I'm always a sucker for ridiculous historical quirks, and boy, this one sure is a doozy.
If you've so much as glanced at the headline of this article, you'll probably be wondering something along the lines of "Well that's an awful long time to be fighting a war. Why have I never heard of this?"
Simply put, you've probably never heard of it because most of the world (including the men who were supposed to be fighting it) completely forgot that it existed.
Let's start at the beginning. In 1642 England fell into civil war. The Royalists, supporting the power of King Charles I, were opposed by the Parliamentarians, led on the field by Oliver Cromwell and his largely-puritan New Model Army.
As the war dragged on, outside powers became more and more interested in the fate of England. The United Provinces of the Netherlands, which concluded its 80-year long war of independence from Spain in 1648, remembered the help that the once-united English had provided. The Dutch entered the war on the side that was winning - the Parliamentarians - with the aim of repaying the favor and unifying England once more.
But it wasn't that simple.
The Royalists had occupied the tiny Islands of Scilly, miniature specks of land just to the West of the Cornish Peninsula. Never heard of them either? Don't worry, this is the first time I've ever heard of them myself. That aside, the Royalists were using the Islands as a naval base, and by the time 1651 rolled around they had given the Dutch Navy a good beating with repeated raids from the Islands.
The Dutch Admiral, Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp (One of the most Dutch names I've ever seen. That's him in the picture up top), was distraught at the losses he had suffered. What was an upstanding military man to do about this?
If you guessed "take over the Islands" or "destroy the Royalist fleet", you guessed incorrectly.
He showed up on the Islands of Scilly (Coincidentally pronounced "silly") in mid-April of 1651 and demanded that the Royalists repay him with cash. When they refused he acted as any proper upstanding Dutch admiral should and declared war. Because the rest of England was almost entirely under Parliamentarian control, though, he made sure the declaration was specifically on the Islands of Scilly.
Before the Dutch even had time to tighten their clogs, the Parliamentarians forced the Royalist fleet to surrender. The Dutch, no longer useful or wanted, went home without firing a shot.
But the real kicker is that everyone completely forgot that Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp had declared war. What's that? I could have just said Admiral Tromp? Where's the fun in that?
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, everyone involved forgot the war had ever been declared.
This brings us to 1985. You read that right, 1985, when Roy Duncan, a historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council, wrote a letter to the Dutch embassy in London asking them to dispel the myth of the war. Embassy staffers looked into it and discovered that the myth was in fact not a myth.
Duncan invited the Dutch Ambassador, Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper (I take it back, THIS is the most Dutch name of all time) to come visit the islands and formalize a peace between the two happy places, putting an end to the longest war in history.
Except not. Further investigation shows that Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp had no legal authority to declare war on anyone, and even if he had the Islands of Scilly were not an independent nation.
Technically and legally, the second-longest war in history never actually occurred.
