Item ref: 5108
Recovered from the wreck of ‘De Eendracht’ (73 guns), the flagship of Lieutenant-Admiral van Wassenaer, Lord Obdam, which exploded in action against ‘The Royal Charles’ during the Battle of Lowestoft, a decisive naval action of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The wreck site is protected by law and is under the management of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
Private collection, The Netherlands
This finely preserved gun was cast for the Admiralty of Rotterdam, known also as the Admiralty of de Maze, and the arms of the admiralty are cast in relief over the first reinforce section of the barrel. On a ribbon scroll immediately below is the dated inscription ’16 D. ADMIRALITEYT TOT. ROTTERDAM 58’.
The remainder of the barrel is further cast in relief, with astragal mouldings at either end of the chase section, each of these in turn backed by bands of tulip ornament (the forward bands lightly corroded), a broader band of scrolling foliage forms a border for the ogee at the head of the reinforce, the foliage framing at its centre the symbolic device of the Union of the Seven Provinces of the Republic, two hands meeting to clasp a sheaf of seven arrows.
With continued decorative mouldings forming borders at both ends of the reinforce and about the vent-field, raised moulded base-ring cast with the founder’s signature ‘CORNELIS . OVEROGGE . FECIT . ROTTERDAM’, and with the unit weight ’74.6’ below. With a prominent cascable button cast in the form of a nodular and leafy pod, its base projecting from the cascable formed as an acanthus calyx against a stippled ground.
Complete with a pair of trunnions and a pair of lifting handles, the latter in the form of marine monsters finely cast in the round. The gun is preserved in professionally conserved condition, with a natural green patina throughout. The ornamental bands immediately to the rear of the muzzle show light seabed corrosion.
The proportions and design of this gun anticipate many of the features belonging to the Dutch Seven Provinces pattern for ships’ ordnance formally adopted in 1666, although in this respect this gun is not unique, with the comparable example of a 24-pdr from the same foundry, and again from the Eendracht wreck, being dated as early as 1631.
The shape of the muzzle section conforms to that laid down for gun barrels of 6, 12 and 18-pdr calibre.
Cornelis Jansz Ouderogge (1599/1600-1672) was the son of the bell and gun founder Jan Cornelis Ouderogge of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He ran the Rotterdam gun foundry from about 1642, jointly with his brother Dirk who died in 1649, after which Cornelis continued the business until his death.
Two 6-pdr Drakes cast by Cornelis Ouderogge in 1662 and 1666 respectively, each for the Admiralty of Rotterdam, are now in the Rotterdam Maritime Museum. Another Drake dating from about 1650 was recovered near Rotterdam at the archaeological site ‘Eurogeul 12’.
A further example of a 6-pdr by Ouderogge was formerly in the important collection of antique Netherlands ordnance of H.L. Visser, Wassenaar (HV-C89). This example is dated 1667 and was also made for the Rotterdam Admiralty. Notably, the casting is less ornate than on the present example, the arrows device of the Union of Provinces is not included and the arms of the Rotterdam Admiralty are crowned.
The Eendracht went down with the loss of 404 lives out of a ships’ complement of 409. Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer, the commander of the Dutch Fleet had himself been killed by a cannon ball shortly before the magazine explosion. The Eendracht had been completed in 1654 and had taken part in a number of engagements under van Wassenaer’s command. The present gun, cast in 1658, may have fired in anger during the Eendracht’s fight against the Swedes in the Battle of the Sound, on 8th November of that year. It will certainly have done so in its heated fight with The Royal Charles under Sir William Penn.
In 1987 in the course of their survey of the North Sea the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment discovered at a depth of 38m an area full of bronze cannon, at Nieuwe Ankerplaats. Fragments of wooden ship construction and rope were present also. Similar finds, though in smaller numbers, were found in the vicinity of the site, corresponding with the explosive destruction of the Eendracht.