Re: Kipling, "The Dutch in the Medway"
"The Gods of the Copy-Book Headings" is also pretty trenchant about forgetting the past. Kipling is very under-rated.
Samuel Pepys records that the English sailors heard Englishment taunting them from the Dutch attacking ships. A lot of British sailors were so fed up about not being paid that they had signed-on with the Dutch navy, which did pay promptly. That's how the Dutch knew how to get past the defensive chains strung across the Medway.
BTW, it's not just the Royal coat of arms that the Dutch took away. It was the whole ship. The stern section is still displayed, as noted above, in the state naval museum. And very impressive it is, too.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
