Netherlands
The Netherlands is a country located in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian. The six largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Tilburg. Amsterdam is the country's capital, while The Hague holds the seat of the States General and Supreme Court; the Port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe, the largest in any country outside Asia. The country is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union.
It hosts several intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are centered in The Hague, dubbed'the world's legal capital'. Netherlands means'lower countries' in reference to its low elevation and flat topography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding 1 metre above sea level, nearly 17% falling below sea level. Most of the areas below sea level, known as polders, are the result of land reclamation that began in the 16th century. With a population of 17.30 million people, all living within a total area of 41,500 square kilometres —of which the land area is 33,700 square kilometres —the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It is the world's second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products, owing to its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture; the Netherlands was the third country in the world to have representative government, it has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848.
The country has a tradition of pillarisation and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised abortion and human euthanasia, along with maintaining a progressive drug policy. The Netherlands abolished the death penalty in 1870, allowed women's suffrage in 1917, became the world's first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001, its mixed-market advanced economy had the thirteenth-highest per capita income globally. The Netherlands ranks among the highest in international indexes of press freedom, economic freedom, human development, quality of life, as well as happiness; the Netherlands' turbulent history and shifts of power resulted in exceptionally many and varying names in different languages. There is diversity within languages; this holds for English, where Dutch is the adjective form and the misnomer Holland a synonym for the country "Netherlands". Dutch comes from Theodiscus and in the past centuries, the hub of Dutch culture is found in its most populous region, home to the capital city of Amsterdam.
Referring to the Netherlands as Holland in the English language is similar to calling the United Kingdom "Britain" by people outside the UK. The term is so pervasive among potential investors and tourists, that the Dutch government's international websites for tourism and trade are "holland.com" and "hollandtradeandinvest.com". The region of Holland consists of North and South Holland, two of the nation's twelve provinces a single province, earlier still, the County of Holland, a remnant of the dissolved Frisian Kingdom. Following the decline of the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders, Holland became the most economically and politically important county in the Low Countries region; the emphasis on Holland during the formation of the Dutch Republic, the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Dutch Wars in the 16th, 17th and 18th century, made Holland serve as a pars pro toto for the entire country, now considered either incorrect, informal, or, depending on context, opprobrious. Nonetheless, Holland is used in reference to the Netherlands national football team.
The region called the Low Countries and the Country of the Netherlands. Place names with Neder, Nieder and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in places all over Europe, they are sometimes used in a deictic relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Oben, Superior or Haut. In the case of the Low Countries / Netherlands the geographical location of the lower region has been more or less downstream and near the sea; the geographical location of the upper region, changed tremendously over time, depending on the location of the economic and military power governing the Low Countries area. The Romans made a distinction between the Roman provinces of downstream Germania Inferior and upstream Germania Superior; the designation'Low' to refer to the region returns again in the 10th century Duchy of Lower Lorraine, that covered much of the Low Countries. But this time the corresponding Upper region is Upper Lorraine, in nowadays Northern France; the Dukes of Burgundy, who ruled the Low Countries in the 15th century, used the term les pays de par deçà for the Low Countries as opposed to les pays de par delà for their original
Navy
A navy or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications and other fields; the strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores. The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies; the strategic task of the navy may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications, open-ocean applications, something in between, although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division. In most nations, the term "naval", as opposed to "navy", is interpreted as encompassing all maritime military forces, e.g. navy, naval infantry/marine corps, coast guard forces. First attested in English in the early 14th century, the word "navy" came via Old French navie, "fleet of ships", from the Latin navigium, "a vessel, a ship, boat", from navis, "ship".
The word "naval" came from Latin navalis, "pertaining to ship". The earliest attested form of the word is in the Mycenaean Greek compound word, na-u-do-mo, "shipbuilders", written in Linear B syllabic script; the word denoted fleets of both commercial and military nature. In modern usage "navy" used alone always denotes a military fleet, although the term "merchant navy" for a commercial fleet still incorporates the non-military word sense; this overlap in word senses between commercial and military fleets grew out of the inherently dual-use nature of fleets. Although nationality of commercial vessels has little importance in peacetime trade other than for tax avoidance, it can have greater meaning during wartime, when supply chains become matters of patriotic attack and defense, when in some cases private vessels are temporarily converted to military vessels; the latter was important, common, before 20th-century military technology existed, when adding artillery and naval infantry to any sailing vessel could render it as martial as any military-owned vessel.
