Portugal, Sweden, and later Louis XIV’s France. The Navy of the Republic had to protect overseas shipping lanes, but also repel any naval invasion of Dutch territory. Revered as savior of the nation, De Ruyter would become the most celebrated of Dutch seamen, and one of the most able commanders of the 17th century. 

Dutch Council of War on the De Zeven Provinciën, De Ruyter's flagship, June 10, 1666 (detail), art by Maarten Platje from the well-known engraving by Willem van de Velde the Elder.

 

After the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Lowestoft (June 1665), Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt replaced the deceased Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer by De Ruyter. This led to bitter rivalry with Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp, a political enemy of De Witt. De Ruyter’s blaming Admiral Cornelis Tromp for the defeat at the St. James’s Day battle the following year resulted in Tromp’s resignation from the Navy until 1673, when the two commanders were reconciled.

 

De Ruyter worked closely with Johan De Witt to expand the Dutch Navy, building new, larger and better-armed ships, instead of relying on armed merchantmen, and improving their organization. The flagship of the Republic, De Zeven Provinciën, was fitted with 80 bronze guns. 

 

Until then, the favored Dutch tactic was of undisciplined mêlée, with individual ships boarding and attempting to capture their opponent, leaving the battle with their prize. With De Ruyter, fighting in line and ensuring fleet discipline became the basis of Dutch standard tactic in the new Fighting Instructions approved by the States General in August 1665. Faulty captains were trialed, some executed, others banned. 

 

The fleet was divided into three distinct squadrons, each with a clear chain of command. Signaling was improved, and the principle of the concentration of superior force against part of the enemy fleet was adopted. Finally, regiments of soldiers, the Korps Mariniers, were deployed aboard the ships.

These reforms soon paid off. During the rest of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), De Ruyter’s achieved victory at the Four Days’ Battle, soon followed by even more stunning successes... 

 

The English fleet was stronger than that of the Dutch, but on receiving intelligence that the Duc de Beaufort was preparing to land troops in Ireland, the English divided their fleet, sending the more powerful vessels into the Channel, still leaving 56 warships off the Kentish coast. De Ruyter, deploying his 84 warships to prevent the English breaking out into the North Sea, mauled the vessels off the Kent coast and then inflicted severe damage on the vessels returning from the Channel.