CHAPTER XIV
ASSASSINATION OF THE BROTHERS JOHN AND CORNELIUS DE WITT
(August 20, 1672)

NEVER, perhaps, was the old saying, “Republics are ungrateful,” more strikingly verified than in the case of the two brothers De Witt, who, after having rendered many great services to the Dutch Republic, were foully murdered by an infuriated mob in the streets of the Hague, August 20, 1672. John and Cornelius de Witt were the sons of a distinguished citizen of the city of Dordrecht, who had represented that city in the general assemblies of Holland and Friesland and was known as an eloquent and incorruptible defender of popular rights. He had placed himself at the head of the anti-Orange party because he considered the ambition and power of the princes of Orange a standing danger to the Republic. Grown up under the direction of such a father, the two sons had naturally imbibed his strong democratic principles, and their undoubted patriotism was strongly tinged with hostility to the house of Orange. The two De Witts have often been compared to the Gracchi, and, like those illustrious Romans, they worked and died for their democratic principles. Both were highly talented and, while quite young, rose to the highest honors and dignities among their countrymen,—Cornelius, the elder of the two, by his eminent legal ability and his skill as a military and naval director and commissary, and John, by his eminence as an administrator and statesman. It is difficult to decide which of the two was intellectually the superior. A medal struck in their honor bore the inscription, “Hic armis maximus, ille toga.” It should not be inferred, however, from this inscription, that Cornelius, to whom the word “armis” applied, was at any time commander-in-chief of the Dutch army and navy, since he held only the office of government inspector of the navy, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself.

John was, at the age of twenty-five, elected pensionary of the city of Dordrecht, and two years later, in 1652, Grand Pensionary of Holland, one of the highest offices in the United Provinces. His political influence was very great, and he used it to the best of his ability against the house of Orange. William the Second, Prince of Orange, had died on the second of October, 1650, leaving only a widow and a posthumous son as his heirs. On these circumstances, so unfavorable to the illustrious house which had played for so many years a conspicuous part in the history of the Netherlands, John de Witt built his hopes of dealing a deathblow to its political pretensions and of abolishing forever the office of stadtholder. It was, however, no easy task to accomplish this object. The province of Zealand was full of friends and partisans of the late stadtholder, who vigorously opposed any attempt in the direction contemplated by De Witt; and the other provinces, either from loyalty to the house of Orange, or from a secret jealousy of the supremacy of the states of Holland, which always wanted to control the policy of the Republic, either openly rejected the plans of De Witt or modified and attenuated them as exaggerated.

At the moment when John de Witt took the reins of government, the states were at war with England, and the war had taken a very unfavorable turn for them. The Dutch admirals had suffered several terrible defeats. Tromp, one of their most celebrated naval heroes, had been killed in battle, and an English fleet was cruising along the coast of Holland, blockading its ports, and paralyzing its commerce. But De Witt repaired these disasters with such rapidity, and restored to the Dutch navy such a formidable strength by his administrative genius, that Cromwell was willing to enter into negotiations for peace, which he had haughtily rejected before. A treaty of peace, submitted by the Grand Pensionary of Holland and signed at Westminster on the fifteenth of April, 1654, reëstablished virtually the conditions which had existed between the two nations before the war. However, the Dutch Republic was compelled to recognize the superiority of the English flag in the channel, and bound itself to give the Stuart dynasty no support, and that no Prince of Orange should be elected again either Stadtholder or Captain-General. This last section of the treaty was signed, at first by the province of Holland only, and was kept secret for a long time. In getting this provision of exclusion of the house of Orange passed (which, by the way, was as welcome to De Witt as to Cromwell) by the other provinces also, the Grand Pensionary practised a good deal of duplicity, and laid himself open to serious charges of official deception which later on contributed to his downfall.

