Admiral George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth PC (c. 1647 – 1691) was an English naval commander who gave distinguished service to both Charles II and James II.
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His father was the royalist Colonel William Legge and his mother was Elizabeth Washington (1619-1688), first cousin of Col. Sir John Washington (1633-1677), the great-grandfather of George Washington.[1]
Legge's naval career began in the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–1667, where he served under his cousin Admiral Sir Edward Spragge; at the end of the war Legge was captain of HMS Pembroke. In March 1672, now in command of HMS Fairfax, he took part in the attack, on the Dutch Smyrna fleet lying off the Isle of Wight, that was the immediate cause of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. In June he fought in the Battle of Sole Bay. The following year he commanded HMS Royal Katherine under Prince Rupert of the Rhine in the Battle of Schooneveld.
By 1683 Legge had risen to be Admiral of the Fleet and he was sent out to Tangier to oversee the evacuation and destruction of the ill-fated English colony there. His last naval appointment was to the command of the Channel Fleet that unsuccessfully attempted to intercept the invasion force led by William III of Orange that landed in 1688 at the beginning of the Glorious Revolution.
As a close supporter of the House of Stuart he held numerous royal appointments and honours.
In 1682, he was elevated to the peerage by Charles II as the first Baron Dartmouth.
Following the abdication of James II, he was dismissed by the triumphant William III, and later arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He died in there in 1691 without ever being brought to trial.
He was succeeded as Baron Dartmouth by his only son William Legge, 1st Earl of Dartmouth (1672–1750).