A flagship, seen from the bow, traditionally identified as the 'Zeven Provinciën'

Although the angle of the drawing makes firm identification of this ship impossible, due to the absence of identifiable features on the stern, it has been traditionally identified as the Zeven Provinciën. This ship saw action between 1665 and 1694 but its most glorious moments came when it served as the flagship of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676) during the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch wars. It was involved in two of the great Dutch naval successes of these years: the Raid on the Medway in June 1667, when the Dutch fleet attacked English ships at Chatham and inflicted what is still considered to be one of the most conclusive naval defeats in British history; and the Battle of the Texel on 21 August 1673, in which the outnumbered Dutch fleet successfully challenged and repelled an Anglo-French fleet.