In the meantime another complication had arisen and taxed the statesmanship of the Dutch government and the patriotism of the Netherlanders to the utmost. In France Louis the Fourteenth had taken the reins of government into his own hands, and manifested an ambition for conquest which endangered the security of all his neighbors. Although the wife of Louis, at the time of her marriage, had solemnly renounced all her rights of succession to the Spanish throne and any Spanish provinces, the King nevertheless after the death of his wife’s father, Philip the Fourth, claimed the Spanish Netherlands as justly belonging to his wife, and defended this claim not so much by argument as by an invasion and armed occupation of the disputed territory. No state was more deeply interested in the outcome of this dispute than the Netherlands. With growing fear they beheld the rapid progress which the armies of the French King under the command of great generals were making, and they thought that their own independence might suffer from the immediate neighborhood of so powerful and aggressive a monarch. With great skill the Dutch government secretly formed an alliance with Sweden and England by which these three powers agreed that the Spanish Netherlands should remain under Spanish dominion and that Louis the Fourteenth should be prevented from annexing them to the French monarchy. This Triple Alliance was too powerful to be defied by the French King, and he made peace with Spain, evacuating Franche-Comté, which he had already conquered, but retaining possession of a number of important cities in the Netherlands,—such as Charleroi, Douai, Lille, Tournay and Oudenarde, which by the genius of Vauban were converted into almost impregnable fortresses. Dutch statesmanship was the obstacle which had placed itself in the King’s way and frustrated his ambitious designs. Personal irritation and offended vanity were added to his chagrin at the failure of his plans.

A boastful medal was struck in the Netherlands commemorating the diplomatic victory which their government had achieved over the power of France. On this medal a Dutch statesman was represented as Joshua bidding the sun (the symbol of Louis the Fourteenth) to stand still. For this arrogance the Republic was to be punished, and with matchless skill and cunning the French government went to work to prepare for its overthrow. The general political situation of Europe was highly favorable to the consummation of the French designs. The Emperor of Germany, a weak and pusillanimous sovereign, had his hands full in the eastern provinces of the Empire, in which the Turks had advanced victorious up to the very gates of Vienna; he was therefore powerless to oppose French aggression in the Netherlands. Moreover special negotiations had been opened with some of the sovereign princes of northern Germany by which the French monarch secured the right to march his armies through their territory on their way to the United Netherlands without touching Spanish territory. With equal success the French diplomats dissolved the Triple Alliance, and made both Sweden and England, former allies of the Dutch Republic, subservient to the French monarch. Sweden received an annual subsidy of 600,000 dollars from the French treasury, and England a subsidy of 350,000 pounds sterling and also the promise of the province of Zealand as its share of the dismemberment of the United Netherlands. Princess Henrietta of France, wife of the Duke of Orleans and sister of Charles the Second of England, was sent by the wily French King to England to negotiate this infamous treaty. She succeeded in accomplishing her object mainly through the influence which one of the ladies of her suite, Mademoiselle de Querouet, gained over the mind of the English King, who made her his mistress and bestowed on her the title of Duchess of Portsmouth.

Having thus fortified himself on all sides and deprived the United Netherlands of the possibility of taking the field against him with any chance of success, Louis declared war upon them. The result could not be doubtful. Moreover the domestic discord and the active struggle between the political factions added much to the gravity of the situation, and partly paralyzed the efforts of the government to arouse the provinces to a full comprehension of the danger. John de Witt was the chief executive of the government, and upon him rested largely the responsibility of the situation. The Orangist party turned its main attacks against him, and spared neither criticism nor calumny to undermine his standing and authority. It charged him directly with having, either through incompetency or something worse, neglected to place the country in a suitable state of defence, and then having provoked a war with a powerful enemy. These charges against De Witt were largely unjust, and were preferred only to punish him for his opposition to reinstating the house of Orange in the stadtholdership and in the chief command of all the military forces of the Republic.

John de Witt had made two radical errors in his estimate of the political situation. He knew that Louis the Fourteenth felt irritated at the Dutch Republic’s action in preventing his acquisition of the Spanish Netherlands; but he did not know that the French King would resent that action, and make gigantic preparations for crushing the Dutch Republic. Never before had such tremendous efforts been made by a great nation to destroy a weak neighbor. The war was to be short and decisive, and the insolent “traders”—that was the name the haughty French King gave to the citizens of the Netherlands—were to be punished radically. The second error which De Witt committed was his underestimation of the venality and corruption existing in the government circles of his former allies, England and Sweden. He learned at an early day that French diplomacy had induced them to recede from the Triple Alliance; but he did not realize at the time that French gold and French promises had persuaded these two powers to make common cause with him for the dismemberment of the Republic, and to furnish troops for that purpose. When finally the full reality of the King’s revengeful plan was revealed to him, he not only aroused the people of the Netherlands to a realization of the terrible danger which threatened them, but he also, with his usual energy, went to work to find assistance against the overwhelming odds among the other European powers, and his experienced statesmanship served him well in bringing into play all the different motives, both personal and political, by which he could hope to influence their decisions.