Such privateering has been rendered obsolete in blue-water strategy since modern missile and aircraft systems grew to leapfrog over artillery and infantry in many respects. Naval warfare developed. Prior to the introduction of the cannon and ships with sufficient capacity to carry the large guns, navy warfare involved ramming and boarding actions. In the time of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, naval warfare centered on long, narrow vessels powered by banks of oarsmen designed to ram and sink enemy vessels or come alongside the enemy vessel so its occupants could be attacked hand-to-hand. Naval warfare continued in this vein through the Middle Ages until the cannon became commonplace and capable of being reloaded enough to be reused in the same battle; the Chola Dynasty of medieval India was known as one of the greatest naval powers of its time from 300 BC to 1279 AD. The Chola Navy, Chola kadarpadai comprised the naval forces of the Chola Empire along with several other Naval-arms of the country.
The Chola navy played a vital role in the expansion of the Chola Tamil kingdom, including the conquest of the Sri Lanka islands, Sri Vijaya, the spread of Hinduism, Tamil architecture and Tamil culture to Southeast Asia and in curbing the piracy in Southeast Asia in 900 CE. In ancient China, large naval battles were known since the Qin dynasty, employing the war junk during the Han dynasty. However, China's first official standing navy was not established until the Southern Song dynasty in the 12th century, a time when gunpowder was a revolutionary new application to warfare. Nusantaran thalassocracies made extensive use of naval power and technologies; this enabled the seafaring Malay people to attack as far as the coast of Tanganyika and Mozambique with 1000 boats and attempted to take the citadel of Qanbaloh, about 7,000 km to their West, in 945-946 AD. In 1350 AD Majapahit launched its largest military expedition, the invasion of Pasai, with 400 large jong and innumerable smaller vessels.
The second largest military expedition, invasion of Singapura in 1398, Majapahit deployed 300 jong with no less than 200,000 men. The mass and deck space required to carry a large number of cannon made oar-based propulsion impossible, ships came to rely on sails. Warships were designed to carry increasing numbers of cannon and naval tactics evolved to bring a ship's firepower to bear in a broadside, with ships-of-the-line arranged in a line of battle; the development of large capacity, sail-powered ships carrying cannon led to a rapid expansion of European navies the Spanish and Portuguese navies which dominated in the 16th and early 17th centuries, helped propel the age of exploration and colonialism. The repulsion of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet revolutionized naval warfare by the succe
Line of battle
In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which a naval fleet of ships forms a line end to end. Its first use is disputed, variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652, with line-of-battle tactics in widespread use by 1675. Compared with prior naval tactics, in which two opposing ships closed on one another for individual combat, the line of battle has the advantage that each ship in the line can fire its broadside without fear of hitting a friendly ship. Therefore, in a given period, the fleet can fire more shots. Another advantage is that a relative movement of the line in relation to some part of the enemy fleet allows for a systematic concentration of fire on that part; the other fleet can avoid this by maneuvering in a line itself, with a result typical for sea battle since 1675: two fleets sail alongside one another or on the opposite tack. A ship powerful enough to stand in the line of battle came to be called a ship of the line or line of battle ship, shortened to become the word battleship.
The first recorded mention of the use of a line of battle tactic is attested from 1500. The Instructions provided in 1500 by King Manuel I of Portugal to the commander of a fleet dispatched to the Indian Ocean suggests its use predated the written instructions. Portuguese fleets overseas deployed in line ahead, firing one broadside and putting about in order to return and discharge the other, resolving battles by gunnery alone. In a treatise of 1555, The Art of War at Sea, Portuguese theorist on naval warfare and shipbuilding, Fernão de Oliveira, recognized that at sea, the Portuguese "fight at a distance, as if from walls and fortresses...". He recommended the single line ahead as the ideal combat formation. A line-of-battle tactic had been used by the Fourth Portuguese India Armada in the Battle of Calicut, under Vasco da Gama in 1502, near Malabar against a Muslim fleet. One of the earliest recorded deliberate use is documented in the First Battle of Cannanore between the Third Portuguese India Armada under João da Nova and the naval forces of Calicut, earlier in the same year.
