Siege of Breda (1637) when word came that the Dutch had suddenly invested the city of Breda with a besieging army of 18,000. Breda was the capital city of the baronial fief that had once been the crown jewel in the Dutch estates of the Nassau family in the Habsburg Netherlands before the war started. Frederick Henry had therefore a personal interest in recapturing the city and its surroundings. The siege was preceded by an attempt to surprise the garrison on 21 July 1637 by Dutch cavalry under Henry Casimir I of Nassau-Dietz. However, the gates were closed in time and the Dutch skirmishers
Breda the Cromwellian Commonwealth and Protectorate, thanks to the proximity of Charles's sister Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, the widow of Prince William II of Orange (died 1650). Based mostly on suggestions by the Parliamentarian General George Monck, Charles II's Declaration of Breda (1660) made known his conditions for accepting the crown of England, which in the event he was to regain a few months later in the year. The Treaty of Breda was signed in the city on 31 July 1667, bringing to an end the Second Anglo-Dutch War in which the Dutch faced the same Charles II