Secret Treaty of Dover facts for kids
The Treaty of Dover, also known as the Secret Treaty of Dover, was a special agreement between England and France. It was signed in Dover, England, on June 1, 1670.
This secret treaty said that Charles II of England would become a Roman Catholic sometime in the future. He also promised to help Louis XIV, the King of France, in a war against the Dutch Republic. England would provide 60 warships and 4,000 soldiers for this war.
In return, Charles II would secretly get a large yearly payment of £230,000 from France. He would also receive extra money when he told the English people about his conversion. France also promised to send 6,000 French soldiers to help Charles if there was ever a rebellion against him in England.
Important people who signed the secret treaty for England included Arlington, Arundell, Clifford, and Bellings. Colbert de Croissy signed for France. Both kings kept the treaty a secret.
There was also a public Treaty of Dover, but it was just a fake. Its purpose was to hide the real, secret agreement, especially the part about Charles II becoming Catholic. The Third Anglo-Dutch War happened directly because of this secret treaty. Historians found and published the actual secret treaty about a hundred years later.
Contents
How the Treaty Was Planned
It's not clear who first thought of an alliance between England and France. These two countries had talked about working together secretly after Charles II became king in 1660. Charles had even suggested a treaty then, but nothing was signed.
Charles thought that Louis XIV would prefer an alliance with England over one with the Dutch. But he was wrong. Louis didn't need England to achieve his goals in the Spanish Netherlands. An agreement with the Dutch Republic would actually help him avoid a war. So, France and the Dutch signed a defensive treaty in 1662.
Relations between England and France got worse. France even declared war on England in January 1666 to support the Dutch in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
France didn't play a big role in that war because both the Dutch and Louis XIV started to distrust each other. After the Treaty of Breda (1667) brought peace, Louis invaded the Spanish Netherlands later that year. This started the War of Devolution.
To stop France from expanding, the Triple Alliance was formed in 1668. This alliance included the Dutch Republic, England, and Sweden. This group quickly pressured Louis into signing a peace treaty with Spain, called the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668).
In 1669, problems within the Triple Alliance made Louis think he could convince either England or the Dutch to leave it. After trying and failing to negotiate with the Dutch, Louis was approached by Charles II. Charles offered an alliance, and his sister secretly delivered the message.
At first, only Louis XIV, Charles II of England, and Charles's sister, Henrietta, were involved in these secret talks. Henrietta was married to Louis's brother, making her Louis's sister-in-law.
Why Charles II Wanted a Secret Deal
Historians have debated why Charles II secretly negotiated with France. This was happening while England was still part of the Triple Alliance against France. Some possible reasons include:
- He wanted to team up with Europe's strongest country.
- He wanted to be financially independent from the English parliament.
- He hoped England could get a share of the Spanish Empire if it broke apart. The young Charles II of Spain had no clear heir.
- He wanted to gain support from English Catholics and possibly Protestant dissenters for the monarchy.
- He wanted revenge on the Dutch for England's defeat in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, especially the embarrassing Raid on the Medway.
Charles first tried to form an alliance with France in 1668 without leaving the Triple Alliance. Louis XIV was married to Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Philip IV of Spain. She had given up her rights to inherit the Spanish throne. But Louis kept trying to gain Spanish land near France and promote his wife's claim to the Spanish throne. Louis rejected Charles's offer in 1668 because Charles didn't want to join a French attack on Spain.
In early 1669, Louis tried to get the Dutch to agree to him taking most of the Spanish Netherlands. But the Dutch didn't want a French army near their borders. At the same time, Charles tried to keep the Triple Alliance together by solving trade issues with the Dutch, but he didn't have much success.
Through his ambassador, Lord St Albans, Charles tried to restart talks for a French alliance. But Louis repeated his condition: Britain must join him in attacking the Netherlands. Charles wasn't keen, but since he couldn't find security through other diplomatic means, he had to accept this. He just needed a lot of financial help from France.
More detailed discussions began in December 1669. During the five months of negotiations, both sides also tried to make deals with Spain. They realized Spain might give the Spanish Netherlands to France or work with the Triple Alliance. This pushed Charles and Louis to reach a final agreement.
What the Secret Treaty Said
The secret treaty meant Charles would leave the Triple Alliance with Sweden and the Dutch Republic. Instead, he would help Louis conquer the Dutch Republic. If they succeeded, England was promised several valuable ports along a major river in the Dutch Republic.
Here are the main parts of the treaty, explained simply:
- The King of England (Charles II) would publicly declare himself a Catholic. He would get two million crowns from the King of France to help with this. Charles could choose when to make this declaration.
- The King of France (Louis XIV) would stick to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) regarding Spain. The King of England would also maintain the Triple Alliance in a similar way.
- If new claims to the Spanish throne came to the King of France, the King of England would help him keep these rights.
- Both kings would declare war on the United Provinces (the Dutch Republic).
- The King of France would attack the Dutch by land and get 6,000 soldiers from England.
- The King of England would send 50 warships, and the King of France would send 30. The combined fleets would be led by the Duke of York.
- England would get Walcheren, the mouth of the Scheldt river, and the island of Cadzand from the conquered Dutch lands.
- Separate agreements would be made for the interests of Prince of Orange.
- A trade treaty, already started, would be finished quickly.