Another early, but different form of this strategy, was used in 1507 by Afonso de Albuquerque at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, in the first conquest of Ormuz. Albuquerque commanded a fleet of six carracks manned by 460 men, entered Ormuz Bay, being surrounded by 250 warships and a 20.000 men army on land, Albuquerque made his small fleet circle like a carrousel, but in a line end-to-end, destroyed most of the ships that surrounded his squad. He proceeded to capture Ormuz. While it is well documented that Maarten Tromp first used it in the Action of 18 September 1639, some have disputed this. One of the first precise written instructions in any language adopting the formation were contained in the English Navy's Fighting Instructions, written by Admiral Robert Blake and published in 1653. Individual captains on both sides of the First Anglo-Dutch War appear to have experimented with the technique in 1652 including Blake at the Battle of Goodwin Sands. From the mid-16th century the cannon became the most important weapon in naval warfare, replacing boarding actions as the decisive factor in combat.
At the same time, the natural tendency in the design of galleons was for longer ships with lower castles, which meant faster, more stable vessels. These newer warships could mount more cannons along the sides of their decks, concentrating their firepower along their broadside; until the mid-17th century, the tactics of a fleet were to "charge" the enemy, firing bow chaser cannon, which did not deploy the broadside to its best effect. These new vessels required new tactics, "since... all the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war, hence it is the beam that must and always be turned toward the enemy. On the other hand, it is necessary that the sight of the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship. Only one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy these conditions; that formation is the line ahead. This line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of battle, as the basis of all fleet tactics."The line-of-battle tactic favored large ships that could sail and maintain their place in the line in the face of heavy fire.
The change toward the line of battle depended on an increased disciplining of society and the demands of powerful centralized government to keep permanent fleets led by a corps of professional officers. These officers were better able to manage and communicate between the ships they commanded than the merchant crews that comprised large parts of a navy's force; the new type of warfare that developed during the early modern period was marked by a successively stricter organization. Battle formations became standardized, based on mathematically calculated ideal models; the increased power of states at the expense of individual landowners led to larger armies and navies. The line of battle was marked by tactical rigidity and resulted in indecisive engagements. Fleet commanders sometimes met with greater success by altering or abandoning the line of battle outright by breaking the enemy line and moving through it, by trying to cut off and isolate part of the enemy's line while concentrating a stronger force on it, or by trying to "double up" the enemy's ships.
The main problem with the line of battle was that when the fleets are of similar size, naval actions using it were indecisive. The French in particular were adept at gunnery and would take the leeward position to enable their fleet to retire d
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands. It is located in the province of South Holland, at the mouth of the Nieuwe Maas channel leading into the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta at the North Sea, its history goes back to 1270, when a dam was constructed in the Rotte, after which people settled around it for safety. In 1340, Rotterdam was granted city rights by the Count of Holland. A major logistic and economic centre, Rotterdam is Europe's largest port, it has a population of 633,471. Rotterdam is known for its Erasmus University, its riverside setting, lively cultural life and maritime heritage; the near-complete destruction of the city centre in the World War II Rotterdam Blitz has resulted in a varied architectural landscape, including sky-scrapers designed by renowned architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Piet Blom and Ben van Berkel. The Rhine and Scheldt give waterway access into the heart of Western Europe, including the industrialized Ruhr; the extensive distribution system including rail and waterways have earned Rotterdam the nicknames "Gateway to Europe" and "Gateway to the World".
