Witte de With
Witte de With | |
---|---|
Birth name | Witte Corneliszoon de With |
Nickname(s) | Dubbelwit |
Born | 28 March 1599 Brielle, Dutch Republic |
Died | 8 November 1658 Øresund, Denmark | (aged 59)
Buried | |
Allegiance | Dutch Republic |
Years of service | 1616–1658 |
Battles/wars | Eighty Years' War |
Witte Corneliszoon de With (28 March 1599 – 8 November 1658) was a Dutch naval officer who served during the Eighty Years' War and the First Anglo-Dutch War.
Early life and childhood
De With was born on a farmstead in the hamlet of Hoogendijk near
After some failed minor jobs, he went on his first sea voyage to the
Until October 1617, he participated in two trade voyages to
In spring 1622, De With was appointed lieutenant on Schapenham's vessel. When the latter became ill, De With functioned as
In July 1622, De With became flag captain of Delft of now Vice-Admiral Schapenham, who, from 29 April 1623, carried out the spectacular raid organised by the
Reaching
Capture of Spain's treasure fleet
In 1627, De With married for the first time, with his second cousin Maria de With from
In 1629, the five Dutch admiralties refused to allow Heyn, effectively their new supreme commander, to enlarge his staff with a special tactical-operational officer, for which function Heyn had De With in mind. De With now hoped to be appointed flag captain on the Vlieghende Groene Draeck, but Admiral Maerten Tromp was chosen instead. De With was made captain of the Prins Hendrik in June; the same month Heyn was killed in action. Disappointed and despairing of ever being promoted, De With left direct naval service in November.
In September, his daughter Cornelia was born. From May 1630 to 1633, De With was Commodore of the Grote Visserij, the administrative body controlling and militarily protecting the Herring Fleet. The change, however, was largely a formality as regular warships were used for this task: De With remained captain of the Prins Hendrik and functioned as flag captain whenever admirals had to make use of this vessel.
In May 1631, his first wife died. In August, he remarried the eighteen-year-old Hillegonda van Goch, the daughter of a Rotterdam patrician. In 1633, his second son Cornelis was born, but the boy died in July 1634. Early in 1634, De With rejoined the navy for four months when Lieutenant-Admiral
Battle of the Downs
Tromp as well as De With had left the navy after a conflict with Van Dorp. The two most talented Dutch navy officers were sidetracked by the attempt of stadtholder Frederick Henry to centralise the cumbersome Dutch naval administration with its five admiralties. Both Van Dorp and Liefhebber were brave men but poor managers. Overworked by the many difficulties and political strife brought by the reorganisation, they feared being replaced by the younger and more competent Tromp and De With. However, the removal of the latter only delayed the inevitable.
In the summer of 1637 the fleet supply system collapsed, bringing the hungry and thirsty sailors to the brink of a general mutiny. The Dunkirkers repeatedly broke through the Dutch blockade of Dunkirk to attack Dutch shipping. Charles I of England exploited the crisis to force Dutch North Sea herring fishers to pay for fishing permits. All that caused such an outcry that when Van Dorp offered his resignation, Frederick Henry was forced to accept it, also firing Liefhebber. He replaced them on 29 October with Tromp and De With. However, De With was again severely disappointed when he was refused supreme command. Instead, as Vice-Admiral of Holland and West Frisia, he was second in command under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp.
De With fought under Tromp at the Battle of the Downs (1639), where the Spanish fleet was destroyed. De With became very jealous of Tromp's popularity after this victory. In the same battle, he made an enemy of Zealandic Vice-Admiral Johan Evertsen, and accused him of cowardice and avarice.
Court martial
In 1640, De With was brought to trial when, his fleet having been dispersed by a storm, he had returned to
In 1647, De With was sent with a poorly equipped fleet to assist the Dutch colony of
On his return, he went to the
In February 1651, he was acquitted of most charges, the punishment being reduced to a loss of wages for the period involved. In September 1651, De With was again on convoy duty.
The First Anglo-Dutch War
In the
Conflict with Denmark
After the commencement of the
Death in the Battle of the Sound
De With met his end in November 1658 at the
The arch-rivalry with Tromp
De With had a lifelong rivalry with Admiral Maarten Tromp. As Dutch naval historian Johan Carel Marinus Warnsinck put it: "He was feared and hated by his inferiors (on several occasions, crews refused to let him on board to use their ship as flagship), shunned by his equals and always full of insubordination against his superiors". De With was also seen as courageous, competent and an excellent sailor. He was embittered by the neglect of the fleet between 1639 and 1650.
Pamphleteer
One of the more remarkable aspects of De With's personality was his being a notorious pamphleteer, publishing many booklets, anonymously or under the name of friends, in which he sometimes praised but more often ridiculed or even insulted his fellow officers. Tromp was a favourite subject for all three categories.[citation needed]
References
Sources
- Warnsinck, J.C.M., 1938, Drie zeventiende-eeuwsche admiraals : Piet Heyn, Witte de With, Jan Evertsen
- Doedens, A., 2008, Witte de With 1599-1658 — Wereldwijde strijd op zee in de Gouden eeuw, Hilversum, Verloren, ISBN 9789087040604
External links
- Media related to Witte de With at Wikimedia Commons