Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam (1610-13 June 1665) was a Dutch admiral who served in the Dutch Revolt, the Second Northern War, and the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
Biography[]
Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam was born in The Hague, Holland, United Provinces in 1610. He joined the army in 1631 and became a cavalry colonel, fighting bravely against the Spanish at Maastricht in 1632 before becoming the military governor of Heusden in 1643. He became a powerful politician affiliated with the Dutch States Party; as many of his family members were still Catholic, he opposed the Orangists due to their support base of puritan Calvinist artisans. In 1652, upon the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War, he supported creating a powerful fleet at the expense of the army, and Johan de Witt appointed Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam as full Admiral following the death of the Dutch fleet's supreme commander Maarten Tromp at the 1653 Battle of Scheveningen. Wassenaer revolutionized naval tactics by abandoning the navy's old direct-attack tactics in favor of firing on the English ships from a safe distance. He led the Dutch navy into battle with Sweden during the Second Northern War, defeating the heavier Swedish ships at the 1658 Battle of the Sound. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, his fleet suffered the worst naval defeat in Dutch history at the Battle of Lowestoft, during which he and all but five men aboard his flagship, the Eendragt, exploded under fire from HMS Royal Charles; he was swept from the deck by a cannonball moments before the explosion.