Robert Blake (1599 — 17 August 1657) was one of
the most important military commanders of the
Commonwealth of England, and one of
the most famous English admirals of the 17th century.
Blake was
one of thirteen siblings born to a merchant in Bridgwater
, Somerset
, where he
attended Bridgwater
Grammar School For Boys. After attending Wadham
College
, Oxford
, he had hoped to follow an academic career, but
failed to secure a fellowship to Merton College
, probably because of his political and religious
views (although it is said his height, 5 foot 6 inches, went
against him). Having returned to Bridgwater, probably
because of the death of his mother in 1638, he decided to stand for
election to
Parliament.
In politics
In 1640 Blake was elected as the Member of
Parliament for Bridgwater in the
Short Parliament. When the
English Civil War broke out during the
period of the
Long Parliament, and
having failed to be re-elected, Blake began his military career on
the side of the
parliamentarians despite
having no substantial experience of military or naval
matters.
He would
later return to serve in the Barebone's Parliament of 1653 for some
months when recovering from an injury sustained in the Battle of
Portland
, before returning to sea.
On land
Blake's
most famous exploits on land were at the Siege of Bristol (July 1643), Siege of Lyme (April 1644), Siege of
Taunton
(1645) and the Siege of
Dunster (November 1645). At Taunton he famously declared
that he would eat three of his four pairs of boots before he would
surrender.
At sea
Blake was appointed General at Sea (a rank corresponding to
Admiral) in 1649, and is often referred to
as the "Father of the Royal Navy". As well as being largely
responsible for building the largest navy the country had then ever
known, from a few tens of ships to well over a hundred, he was
first to keep a fleet at sea over the winter. He developed new
techniques to conduct blockades and landings; his "Sailing
instructions" and "Fighting Instructions", which were major
overhauls of
naval tactics written
while recovering from injury in 1653, were the foundation of
English
Naval tactics
in the Age of Sail. He was also the first to repeatedly
successfully attack despite fire from shore forts.
English Civil War
- See also English Civil
War
On 11
January 1649 Prince Rupert of
the Rhine led 8 undermanned ships to Kinsale in Ireland
in an
attempt to prevent the Parliamentarian
taking Ireland from the Royalist.
Blake blockaded Rupert's fleet in Kinsale from 22 May, allowing
Oliver Cromwell to land at Dublin on
15 August. Blake was driven off by a storm in October and Rupert
escaped via Spain to Lisbon, where Rupert had expanded his fleet to
13 ships. Blake put to sea with 12 ships in February 1650 and
dropped anchor off Lisbon in an attempt to persuade the Portuguese
king to expel Rupert. After 2 months the king decided to back
Rupert.
Blake was joined by another 4 warships
commanded by Edward Popham, who
brought authority to go to war with Portugal
.
Rupert
twice failed to break the blockade, which was finally raised after
Blake sailed for Cádiz
with 7 ships
he captured as a result of a three-hour engagement with 23 ships of
the Portuguese fleet, during which the Portuguese Vice-Admiral was
also sunk. Blake re-engaged with Rupert, now with 6 ships,
on 3 November near Málaga, capturing 1 ship. Two days later the
other of Rupert's ships in the area were driven ashore attempting
to escape from Cartagena, securing Parliamentarian supremacy at
sea, and the recognition of the Parliamentary government by many
European states. Parliament voted Blake 1000
pounds by way of thanks in February 1651.
In June of
the same year Blake captured the Isles of Scilly
, the last outpost of the Royalist navy, for which
he again received Parliament's thanks. Soon after he was
made a member of the
Council of
State.
Thanks to its command of the sea, the fleet was able to supply
Cromwell's army with provisions as it successfully marched on
Scotland. By the end of 1652 the various English colonies in
the Americas had also been
secured.
First Anglo-Dutch War
- See also First Anglo-Dutch
War
Blake's next adventures were during the
First Anglo-Dutch War.
The war started
prematurely with a skirmish between the Dutch
fleet of
Maarten Tromp and Blake off Folkestone
on 29 May 1652, the Battle of Goodwin Sands
. The proper war started in June with an
English campaign against the Dutch East Indies, Baltic and fishing
trades by Blake, in command of around 60 ships.
On 5 October 1652
Dutch Vice-Admiral Witte
Corneliszoon de With, underestimating the strength of the
English, attempted to attack Blake, but due to the weather it was
Blake who attacked on 8 October 1652 in the Battle of
the Kentish Knock
, sending de With back to the Netherlands in
defeat. The English government seemed to think that
the war was over and sent ships away to the Mediterranean
. Blake had only 42 warships when he was
attacked and decisively defeated by 88 Dutch ships under Tromp on 9
December 1652 in the Battle of Dungeness
, losing control of the English Channel to the
Dutch. Meanwhile the ships sent away had also been defeated
in the
Battle of Leghorn.
