In the early part of the 17th Century the English were direct rivals to the Dutch in the exploitation of the East Indies; they even kept outposts alongside each other in Banten, Macassar, Jakarta, and on Ambon. Although treaties made in Europe dictated that cooperation between the two companies were to be peacefully regulated, in the actual theatre of conflict the two were far from amicable partners. The underlying rivalry and enmity erupted at last on the island of Ambon in 1623 when all the personell of the English factory were tortured and executed. This'Ambon Massacre' was heatedly blown up by the diplomatic circles of the time and vivid woodcut illustrations were printed in popular pamphlets which duly enraged the English public.

Almost 200 years later during the Napoleonic Wars, Java was occupied (1811-1816) by English Expeditionary Forces and the sultan's kraton of Yogya was stormed and subdued. A young energetic Lord Raffles was appointed Governor. He immersed himself enthusiastically into the history, culture and customs of Indonesia, uncovering the famous Borobudur Buddhist temple and meticulously recording the cannibalistic habits of the Batak of northern Sumatra. But because England wanted to prepare Holland against attack by France and Prussia, most of the Indies were handed over again to the Dutch in 1816. Raffles tried to perpetuate British interests in the islands and to keep order; but within several Sumatra, but eventually the English abandoned Indonesia altogether and by 1824 had shifted their focus of power to Singapore.

It is a fiction of English historical scholarship that during the English period many significant economic, land and humanitarian reforms were introduced. They made another brief and ignomonious appearance on Java in 1945 to accept the official Japanese surrender of the islands and to keep order, but within several months they were accused by the Indonesians and the world of being pawns of the Dutch and had embarrassingly extricated themselves from their awkward role by 1946. The English presence lives on today in hundreds of words of English derivation found in Bahasa Indonesia: stop (stop), bis (bus), mobil (car), universitas (university), pena (pen); and in the name of Yogya's main street, Malioboro, a corruption of Marlborough, a victorious English general in the Napoleonic Wars.