Cornelis Evertsen the Elder

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Cornelis Evertsen the Elder

Cornelis Evertsen the Elder (born August 4, 1610 in Vlissingen , † June 11, 1666 in the Four Days Battle ) was a Dutch vice admiral.

He was the youngest son of the captain Johan Evertsen and grandson of the water geusen Evert Hendricxssen (died 1601). After Johan Evertsen fell in battle in 1617, all of his five sons (as well as Cornelis and his eldest brother Johan Evertsen ) were made lieutenants by the Admiralty of Zeeland. Cornelis first went on his brother Johan's ship and then went on a pirate voyage. In 1636 he became the captain of a warship. In 1639 he captured a Spanish Galleon in the battle of the Downs . He drove escorts and fought pirates from Dunkirk. In the First Anglo-Dutch War he became Rear Admiral ( Schout-bij-Nacht ) , initially temporarily and from 1654 on. In theThe sea battle at Scheveningen sank his ship, he was wounded and was a prisoner of the English for three months. In the Northern War he fought against the Swedes under Michiel de Ruyter and his brother Johan and in 1659 contributed to the liberation of Nyborg from the Swedes. From 1661 to 1663 he served as one of the commanders of De Ruyter, with whom he was close friends, in the Mediterranean against the Barbaresques (pirates from Algiers). In the Second Anglo-Dutch War he became Vice Admiral of Zeeland and his brother Johan Evertsen became Lieutenant Admiral of Zeeland. He took part in the sea ​​battle at Lowestoft (1665), which was costly for the Netherlands , and was then appointed lieutenant-admiral of Zeeland as the successor to his brother who had been replaced. In June 1666 he fell in the four-day battle on his flagship Walcheren . A little later his brother Johan Evertsen also fell in the St. James's Day Fight . Both are buried in Middelburg Abbey.

He was married to Janneke Gorcoms, the sister of his brother Johan's wife, since 1640. With her he had fourteen children, five of whom died in childhood. One of his sons was Cornelis Evertsen the youngest and another Lieutenant-Admiral Geleyn Evertsen (1655-1711). After the death of his first wife in 1657, he married again in 1659 (Johanna Ita, daughter of Vice Admiral Pieter Adriaensz. Ita) and had two more children.

Grave of Cornelis and Johan Evertsen in Middleburg

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