Qualla: Holmes's Bonfire https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:34 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Holmes's Bonfire https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire Holmes's Bonfire: Introduction https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit MWAK, Public domain. Before sunrise on 19 August 1666, English fireships drifted into the Vlie estuary on a southeasterly breeze. By the next evening the broad shallow channel between Vlieland and Terschelling was a forest of burning hulls — masts toppling, tar running molten down the planking, sailors leaping into water that was itself catching fire from the spilled oils. About 130 Dutch merchantmen burned that afternoon and through the night. Most sailors escaped by rowing to Harlingen or wading across shoals; Dutch records suggest far fewer perished than the two thousand deaths cited in a contemporary French ambassador's letter. The next morning the English came ashore on Terschelling and burned the town of West-Terschelling, a town of about four hundred stone houses inhabited largely by pacifist Mennonites and retired whalers, almost completely to the ground.

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: MWAK | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Holmes's Bonfire: Why Here, Why Now https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. The Second Anglo-Dutch War had turned in England's favor at the St James's Day Fight two weeks earlier. With the Dutch fleet damaged and the English short of supplies, the joint commanders Prince Rupert and George Monck wanted one more blow before they had to return to port. The ...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-why-here-why-now.mp3 0:06 2 full Holmes's Bonfire: Day One: The Fleet https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. Holmes entered the Vlie at eight in the morning with five fireships and a flotilla of sloops. By one in the afternoon the attack was underway in the Robbegat channel, where the merchant fleet stretched ten miles from north to south. The first fireship set the Dutch guard frigate ...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-day-one-the-fleet.mp3 0:06 3 full Holmes's Bonfire: Day Two: The Town https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. On the evening of the first day Holmes learned that the main shore installations — the warehouses of the Dutch East India Company, the whaling stores — were not on Vlieland but on Terschelling. At five the next morning he landed six companies of soldiers on Terschelling's western...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-day-two-the-town.mp3 0:06 4 full Holmes's Bonfire: Two Old Women, a Beacon-Keeper https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. The casualty count from the town itself was very low — most people had escaped. But not everyone could. When the people of Terschelling returned to the ruins, they found the operator of the northern fire beacon slain. They found, in the charred remains of two houses, the remains ...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-two-old-women-a-beacon-keeper.mp3 0:06 5 full Holmes's Bonfire: Bonfires Here, Bonfires There https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. In London, King Charles II ordered the city's bonfires lit in celebration; an English poet wrote that Holmes's one bonfire across the sea was worth all of them. Three weeks later the Great Fire of London began on Pudding Lane and burned for four days. Dutch pamphleteers printed t...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-bonfires-here-bonfires-there.mp3 0:06 6 full Holmes's Bonfire: The Little Wife of Stryp https://qualla.com/holmes-s-bonfire/ Photo credit Boboko skylge at Dutch Wikipedia Later version(s) were uploaded by Siebrand at nl.wikipedia. (Original text: Boboko_skylge), CC BY-SA 3.0. On Terschelling the memory of the raid stayed close to the ground. A legend grew up around an old woman near the hamlet of Stryp who was said to have saved the eastern villages by accident — peering through fog, English soldiers mistook a row of headstones in an abandoned graveya...

Read more: Holmes's Bonfire on Qualla

Image: Boboko skylge at Dutch Wikipedia Later version(s) were uploaded by Siebrand at nl.wikipedia. (Original text: Boboko_skylge) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/7/x/holmes-s-bonfire-wp/u17x-holmess-bonfire-the-little-wife-of-stryp.mp3 0:06 7 full