Battle of the Downs

The Battle of the Downs took place on 21 October 1639 (New Style), during the Eighty Years' War. A Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, was decisively defeated by a Dutch force under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Victory ended Spanish efforts to re-assert naval control over the English Channel and confirmed Dutch dominance of the sea lanes, while it is also alleged to be the first major action to feature line of battle tactics.

The battle was initiated when Spanish chief minister Olivares sent a large convoy of troops and supplies for the Army of Flanders, escorted by some 50 warships. Since 1621, Spanish naval activity in the Channel had focused on avoiding direct conflict with the superior Dutch fleet, while attacking their merchant ships from privateering bases in Dunkirk and Ostend. In a change from this policy, Oquendo was ordered to deliver the reinforcements but also bring the Dutch to battle; Olivares hoped victory would restore Spanish prestige and force the States General to negotiate peace terms.

The Spanish entered the Channel on 11 September and were intercepted by the Dutch in a series of actions between 16 and 18 September. Losses on both sides were minimal, but Oquendo took refuge in The Downs, an anchorage between the ports of Dover and Deal, where he was protected by English neutrality. Although blockaded here by the Dutch fleet, most of the reinforcements were transported to Dunkirk via small, fast frigates.

On 21 October, the Dutch entered the Downs and attacked the Spanish fleet with fireships. Unable to manoeuvre in the cramped waters and with the wind against them, the Spanish lost around ten ships captured or destroyed, while another twelve deliberately ran themselves ashore to avoid capture. Combined with the repulse of a similar-sized expedition against Dutch Brazil in January 1640, this marked the end of attempts to challenge Dutch maritime supremacy and an acceptance by the Spanish court that the war could not be won.

When the Franco-Spanish War began in 1635, Spain was already engaged in the Eighty Years War with the Dutch Republic, as well as supporting Emperor Ferdinand II in the Thirty Years War. Although the Spanish Empire had far greater resources than any of its opponents, fighting on multiple fronts forced them to rely on long and vulnerable lines of communication. The most important was the Spanish Road, an overland route funnelling troops and supplies from their possessions in Italy to the Army of Flanders. This was crucial for the war in the Netherlands since Dutch naval superiority made it difficult to send these by sea.

In December 1638, a French-backed army under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar captured Breisach in Alsace, severing the Spanish Road (see map). However, the Spanish defeated Dutch attacks on Dunkirk and Ostend in the Spanish Netherlands, and despite a French naval victory at Getaria in August, forced them to retreat from Fuenterrabía. This encouraged chief minister Olivares to reassert Spanish naval prestige by sending a large convoy to reinforce Flanders. Stripping 22 galleys from the Mediterranean, combined with a hurried construction program, meant that by August 1639 Olivares had assembled a fleet of around 50 warships along with a number of smaller vessels, manned by 6,500 sailors and 8,000 marines.

In addition, 9,000 reinforcements and three million escudos for the Army of Flanders were carried in 30 transports, which included ships chartered from Germany and England, contracted under an agreement with Charles I. Dating back to the early 1630s and known as the "English Road", this took advantage of English neutrality to ship supplies and men to Dover, where they transferred to small, fast vessels for the trip across the English Channel to Dunkirk. In May, a flotilla of nine ships used this route to transport 1,500 men to Flanders, one of many similar transfers that took place over the years.

Since 1621, the Spanish had avoided major conflict with the Dutch fleet in favour of raids conducted by the Dunkirk-based Armada de Flandes and local privateers on their commercial shipping, their efforts peaking under admiral Francisco de Ribera. In October 1637, Lope de Hoces, commander of the Armada de Coruña, transported 5,000 men from A Coruña to Dunkirk, then captured over 20 Dutch merchant ships on his return voyage. Now confident enough to seek a full-scale battle, Olivares offered him command of the expedition, but de Hoces was sceptical of his own ability to defeat the Dutch, especially given that the galleys which formed a significant part of his force were far less effective in the Channel. He refused the position, which passed instead to Antonio de Oquendo, admiral in the Mediterranean. Olivares expected the Dutch would try to prevent delivery of the reinforcements, giving Oquendo the opportunity to bring them to battle.