The settlement at the lower end of the fen stream Rotte dates from at least 900 CE. Around 1150, large floods in the area ended development, leading to the construction of protective dikes and dams, including Schielands Hoge Zeedijk along the northern banks of the present-day Nieuwe Maas. A dam on the Rotte was located at the present-day Hoogstraat. On 7 July 1340, Count Willem IV of Holland granted city rights to Rotterdam, whose population was only a few thousand. Around the year 1350, a shipping canal, the Rotterdamse Schie was completed, which provided Rotterdam access to the larger towns in the north, allowing it to become a local trans-shipment centre between the Netherlands and Germany, to urbanize; the port of Rotterdam grew but into a port of importance, becoming the seat of one of the six "chambers" of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company. The greatest spurt of growth, both in port activity and population, followed the completion of the Nieuwe Waterweg in 1872.
The city and harbor started to expand on the south bank of the river. The Witte Huis or White House skyscraper, inspired by American office buildings and built in 1898 in the French Château-style, is evidence of Rotterdam's rapid growth and success; when completed, it was the tallest office building in Europe, with a height of 45 m. During World War I the city was the world's largest spy centre because of Dutch neutrality and its strategic location in between Great-Britain and German-occupied Belgium. Many spies who were arrested and executed in Britain were led by German secret agents operating from Rotterdam. MI6 had its main European office on de Boompjes. From there the British occupied Belgium. During World War I, an average of 25,000 Belgian refugees lived in the city, as well as hundreds of German deserters and escaped Allied prisoners of war. During World War II, the German army invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Adolf Hitler had hoped to conquer the country in just one day, but his forces met unexpectedly fierce resistance.
The Dutch army was forced to capitulate on 15 May 1940, following the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May and the threat of bombing of other Dutch cities. The heart of Rotterdam was completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe; some 80,000 civilians were made homeless and 900 were killed. The City Hall survived the bombing. Ossip Zadkine attempted to capture the event with his statue De Verwoeste Stad; the statue stands near the Leuvehaven, not far from the Erasmusbrug in the centre of the city, on the north shore of the river Nieuwe Maas. Rotterdam was rebuilt from the 1950s through to the 1970s, it remained quite windy and open until the city councils from the 1980s on began developing an active architectural policy. Daring and new styles of apartments, office buildings and recreation facilities resulted in a more'livable' city centre with a new skyline. In the 1990s, the Kop van Zuid was built on the south bank of the river as a new business centre. Rotterdam was voted 2015 European City of the Year by the Academy of Urbanism.
A Guardian profile of Rem Koolhaas begins "If you put the last 50 years of architecture in a blender, spat it out in building-sized chunks across the skyline, you would end up with something that looked a bit like Rotterdam."'Rotterdam' is divided into a northern and a southern part by the river Nieuwe Maas, connected by: the Beneluxtunnel. The former railway lift bridge De Hef is preserved as a monument in lifted position between the Noordereiland and the south of Rotterdam; the city centre is located on the northern bank of the Nieuwe Maas, although recent urban development has extended the centre to parts of southern Rotterdam known as De Kop van Zuid. From its inland core, Rotterdam reaches the North Sea by a swathe of predominantly harbour area. Built behind di
Tunis
Tunis is the capital and the largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis referred to as Grand Tunis, has some 2,700,000 inhabitants. Situated on a large Mediterranean Sea gulf, behind the Lake of Tunis and the port of La Goulette, the city extends along the coastal plain and the hills that surround it. At its core lies its ancient medina, a World Heritage Site. East of the medina through the Sea Gate begins the modern city, or Ville Nouvelle, traversed by the grand Avenue Habib Bourguiba, where the colonial-era buildings provide a clear contrast to smaller, older structures. Further east by the sea lie the suburbs of Carthage, La Marsa, Sidi Bou Said; as the capital city of the country, Tunis is the focus of Tunisian political and administrative life. It has two cultural centres, as well as a municipal theatre, used by international theatre groups and a summer festival, the International Festival of Carthage, held in July. Tunis is the transcription of the Arabic name تونس which can be pronounced as "Tūnus", "Tūna or delata", or "Tūnis".
