THE COLONIAL IRONSIDES: English Expeditions under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1650 - 1660

1-229750

Rediscover a series of post-English Civil War episodes in British military history that have not been detailed fully since Victorian times and marked a transition in English foreign policy from raiding the colonies of others, chiefly Spain, to becoming an imperial power.

Comprehensive survey of the role played by Oliver Cromwell's expeditionary forces to subdue Royalist outposts abroad in the Three Kingdoms, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the Scillies, the West Indies and North America. Also details the launch of the Western design against Spain in the Caribbean and during its course, the failure of the expedition against San Domingo and the conquest of Jamaica. In Europe, the book studies the role of Cromwell's expeditionary brigade, and Charles II's army in exile, in the struggle between France and Spain in the Low Countries during the last years of the Protectorate: the Battle of the Dunes, the sieges of Dunkirk, Ypres, Oudenaarde and other towns leading to the acquisition of Dunkirk and Mardyke as a British colony on the Continent, the first since the loss of Calais under Mary Tudor. Includes 57 b/w illustrations, 33 maps, and 2 color illustrations on back cover.