Hellburner

[1] The hellburners were constructed by the Italian engineer Federigo Giambelli, who had been hired and subsidised by Elizabeth I of England, unofficially supporting the rebels, to assist the city.

Giambelli first proposed to use three medium-sized merchantmen, the Oranje, Post and Gulden Leeuw, but this was refused, only two smaller vessels being made available: the Fortuyn ("Fortune") and Hoop ("Hope") of about seventy tons.

In fact the commander supervising the operation, Vice-Admiral Jacob Jacobsen, set all ships on their course in quick succession, from fort Boerenschans, the hellburners last.

The decks of the hellburners were piled with wood and small charges with slow fuses, which gave the impression that they were conventional fireships, causing the Spanish troops to try to extinguish the fire.

The Fortuyn ran ashore on the west river bank some distance from the bridge and its, probably only partial, explosion did little damage to the Spanish forces, but the Hoop drifted along the same bank between the river shore and a protective row of anchored ships forming a raft in front of the main bridge and touched the latter near the junction of the fixed wooden shore structure and the attached ships.

When the time bomb aboard the Hoop exploded, about eight hundred troops were killed, the sconce Santa Maria was devastated, and the ship bridge was ripped apart over a distance of 60 metres; the blast was heard in an 80-kilometer radius.

Both were carried by the current clear of the raft, which, by a great error of judgment, as it now appeared, on the part of the builders, had only been made to protect the floating portion of the bridge.

The Hope disappeared, together with the men who had boarded her, and the block-house, against which she had struck, with all its garrison, while a large portion of the bridge, with all the troops stationed upon it, had vanished into air.

Months afterwards, his body was discovered adhering to the timber-work of the bridge, upon the ultimate removal of that structure, and was only recognized by a peculiar gold chain which he habitually wore.

They were actually nowhere near as deadly; the English at that moment lacked even the gunpowder to resupply their ships for regular use, but were successful in breaking the fleet's formation, their mistaken identity contributing to the panic.

Giambelli was in fact working on constructing a mined ship beam[clarification needed] from masts, costing £2000, to block the Thames against an invasion.