Maarten Tromp

Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp or Maarten van Tromp (23 April 1598 – 31 July 1653) was an army general and admiral in the Dutch navy during much of the Eighty Years' War and throughout the First Anglo-Dutch War.

Son of a ship's captain, Tromp spent much of his childhood at sea, during which time he was captured by pirates and enslaved by Barbary corsairs. In adult life, he became a renowned ship captain and naval commander, successfully leading Dutch forces fighting for independence in the Eighty Years' War, and then against England in the First Anglo-Dutch War, proving an innovative tactician and enabling the newly independent Dutch nation to become a major sea power.

He was killed in battle by a sharpshooter from an English ship. Several ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy have carried the name HNLMS Tromp after him and/or his son Cornelis, also a Dutch admiral of some renown.

Born in Brielle in the Netherlands, Tromp was the oldest son of Harpert Maertensz, a naval officer and captain of the frigate Olifantstromp ("Elephant Trunk"). The surname Tromp probably derives from the name of the ship; it first appeared in documents in 1607. He was baptized 3 May 1598 in St. Catherine's Cathedral. In 1606, the Tromp family moved to Rotterdam where Tromp's father was appointed by the Admiralty of Rotterdam as captain of the frigate Olifantstromp. His mother supplemented the family's income as a washerwoman. In 1607, at the age of nine, Tromp went to sea with his father aboard the Olifantsdorp, of the Rotterdam squadron, commanded by Commodore Mooy Lambert, as part of the Dutch fleet of Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, with the objective of blockading Dunkirk and the Spanish coast and intercepting the Spanish fleet being sent to drive the Dutch from the East Indies. On 25 April, a fierce battle ensued at the Battle of Gibraltar, resulting in a great Dutch victory.

In 1610, after his father's discharge because of a navy reorganization, the Tromps were on their way to Guinea on their merchantman when they were attacked by a squadron of seven ships under command of the English pirate Peter Easton. During the fight, Tromp's father was slain by a cannonball, where after the battle his body was thrown overboard by the boarding party. According to legend, the 12-year-old boy rallied the crew of the ship with the cry "Won't you avenge my father's death?" The pirates seized him and sold him on the slave market of Salé where he ended up serving as a cabin boy. Two years later, Easton was moved by pity and ordered his redemption.

Set free, Tromp supported his mother and three sisters by working in a Rotterdam shipyard. He went to sea again at 19, briefly working for the navy, but he was captured again in 1621 after having rejoined the merchant fleet, this time by Barbary corsairs off Tunis. He was kept as a slave until the age of 24 and by then had so impressed the Bey of Tunis and the corsair John Ward with his skills in gunnery and navigation that the latter offered him a position in his fleet. When Tromp refused, the Bey was even more impressed by this show of character and allowed him to leave as a free man in 1622.

Maarten Tromp was supreme commander of the Dutch fleet during the later part of the Eighty Years' War and throughout the First Anglo-Dutch War. He is widely considered the best Dutch naval commander during most of this time. Tromp's former superior, Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein, once told a friend that Tromp as a seaman and a commander possessed a sound character that distinguished him from all the captains he had ever known. Tromp joined the Dutch navy as a lieutenant in July 1622, entering service with the Admiralty of the Maze based in Rotterdam, serving aboard the Bruynvisch. On 7 May 1624, he married Dignom Cornelisdochter de Haes, the daughter of a merchant; in the same year he became captain of the St. Antonius, a fast sailing dispatch and escort yacht. His first distinction was as Lieutenant-Admiral Hein's flag captain on the Vliegende Groene Draeck during the fight with Ostend privateers in 1629 in which Hein was killed, after which Tromp returned home with his body.

During the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), Tromp was appointed as full captain in 1629 at the initiative of stadtholder Frederick Henry himself, where Tromp demonstrated that he was very successful in fighting the Dunkirkers as a squadron commander, functioning as a commandeur on the Vliegende Groene Draeck. Despite receiving four honorary golden chains, he was not promoted further. The Vliegende Groene Draeck foundered and new heavy vessels were reserved for the flag officers while Tromp was relegated to the old Prins Hendrik. After Tromp's first wife died in 1634, with whom he had three sons left for Tromp to support, he subsequently left the naval service that year in disappointment. He became a deacon and married Alijth Jacobsdochter Arckenboudt, the daughter of Brill's wealthy schepen and tax collector, on 12 September 1634.