All three variations were mentioned by the Greek-Syrian geographer al-Rumi Yaqout in his Mu'jam al-Bûldan. Different explanations exist for the origin of the name Tunis; some scholars relate it to the Phoenician goddess Tanith, as many ancient cities were named after patron deities. Some scholars claim that it originated from Tynes, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and Polybius in the course of descriptions of a location resembling present-day Al-Kasbah. Another possibility is that it was derived from the Berber verbal root ens which means "to lie down" or "to pass the night". Given the variations of the precise meaning over time and space, the term Tunis can mean "camp at night", "camp", or "stop". There are some mentions in ancient Roman sources of such names of nearby towns as Tuniza, Thunusuda and Thunisa; as all of these Berber villages were situated on Roman roads, they undoubtedly served as rest-stations or stops. The historical study of Carthage is problematic; because its culture and records were destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War few Carthaginian primary historical sources survive.
While there are a few ancient translations of Punic texts into Greek and Latin, as well as inscriptions on monuments and buildings discovered in Northwest Africa, the main sources are Greek and Roman historians, including Livy, Appian, Cornelius Nepos, Silius Italicus, Dio Cassius, Herodotus. These writers belonged to peoples in competition, in conflict, with Carthage. Greek cities contended with Carthage over Sicily, the Romans fought three wars against Carthage. Not their accounts of Carthage are hostile. Tunis was a Berber settlement; the existence of the town is attested by sources dating from the 4th century BC. Situated on a hill, Tunis served as an excellent point from which the comings and goings of naval and caravan traffic to and from Carthage could be observed. Tunis was one of the first towns in the region to fall under Carthaginian control, in the centuries that followed Tunis was mentioned in the military histories associated with Carthage. Thus, during Agathocles' expedition, which landed at Cape Bon in 310 BC, Tunis changed hands on various occasions.
During the Mercenary War, it is possible that Tunis served as a center for the native population of the area, that its population was composed of peasants and craftsmen. Compared to the ancient ruins of Carthage, the ruins of ancient Tunis are not as large. According to Strabo, it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC during the Third Punic War. Both Tunis and Carthage were destroyed; the city is mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana as Thuni. In the system of Roman roads for the Roman province of Africa, Tunis had the title of mutatio. Tunis Romanized, was eventually Christianized and became the seat of a bishop. However, Tunis remained modestly sized compared to Carthage during this time; the modern city of Tunis was settled by Arab Muslim troops, around the 7th century AD. The medina of Tunis, the oldest section of the city, dates from this period, during which the region was conquered by the Umayyad emir Hasan ibn al-Nu'man al-Ghasani; the city had the natural advantage of coastal access, via the Mediterranean, to the major ports of southern Europe.
Early on, Tunis played a military role. From the beginning of the 8th century Tunis was the chef-lieu of the area: it became the Arabs' naval base in the western Mediterranean Sea, took on considerable military importance. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city benefited from economic improvements and became the second most important in the kingdom, it was the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909 when control over Ifriqiya was lost to the newly founded Fatimid Caliphate. Local opposition to the authorities began to intensify in September 94
Jack Ward
John Ward or Birdy known as Jack Ward or as Yusuf Raïs, was an English pirate around the turn of the 17th century who became a Barbary Corsair operating out of Tunis during the early 17th century. What little is known about Ward's early life comes from a pamphlet purportedly written by someone who sailed with him during his pirate days. Ward seems to have been born about 1553 in Faversham, Kent, in southeast England. Like many born in coastal areas, he spent his youth and early adult years working in the fisheries. After the failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588, Ward found work as a privateer, plundering Spanish ships with a license from Queen Elizabeth I of England; when James I of England ended the war with Spain upon assuming the throne in 1603, many privateers refused to give up their livelihood and continued to plunder. Those who did were considered pirates because they no longer had valid licenses – called letters of marque – issued by the state. Around 1604, Ward was pressed into service on a ship sailing under the authority of the King, where he was placed in the Channel Fleet and served aboard a ship named the Lyon's Whelp.