Following the navy's poor performance at Dungeness, Blake demanded
that the
Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty enact major reforms. They
complied by, among others things, enacting
Articles of War to reinforce
the authority of an admiral over his captains.
Blake then sailed
with around 75 ships to disrupt Channel shipping, engaging Tromp
with a similar sized fleet in the Battle of Portland from 28 February to 2 March 1653 when Tromp escaped
with his convoy under cover of darkness.
At the
Battle of
the Gabbard
on 12 June and 13 June 1653 Blake reinforced the
ships of Generals Richard Deane and
George Monck and decisively defeated
the Dutch fleet, sinking or capturing 17 ships without losing
one. Now also the North Sea
was brought under English control, and the Dutch
fleet was blockaded in various ports until finally losing at the
Battle of Scheveningen, where
Tromp was killed.
Peace with the Dutch achieved, Blake sailed in October 1654 with 24
warships to the Mediterranean, successfully deterring the
Duke of Guise from conquering
Naples.
Bey of Tunis
- See also Barbary
pirate
In April 1655 Blake was sent to the Mediterranean again to extract
compensation from the piratical states that had been attacking
English shipping.
The Bey of Tunis
alone
refused compensation, and with 15 ships Blake destroyed the 2 shore
batteries and 9 Algerian ships in Porto Farina, the first time
shore batteries had been taken out without landing men
ashore.
Anglo-Spanish War
- See also Anglo-Spanish
War
In February 1656 commercial rivalry with Spain was soon turned to
war.
In
the Anglo-Spanish War Blake
blockaded Cádiz, during
which one of his captains, Richard
Stayner destroyed most
of the Spanish Plate Fleet. A galleon of treasure was
captured, and the overall loss to Spain was estimated at
£2,000,000. Blake maintained the blockade throughout the winter,
the first time the fleet had stayed at sea over winter.
In 1657
Blake won against the Spanish West Indian Fleet over the English
seizure of Jamaica
in the West Indies. On 20 April that
year, Blake totally destroyed a Spanish silver fleet of 16 ships at
Santa Cruz
Bay
, Tenerife
for the loss of one ship, and despite being under
fire from shore batteries and attacking and withdrawing on the
tide, an action for which Blake was given an expensive diamond ring
by Cromwell, and which would earn
him respect 140 years later from Lord Nelson who lost his
arm there in a failed attack
. Lord Nelson's respect
ranked Robert Blake as one of the greatest Naval Generals ever
known, even when compared with his own reputation.
Death
Statue of Robert Blake in Bridgwater,
Somerset (1998)
After
again cruising off Cadiz for a while, Blake turned for home but
died of old wounds within sight of Portsmouth
and, after lying in state in the Queen's House
, Greenwich
, he was buried in Westminster Abbey
in the presence of Oliver Cromwell and the members
of the Council of State (although his internal organs had earlier
been buried at St Andrew's Church, Plymouth). After the
restoration of the Monarchy his body
was exhumed and dumped in a common grave on the orders of the new
king,
Charles II.
Relatives
Blake's
brother Benjamin Blake (1614-1689)
served under Robert, emigrated to Carolina in 1682, and was the father of
Joseph Blake, governor of
South
Carolina
in 1694 and
from 1696 to 1700.
Blake's brother
Samual Blake fought
under Popham before being killed in a duel in 1645.
There are believed to be living descendents of Blake still in
Britain.
Honouring Blake
A series of ships in the Royal Navy have carried the name
HMS Blake in honour of the General at
Sea. The bell of the last HMS
Blake, scrapped in 1982, is
on display in Saint Mary's Church, Bridgwater.
2007 - Various events took place in Bridgwater, Somerset, from
April to September 2007 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the
death of Robert Blake. These included a Civic Ceremony on 8 July
2007 and a 17th Century Market on 15 July 2007.
The house where it is
believed he was born, has been turned into the Blake Museum
.
The Royal Naval academy's campus pub "The Poop Deck" hosts "Blakes
Bender Nite" in which incoming cadets drink a special cocktail of
oyster juice, whisky, and port.
The Blake oil field in the United Kingdom Sector of the
North Sea is named in honour of the general at
sea.
Blake is also mentioned in the poem 'Ye Mariners of England' by
Thomas Campbell.
Blake
also has a school house named after him at The Royal
Hospital School
.
See also
Further reading
References
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