Article 7 of the treaty only gave a vague promise that the rights of Charles's nephew, William, Prince of Orange, would be respected.
This secret treaty didn't become public until 1771. That's when historian Sir John Dalrymple published its details. If it had been known during Charles II's lifetime, there could have been huge problems. People were already very worried about Catholics, especially after Titus Oates made up stories about a "Popish Plot." If the English public had known their King planned to become Catholic and use French troops to force this on his own people, the reaction would have been much worse.
The "Cover" Treaty
The real secret treaty was signed in June 1670. After that, the Duke of Buckingham was sent to negotiate a public treaty with the King of France. He was surprised at how easily it went.
This public treaty was very similar to the secret one. However, it left out the part where King Charles would declare himself a Roman Catholic. It also didn't mention that the attack on the Netherlands would happen after his declaration. This public treaty was signed by all five members of the Cabal Ministry on December 21, 1670, and was made public. But King Charles and the French knew it was a fake.
What Happened After the Treaty
Military preparations took some time. Louis XIV declared war on the Dutch on April 6, 1672. Charles II followed the next day. On April 14, 1672, France paid Sweden to stay neutral. France also promised Sweden military help if Brandenburg-Prussia threatened it. This French-Swedish alliance completed Louis's plan to surround the Dutch Republic diplomatically.
The Third Anglo-Dutch War started badly for the Dutch. The French planned to invade the Dutch Republic along the Rhine River. This area had the weakest Dutch defenses. Despite warnings, the Dutch leader Johan de Witt wrongly thought the war would be decided at sea. He focused on equipping the Dutch fleet and ignored the eastern border forts.
This led to big early French successes. The Dutch army almost collapsed. They were forced to retreat behind the floods of The Dutch Water Line and offer very good peace terms to France. The year 1672 is known in the Netherlands as the Rampjaar or 'Year of Disaster.' The Orangists blamed de Witt and forced him to resign. Later, they brutally killed him and his brother Cornelis.
The Dutch army got a chance to recover behind the floods. They reformed their military, recruited new soldiers, and got unofficial help from Spain. This allowed the Dutch army, led by William III of Orange, to hold the Dutch Water Line through 1672 and 1673. Louis XIV was now in a long, difficult war. He faced growing opposition from other European powers.
Charles II was short on money. The costs of sending out the English fleet were much higher than expected, even with French payments. He also faced growing opposition to the war at home. Part of this was because English people felt the French fleet didn't do much. They thought the English fleet bore the brunt of the fighting against the Dutch.
In the Battle of Solebay in 1672, d'Estrées, who commanded the French ships, avoided the main battle. He only fought a much smaller Dutch force from far away. This earned him criticism from English and some French officers. The French fleet's actions in the two 1673 Battles of the Schooneveld were not impressive. In the final 1673 battle, the Battle of the Texel, D'Estrées either sailed poorly or was ordered by Louis XIV to protect the French fleet if England made peace with the Dutch. He failed to fight the Dutch closely. Also, Dutch privateers were much better at capturing English merchant ships than English privateers were at attacking Dutch vessels in this war.
Desperate for money, Charles II had to call Parliament into session for the first time in over two years. He had hoped to keep it closed to fight the war without their input. In 1674, mainly because Parliament pressured Charles, England signed the Treaty of Westminster (1674). This treaty mostly returned things to how they were before the war and ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The French continued to fight for four more years.
A peace conference started in Nijmegen in 1676, but it didn't make much progress. The French insisted on keeping the Dutch fortress of Maastricht. However, England and the Dutch signed a defensive treaty in March 1678. This convinced Louis XIV to offer peace without taking any Dutch land. This led to the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen. While not bad for the Dutch, and less favorable to France than the terms offered in 1672, France gained Franche-Comté and several towns in the Spanish Netherlands. More importantly, Louis achieved a diplomatic victory by breaking the European alliance against him.
In 1672, Charles II issued a Declaration of Indulgence. This stopped the laws against Protestant nonconformists and eased the laws against Roman Catholics. When Parliament met again that year, they said the Declaration was wrong. They stated that the English monarch could not issue orders that stopped laws passed by Parliament. They also refused to fund the ongoing Third Anglo-Dutch War until the declaration was removed. Charles was forced to agree to Parliament's demands. This ended the chance the treaty offered to bring England closer to the Roman Catholic Church.
The treaty mentioned "new rights to the Spanish monarchy reverting to the King of France." This was about the possibility of Charles II of Spain dying without children. If that happened, Louis XIV might claim the Spanish throne for his family through his wife. At the time of the treaty, the Spanish king was only nine years old. But he was already known to be sickly, making people doubt he would have children. However, Charles's promise to Louis was only personal. Since the Spanish King lived longer than Charles, his promise had no effect.
When Charles II of Spain seemed close to death in 1700, Louis claimed the entire Spanish inheritance for his grandson. This French ambition led to the War of Spanish Succession.
Overall, Charles II made a big mistake by signing the Treaty of Dover. First, he didn't realize how skilled Louis XIV was politically. Louis involved Charles in a war that didn't help England much but greatly helped Louis's goals. Second, Charles also underestimated how strong the Dutch were. He overestimated his influence on William, who gained power in the Netherlands without Charles's help.
See also
- List of treaties
