It was the school of Penn and the Duke of York that triumphed at the close of these great naval wars.  The attempt of Monck and Rupert to preserve individual initiative and freedom to seize opportunities was discarded, and for nearly a century formality had the upper hand.  Yet the Duke of York must not be regarded as wholly hostile to initiative or unwilling to learn from his rivals.  The second and most remarkable of the new instructions acquits him.  This is the famous article in which was first laid down the principle of cutting off a part of the enemy’s fleet and ‘containing’ the rest.

Though always attributed to the Duke of York it seems almost certainly to have been suggested by the tactics of Monck and Rupert on the last day of the Four Days’ Battle, June 4, 1666.  According to the official account, they sighted the Dutch early in the morning about five leagues on their weather-bow, with the wind at SSW.  ’At eight o’clock,’ it continues, ’we came up with them, and they having the weather-gage put themselves in a line to windward of us.  Our ships then which were ahead of Sir Christopher Myngs [who was to lead the fleet] made an easy sail, and when they came within a convenient distance lay by; and the Dutch fleet having put themselves in order we did the like.  Sir Christopher Myngs, vice-admiral of the prince’s fleet, with his division led the van.  Next his highness with his own division followed, and then Sir Edward Spragge, his rear-admiral; and so stayed for the rest of the fleet, which came up in very good order.  By such time as our whole fleet was come up we held close upon a wind, our starboard tacks aboard, the wind SW and the enemy bearing up to fall into the middle of our line with part of their fleet.  At which, as soon as Sir Christopher Myngs had their wake, he tacked and stood in, and then the whole line tacked in the wake of him and stood in.  But Sir C. Myngs in fighting being put to the leeward, the prince thought fit to keep the wind, and so led the whole line through the middle of the enemy, the general [Monck] with the rest of the fleet following in good order.’

The account then relates how brilliantly Rupert fought his way through, and proceeds, ’After this pass, the prince being come to the other side and standing out, so that he could weather the end of their fleet, part of the enemy bearing up and the rest tacking, he tacked also, and his grace [Monck] tacking at the same time bore up to the ships to the leeward, the prince following him; and so we stood along backward and forward, the enemy being some to windward and some to leeward of us; which course we four times repeated, the enemy always keeping the greatest part of their fleet to windward, but still at so much distance as to be able to reach our sails and rigging with their shot and to keep themselves out of reach of our guns, the only advantage they thought fit to take upon us at this time.  But the fourth time we plying them very sharply with our leeward guns in passing, their