In the pages of history, we can rarely find a war that lasted more than three centuries in which not a single battle was fought, not a single shot was fired, and not a single soldier died. The amusing part is that for most of this time, both sides had completely forgotten it even existed.
This unusual conflict was between the Netherlands and a tiny group of islands off the coast of England called the Isles of Scilly.
To understand the background of this war, we have to go back to 1651, when the English Civil War was nearing its end.
CHAOS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR
England was divided into two factions:
- The Royalists, who supported King Charles I and later Charles II
- The Parliamentarians, who supported the English Parliament
By 1651, the Royalists had lost almost everywhere in England. Their last remaining stronghold was the Isles of Scilly, a small archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the southwestern coast of England.
Battle of Naseby
From these islands, Royalist privateers ( privately owned ships licensed by the Crown to raid enemy vessels ) began attacking Dutch merchant ships passing through the English Channel. As their cause collapsed on the mainland, the Royalists turned to disrupting trade as a way to fund their resistance and pressure nations that refused to support them. The Dutch, who had declined to back the Royalist cause, made an obvious target. This quickly angered the Dutch Republic, whose economy relied heavily on maritime trade.
THE DUTCH DECLARE WAR
In response to the damages caused to Dutch ships, the Dutch Navy led by Admiral Maarten Tromp sailed to the Isles of Scilly to demand compensation. The Royalists refused, and in response, the Dutch declared war on the Isles of Scilly in March 1651.
But the Dutch attack never came. Before any assault could be launched, the Royalists on the islands surrendered to Parliamentarian forces just a few months later. With the Royalists gone, the Dutch fleet simply sailed home.
A WAR EVERYONE FORGOT
Here's the problem. Neither side formally signed a peace treaty. The Dutch declaration of war technically remained in effect and as the years passed, everyone forgot about it. This supposed war between the Dutch and the Isles of Scilly quietly faded into the corners of history.
REDISCOVERED AFTER THREE CENTURIES
In 1985, historian Roy Duncan discovered the old declaration of war and realized the conflict had technically never ended. He contacted the Embassy of the Netherlands in the United Kingdom to ask whether a peace treaty had ever been signed. The embassy checked its records and found no evidence of a formal peace agreement.
So the Dutch government sent their ambassador, Rein Huydecoper, to the Isles of Scilly. On 17 April 1986, a peace treaty was finally signed, formally ending a war that had technically been ongoing since 1651. The ambassador reportedly joked that it must have been terrifying for the people of Scilly to know the Dutch could have attacked at any time for 335 years.
And after 335 years, the war was finally over.