According to Andrew Barker, a captive of Ward's who wrote A True & Accurate Account of the beginning, proceedings and now present estate of Captain Ward and Danseker, Ward was drinking in a Plymouth tavern with thirty of his shipmates. He is alleged to have said: My mates, quoth he, whats to be done? Here's a scurvy world, as scurvily we live in't, we feed here upon the water, on the Kings salt beef, without ere a pence to buy us a bissell when we come ashore. Revel, be merry, every one at the proper charge of his own purse; this night, when the Captain and Officers shall conjecture nothing but that we are drawing dry the pot, we'll be diving arm deep in the Fugitives bags. Ward and his colleagues stole a small 25-ton barque from Portsmouth Harbour. Ward's comrades elected him captain, one of the earliest precedents for pirates choosing their own leader, they sailed to the Isle of Wight and captured another ship, the Violet, a ship rumored to be carrying the treasure of Roman Catholic refugees.
However, the ship turned out to be empty of treasure, but the enterprising Ward used her to capture a much larger French ship. Ward and his men sailed for the Mediterranean where he was able to acquire a Dutch Flyboat of thirty-two guns, which he renamed The Gift. Ward first sailed for Algiers. Algiers had been attacked by Richard Giffard, only months earlier, they sailed to the Moroccan Atlantic port city Salé, Morocco where in 1605 several English and Dutch sailors, including Richard Bishop and Anthony Johnson, joined Ward's crew. In the summer of 1606 Ward captured a dhow in the Strait of Gibraltar carrying Catholic slaves. In August 1606 Ward arranged with Uthman Dey to use Tunis as a base of operations. Uthman Dey, or Kara Osman Dey, was the commander of the Janissary corps in Tunis; that garrison supplanted the Pasha of Tunis as the rulers of Tunis in 1598, making Uthman Dey the military dictator of the city. According to their arrangement Uthman Dey would have first refusal of all goods, up to ten percent of all goods captured.
In early November 1606 Ward captured the English merchantman John Baptist under Captain John Keye. He renamed the merchantman Little John after the English folk hero. From this base, Jack Ward was able to capture many ships from several European states. Ward's top lieutenant, William Graves, captured a small English merchantman called the York Bonaventure captained by Andrew Barker; the richest hauls on these early cruises were the valuable Venetian ships Carminati. John Ward outfitted Gift, Little John, Rubi, & Carminati for piracy over the late winter and early spring of 1607, his fleet headed for the Adriatic Sea. Ward, onboard Gift, found only the Rubi before heading for the Eastern Mediterranean. On 26 April 1607, between Cyprus and Turkey, Ward spotted "a great argosy of fourteen or fifteen hundred tons" named Reniera e Soderina Rubi was 400 tons, Gift only 200 tons, yet the crew elected to attack the Reniera e Soderina, they fought a three hour firefight, but Reniera e Soderina was too large to maneuver in the light winds, so her guns never scored a hit.
Ward's ships managed to pierce her hull five times. Ward ordered his ships to close and prepare to board; the crew of Reniera e Soderina voted to fight and repel the boarding party, the captain handed out small arms. However, a well timed volley of chain shot from Rubi hit at least two defenders; the carpenter aboard Reniera e Soderina confronted his captain, telling him to surrender or face a mutiny. The captain consented, Ward captured Reniera e Soderina with no further fighting. According to Andrew Barker her cargo was "esteemed to be worth two millions in the least." The English government didn't concur. They estimated the cargo to be worth on £500,000. Still, a report from the Venetian Ambassador in London told the privy council that Venice was close to declaring war on England due to Ward's piracy; that ambassador, Secretary Esposizioni, wrote: "That famous pirate, Ward, so well-known in this port for the damage he has done, is beyond a doubt the greatest scoundrel that sailed from England.
