Good news, people, good news! After last week’s debacle of the missing directory, it’s back now and hopefully to stay! Things are back to normal, so let’s get a move on! 

*puts on teacher face*
Today, I want to talk to you about a very serious topic. The 335 Year War is one of the longest war in the history of humanity, probably only topped by the Arauco War. But where the Arauco War had actual fighting, the 335 Year War did not depend on such minor details to be a war.

It all started in 1651, when, due to the Second English Civil War, the English Royalist Navy retreated to the Isles of Scilly.

Scilly – I guess I know where I’ll spend my next vaction… Now that they’re at peace…

Netherlands on the other hand, had a treaty with the Parlamentarians. Because the Dutch Navy suffered many losses from the Royalist Navy, while they were “stationed” on Scilly, Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp, a Dutch admiral, decided that the two navies should get together and have a little talk.

He arrived at Scilly and said something along the lines of, “Stop destroying our ships and give back what you stole or I’ll tell my mummy the queen!” The Royalist Navy laughed him in the face. Tromp’s reaction to that was, “Then it’s war!”

By then, the Parlamentarians had taken over Britain. As it would be tactically unwise to declare war on a nation you have a treaty with, the Netherlands decided, they’d only have war with Scilly.

Shortly after, the Royalists had to surrender to the Parlamentarians and the Dutch navy left Scilly, without firing a single shot.

In the ensuing drinking and partying, nobody cared to declare peace. It was only in 1985, when historian Roy Duncan wanted to dispose of the myth that Scilly and the Netherlands were still at war that people noticed it was actually true. So, Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador to come to Scilly and sign a peace treaty and in 1986, peace was finally instilled and the Scillonians could sleep without worrying that the Netherlands would attack for the first time in over 300 years.

Don’t you wish all wars would go about like that?