The English and the Dutch were both participants in the 16th century European religious conflicts during the Reformation period between the Roman Catholic House of Habsburg and the opposing Protestant states.

At the same time, as the Age of Exploration dawned in the West, the Dutch and English both sought profits overseas in the New World of the recently discovered continents of the Americas.

The Dutch innovation in the trading of shares in a joint-stock company allowed them to finance expeditions with stock subscriptions sold in the United Provinces of the Netherlands and in London.

This led to conflict between the major Dutch cities and the new Stadtholder, William II of Orange, bringing the internal controversies in the Republic to the brink of civil war.

Later, Roman Catholic sympathiser King Charles I of England made a number of secret agreements with Spain, directed against Dutch sea power.

He also embarked on a major programme of naval reconstruction, enforcing ship money to rebuild and expand the Royal Navy with financing the building of such prestige battle vessels as the Sovereign of the Seas.

But fearful of endangering his relations with the powerful Dutch stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, his assistance to Spain was limited in practice to allowing Spanish troops on their way to Dunkirk to make use of English shipping.

Its navy was internally divided, though its officers tended to favour the parliamentary side; after the execution by public beheading of King Charles I in 1649, however, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658, served 1653-1658), was able to unite his country into the republican Commonwealth of England.

He then revamped the English navy by expanding the number of ships, promoting officers on merit rather than family connections, and cracking down on embezzlement by suppliers and dockyard staff, thereby positioning England to mount a global challenge to Dutch mercantile dominance.

Early in 1651 Cromwell tried to ease tensions by sending a delegation to The Hague proposing that the Dutch Republic join the Commonwealth and assist the English in conquering most of Spanish America for its extremely valuable resources.

This attempt to draw the Dutch into a lopsided alliance with England in fact led to war: the ruling faction in the States of Holland was unable to formulate an answer to this unexpected offer and the pro-Stuart Orangists incited mobs to harass Cromwell's envoys.

As both nations were by now exhausted and Cromwell had dissolved the aggressive warlike Rump Parliament, ongoing peace negotiations could be brought to fruition, albeit after many months of slow diplomatic exchanges.

The war ended on 5 April 1654, with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster of 1654 (ratified by the States General on 8 May), but the commercial rivalry was not resolved, the English having failed to replace the Dutch as the world's dominant trade nation.

After the English Restoration in 1660, newly-crowned King Charles II tried through diplomatic means to make his nephew, Prince William III of Orange, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic.

At the same time, Charles promoted a series of mercantilist policies aimed at encountering Dutch mercantile dominance, which again led to a renewed deterioration in Anglo-Dutch relations.

They reckoned that a combination of naval battles and irregular privateering missions would cripple the Dutch Republic and force the States General to agree to a more favourable peace.

[2] The plan was for English ships to be replenished, and sailors paid, with looted booty seized from captured Dutch merchant vessels returning from overseas.

However, as he was bound by the secret Treaty of Dover, Charles II was obliged to assist Louis XIV in his attack on the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War.

When the Royal French Army was halted by the Hollandic Water Line (a defence system involving strategic flooding), an attempt was made to invade the Dutch Republic by sea.

The conflict consisted mostly of a series of successful British operations against Dutch colonial interests, though one fleet action took place at the battle of Dogger Bank on 5 August 1781, which was indecisive.

The war ended in a conclusive British victory and exposed the weakness of the political and economic foundations of the Dutch Republic, leading to instability and revolution.