Michiel de Ruyter, the Bestevaer of Vlissingen
In Vlissingen, at the mouth of the Scheldt, a boy was born in 1607 who would become the most famous sea hero of the Netherlands: Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter. His sailors called him Bestevaer, grandfather, for he cared for his men as for his own children.
1 From rope-maker to fleet commander
De Ruyter began at the bottom: as a boy he worked for a rope-maker in Vlissingen, then sailed as a seaman and became a merchant and privateer captain. Step by step he rose, by skill and calm more than by birth, to the highest rank in the war fleet. He had stayed pious and plain, weighed his words and rarely raised his voice, but at sea he was immovable. In a series of great naval battles against England he kept the young Republic on its feet.
2 The raid on the Medway
His boldest deed was the Raid on the Medway in 1667. The Dutch fleet brazenly sailed up the English river Medway, close to London, burned part of the English navy there and carried off the proud flagship Royal Charles as booty. It was a humiliation England never forgot and that helped force the peace. De Ruyter himself died nine years later of wounds after a sea battle off Sicily, in service to the last. In Vlissingen his statue stands facing the sea, where the Bestevaer belonged.
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