1672 was not a good year for the Netherlands Known ever after as the Rampjaar or the “Disaster Year”, it saw the Dutch invaded by an alliance of surrounding states: the French, Munster and Cologne.
At the same time the English navy blockaded the Republic from the sea, preventing any hope of rescue from that quarter. The French invasion nearly saw the end of the Netherlands, with French forces threatening to overrun her altogether.
The Dutch response was radical, and in some places perhaps not entirely rational. For example, did they really need to eat their former Prime Minister?
Serving Suggestion for Johan de Witt
The Dutch Republic at the time was governed by Johan de Witt, a statesman who held the title of Grand Pensionary, the highest public post in the government and essentially the equivalent of Prime Minster. De Witt had guided the Dutch Republic through their Golden Age of exploration and sea-based trade, ruling for almost 20 years.
However towards the end of his rule another rival faction within the Dutch Republic had arisen. Known as the Orangists, this faction was royalist and supported the Princes of Orange. Although the Republic had remained in control for decades, buoyed by the extreme wealth their trading network provided, the Orangists were in the ascendant in the early 1670s.
The French attack provided just the impetus they needed. A series of coastal cities came under Orangist control and de Witt’s popularity waned. Things came to a head on 21 June when an assassin, sent to kill de Witt, managed to gravely wound him with a dagger.
Everything started rapidly unspooling from this point. De Witt’s brother Cornelius was arrested on charges of treason, although the details were vague and the whole affair was a farce. Cornelius was subjected to torture as a confession was required under Dutch law, and this was how they usually got it.
Cornelius however refused to confess, to the frustration of both the Orangist leadership and the Orangist gangs who roamed the streets of Dutch cities. De Witt himself had resigned on 4 August, but this was not enough for the mob: they wanted blood.
And they got it. When Cornelius was sentenced to exile Johan de Witt went to the prison where he was being held to help him on his journey. Although the prison was only a few steps from de Witt’s house it was enough, and the civic militia of the Hague attacked the two brothers.
Both were shot and killed, their bodies left to the mob. But it was in the frenzy that followed that things started to get really weird.
The bodies were stripped naked and strung up on a nearby gibbet to the delight of the enraged crowd. The bodies were horribly mutilated and the onlookers cut out the livers of the two men and roasted and ate them in a moment of cannibalistic violence.
Johan de Witt’s government survived for only a few days longer. And thus ended the life of one of most powerful men in Dutch history. The great statesman, ruler of the Netherlands for 20 years, ended his life at the hands of a violent mob, who then ate him.
Top Image: The end of Johan de Witt. Source: Pieter fris / Public Domain.
By Joseph Green
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