Dutch ship Gouden Leeuw

The Gouden Leeuw (Golden Lion) was a Dutch ship of the line armed with 80-82 cannon. The ship was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Gouden Leeuw was for a time the largest Dutch warship. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the ship served as the flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Cornelis Tromp. She was Tromp's flagship at the Battle of Texel in 1673, with the Irishman Thomas Tobiasz as his flag captain. She was broken up in 1686.

The name Gouden Leeuw was available, as a previous Dutch ship with the same name had been wrecked on the coral reefs of Liuqiu Island, then known to the Dutch as Lamay, in 1622. The crewmembers were killed by the native inhabitants of the island, which ultimately led to a planned massacre and depopulation in 1636, sanctioned by the Dutch East Indies' colonial government.



The Gouden Leeuw was, in English feet, about 165 ft long by about 40 ft wide by approximately 15 ft deep, and was armed with 28 guns on the lower deck, 28 guns on the upper deck, and 26 guns on the forecastle, quarterdeck, and poop deck. The ship was featured in several paintings by Willem van de Velde the Younger. The most prominent of these was De Gouden Leeuw voor Amsterdam, painted in 1686.