17 October] 1662 when Charles II of England sold his sovereign rights to Dunkirk and Fort-Mardyck to his cousin Louis XIV of France.
[2] France, effectively ruled by Mazarin, had promised, as part of the Treaty of Paris (1657) that Dunkirk and Mardyck, which were in the Spanish Netherlands, would be ceded to England.
Mazarin honoured that pledge after the victory at The Dunes, and Louis XIV himself delivered Dunkirk over to Lockhart, who was Cromwell's Ambassador to France, on or about 24 June 1658.
[citation needed] The Treaty of the Pyrenees in November 1659 confirmed English possession of Dunkirk, which then passed to Charles II following the Restoration in 1660.
Dunkirk was garrisoned by an uneasy mixture of English former New Model Army troops of republican sympathies and several Royalist regiments who had served under Charles in exile, which included many Irish Catholics.