The Raid on the Medway, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in June 1667, was a successful attack conducted by the Dutch navy on English warships laid up in the fleet anchorages off Chatham Dockyard and Gillingham in the county of Kent.

"[4] In 1667 Charles II's active fleet was in a reduced state due to recent expenditure restrictions, with the remaining "big ships" laid up.

[5] Based on these assumptions De Witt thought it best to end the war quickly with a clear victory, thereby ensuring a more advantageous settlement for the Dutch Republic.

Most Dutch flag officers had strong doubts about the feasibility of such a daring attack, fearing the treacherous shoals in the Thames Estuary, but they obeyed orders nevertheless.

That day an attempt was made to capture a fleet of twenty English merchantmen seen higher up the Thames in the direction of London, but this failed as these fled to the west, beyond Gravesend.

Most frigates were assembled in squadrons at Harwich and in Scotland, leaving the London area to be protected by only a small number of active ships, most of them prizes taken earlier in the war from the Dutch.

This explains why no effective countermeasures were taken though it took the Dutch about five days to reach Chatham, slowly maneuvering through the shoals, leaving the heavier vessels behind as a covering force.

The Dutch fleet carried about a thousand marines and landing parties were dispatched to Canvey Island in Essex and opposite on the Kent side at Sheerness.

These men had strict orders by Cornelis de Witt not to plunder, as the Dutch wanted to shame the English whose troops had sacked Terschelling during Holmes's Bonfire in August 1666.

Charles ordered the Earl of Oxford on 8 June to mobilise the militia of all counties around London; also all available barges should be used to lay a ship's bridge across the Lower Thames, so that the English cavalry could quickly switch positions from one bank to the other.

When Albemarle arrived, however, he found only twelve of the eight hundred dockyard men expected and these in a state of panic; of the thirty sloops only ten were present, the other twenty having been used to evacuate the personal possessions of several officials, such as Pett's ship models.

This chain system had been built during the English Civil War to repel a possible attack by the Royalist fleet, replacing earlier versions, the first dating back to 1585.

This way the large Golden Phoenix and House of Sweden (the former VOC ships Gulden Phenix and Huis van Swieten) and Welcome and Leicester were lost and the smaller Constant John, Unicorn and John and Sarah; when this was shown by Spragge to be insufficient, personally sounding the depth of a second channel despite the assurances by Pett, they were joined by Barbados Merchant, Dolphin, Edward and Eve, Hind and Fortune.

The defensive chain placed across the river had at its lowest point been lying practically nine feet (about three metres) under the water between its stages, owing to its weight, so it was still possible for light ships to pass it.

The positions of Charles V and Matthias (former Dutch merchantmen Carolus Quintus and Geldersche Ruyter), just above the chain were adjusted to enable them to bring their broadsides to bear upon it.

The frigate Marmaduke and Norway Merchant were sunk above the chain; the large Sancta Maria (former VOC ship Slot van Honingen of 70 cannon) foundered while being moved for the same purpose.

Royal Charles, with only thirty cannon aboard and abandoned by her skeleton crew when they saw Matthias burn, was then captured by the Irishman Thomas Tobiasz, the flag captain of Vice-Admiral Johan de Liefde, and carried off to the Netherlands despite an unfavourable tide.

As Andrew Marvell satirised: On 13 June, the whole of the Thames side as far up as London was in a panic—some spread the rumour that the Dutch were in the process of transporting a French army from Dunkirk for a full-scale invasion—and many wealthy citizens fled the city, taking their most valuable possessions with them.

The Dutch continued their advance into the Chatham docks with the fireships Delft, Rotterdam, Draak, Wapen van Londen, Gouden Appel and Princess, under English fire from Upnor Castle and from three shore batteries.

The diary of Samuel Pepys,[13] as secretary of the Navy Board, is often cited in descriptions of the raid, as it gives direct information about the attitude of the policy makers in this period and of the psychological impact of the attack.

The King and Duke of York both laughed at it, and made no matter, but said, "Let us be safe, and let them talk, for there is nothing will trouble them more, nor will prevent their coming more, than to hear that we are fortifying ourselves".Only on 3 June does Pepys become aware that the Dutch are out in force: the Dutch are known to be abroad with eighty sail of ships of war, and twenty fire-ships; and the French come into the Channell with twenty sail of men-of-war, and five fireships, while we have not a ship at sea to do them any hurt with; but are calling in all we can, while our Embassadors are treating at Bredah; and the Dutch look upon them as come to beg peace, and use them accordingly; and all this through the negligence of our Prince, who hath power, if he would, to master all these with the money and men that he hath had the command of, and may now have, if he would mind his business.

[13]Not until 10 June does Pepys understand that the Thames is the target: "News brought us that, the Dutch are come up as high as the Nore; and more pressing orders for fireships."

Soon, however, this confidence is shattered: "(...)his clerk, Powell, do tell me that ill newes is come to Court of the Dutch breaking the Chaine at Chatham; which struck me to the heart.

Upon which newes the King and Duke of York have been below [London Bridge] since four o'clock in the morning, to command the sinking of ships at Barking-Creeke, and other places, to stop their coming up higher: which put me into such a fear, that I presently resolved of my father's and wife's going into the country; and, at two hours' warning, they did go by the coach this day, with about £1300 in gold in their night-bag.The entire city is in a state of panic: (...)never were people so dejected as they are in the City all over at this day; and do talk most loudly, even treason; as, that we are bought and sold – that we are betrayed by the Papists, and others, about the King; cry out that the office of the Ordnance hath been so backward as no powder to have been at Chatham nor Upnor Castle till such a time, and the carriages all broken; that Legg is a Papist; that Upnor, the old good castle built by Queen Elizabeth, should be lately slighted; that the ships at Chatham should not be carried up higher.

"[13] As he expected a stiffening English resistance, Cornelis de Witt on 14 June decided to forego a further penetration and withdraw, towing Royal Charles along as a war trophy; Unity also was removed with a prize crew.

[citation needed] The Dutch fleet, after celebrating by collectively thanking God for "a great victory in a just war in self-defence" tried to repeat its success by attacking several other ports on the English east coast but was repelled each time.

[13] Wharf official John Norman estimated the damage caused by the raid at about £20,000, apart from the replacement costs of the four lost capital ships; the total loss of the Royal Navy must have been close to £200,000.

In the 19th century, several British writers expanded on this theme by suggesting it had been the Dutch who had sued for peace after their defeats in 1666—although in fact these had made them, if anything, more belligerent—and that only by treacherously attacking the English had they nevertheless been able to gain a victory; an example of this is When London burned, written by the novelist G. A. Henty in 1895.

Royal Charles, her draft too deep to be of use in the shallow Dutch waters, was permanently drydocked near Hellevoetsluis as a tourist attraction, with day trips being organised for large parties, often of foreign state guests.

[16] On 14 March 2012 the transom was transported to England on board the Royal Netherlands Navy patrol ship Holland, accompanied by the then Dutch crown prince Willem-Alexander, where it was put on display, in commodate, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich as part of the Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames exhibition held on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.