ABSTRACT
On 4 June, at the same time that John Mordaunt, Slings by and Hewett were being brought before the High Court of Justice in London, Charles II's little army suffered heavy losses in the battle of the Dunes, fought in the sand hills outside Dunkirk, which was under siege by a strong Anglo-French army. The Spanish army sent to raise the siege, with its British and Irish royalist regiments, was totally defeated, and ten days later the city surrendered. The battered Spanish forces retreated into eastern Flanders as Lockhart, Henry Cromwell's ambassador and military commander in France planted an English garrison in Dunkirk while the Protectorate navy patrolled the Flemish coast. The conversion to royalism of Montgomery, been captured after the battle and then eventually escaped, had occurred somewhat later, and was in the long run less convincing than that of his colleague. While the Great Trust was being organised under Mordaunt's energetic leadership, the Cromwellian regime was crumbling.
