taking with them the pride of the English fleet, the Royal Charles. Their navy in tatters, the English had little option but to accept defeat. ‘In all things, in wisdom, courage, force, knowledge of our own streams, and success, the Dutch have the best of us,’ wrote Pepys, ‘and do end the war with victory on their side.’ The Dutch remembered the war rather more fondly, and the admiral who humiliated the English, Michel de Ruyter, became an enduring national hero.