He has refitted a Venetian ship Soderina and turned her into a berton, with forty pieces of bronze artillery on the lower, twenty on the upper deck. He has given his old ship to Captain an
Peter Lely
Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. Lely was born Pieter van der Faes to Dutch parents in Soest in Westphalia, where his father was an officer serving in the armed forces of the Elector of Brandenburg. Lely studied painting in Haarlem, he became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1637. He is reputed to have adopted the surname "Lely" from a heraldic lily on the gable of the house where his father was born in The Hague, he arrived in London in around 1643, His early English paintings mythological or religious scenes, or portraits set in a pastoral landscape, show influences from Anthony van Dyck and the Dutch baroque. Lely's portraits were well received, he succeeded Anthony van Dyck as the most fashionable portrait artist in England, he became a freeman of the Painter-Stainers' Company in 1647 and was portrait artist to Charles I. His talent ensured that his career was not interrupted by Charles's execution, he served Oliver Cromwell, whom he painted "warts and all", Richard Cromwell.
In the years around 1650 the poet Sir Richard Lovelace wrote two poems about Lely – Peinture and "See what a clouded majesty..." After the English Restoration in 1660, Lely was appointed as Charles II's Principal Painter in Ordinary in 1661, with a stipend of £200 per year, as Van Dyck had enjoyed in the previous Stuart reign. Lely became a naturalised English subject in 1662; the young Robert Hooke came to London to follow an apprenticeship with Lely before being given a place at Westminster School by Richard Busby. Demand was high, Lely and his large workshop were prolific. After Lely painted a sitter's head, Lely's pupils would complete the portrait in one of a series of numbered poses; as a result, Lely is the first English painter who has left "an enormous mass of work", although the quality of studio pieces is variable. As Brian Sewell put it: There may well be thousands of these portraits, ranging from rare prime originals of quite astonishing quality, to crass workshop replicas by assistants drilled to imitate Lely's way with the fashionable face and repeat the stock patterns of the dress, flowers, musical instruments and other essential embellishments of portraiture.
On Lely's death in 1680 his executors employed a dozen such slaves to complete for sale the many unfinished canvases stacked about his studio. It is these half-and-half and hardly-at-all Lelys that line the corridors of the indigent aristocracy whose houses are now administered by the National Trust, no sight is more aesthetically and intellectually numbing, unless it is a corridor of Knellers. Among his most famous paintings are a series of 10 portraits of ladies from the Royal court, known as the "Windsor Beauties" at Windsor Castle but now at Hampton Court Palace, his most famous non-portrait work is Nymphs by a fountain in Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lely played a significant role in introducing the mezzotint to Britain, as he realized its possibilities for publicising his portraits, he encouraged Dutch mezzotinters to come to Britain to copy his work, laying the foundations for the English mezzotint tradition. Lely lived from about 1651 to 1680 at No. 10-11 Great Piazza, Covent Garden. He was knighted in 1679.
Lely died soon afterwards at his easel in Covent Garden, while painting a portrait of the Duchess of Somerset. Sir Peter was buried at Covent Garden. In his lifetime, Lely was known as a skillful connoisseur of art, his collection of Old Masters, including Veronese, Claude Lorrain and Rubens, a fabulous collection of drawings, was broken up and sold after his death, raising the immense sum of £26,000. Some items in it, acquired by Lely from the Commonwealth dispersal of Charles I's art collections, such as the Lely Venus, were re-acquired by the Royal Collection, he was replaced as court portraitist by Sir Godfrey Kneller a German-born Dutchman, whose style drew from Lely's but reflecting Continental trends. Between them they established the basic English portrait style followed by less fashionable painters for decades. Amongst Lely's pupils were Willem Wissing. A horse was named after him, finishing fourth in the 1996 Grand National. Peter Lely's works Lionel Henry. "Lely, Peter". In Lee, Sidney.
Dictionary of National Biography. 33. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 19–21. Dethloff, Diana. "Lely, Sir Peter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16419. "Sir Peter Lely". Encyclopeadia Britannica. 11 September 2018. Millar, Oliver. "Lely, Sir Peter'". Grove Dictionary of Art. 19. London. Pp. 119–125. Millar, Oliver. Sir Peter Lely 1618–80. London: National Portrait Gallery. Rossetti, William Michael. "Lely, Sir Peter". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 16. Cambridge University Press. Waterhouse, Ellis. Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790. New York: Viking Penguin. Whinney, Margaret. English Art 1625–1714. Oxford: Clarendon Press; the Oliver Millar Archive.
Dutch Republic
