Johan de Witt
Dutch statesman (1625–1672)
Why this is trending
Interest in “Johan de Witt” spiked on Wikipedia on 2026-02-27.
Categorised under Politics & Government, this article fits a familiar pattern. In the political arena, trending patterns usually correspond to legislative developments, summits, or emerging controversies.
At GlyphSignal we surface these trending signals every day—transforming Wikipedia’s vast pageview data into actionable insights about global curiosity.
Key Takeaways
- De Witt was elected Grand Pensionary of Holland, and together with his uncle Cornelis de Graeff, he controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until the Rampjaar (Disaster Year) of 1672.
- As a leading republican of the Dutch States Party, De Witt opposed the House of Orange-Nassau and the Orangists and preferred a shift of power from the central government to the regenten .
- In the hysteria that followed, he and his brother Cornelis de Witt were blamed and lynched in The Hague, with their corpses at least partially eaten by the rioters.
Johan de Witt (24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672) was a Dutch statesman and mathematician who was a major political figure during the First Stadtholderless Period, when flourishing global trade in a period of rapid European colonial expansion made the Dutch a leading trading and seafaring power in Europe, commonly referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt was elected Grand Pensionary of Holland, and together with his uncle Cornelis de Graeff, he controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until the Rampjaar (Disaster Year) of 1672. This progressive cooperation between the two statesmen, and the consequent support of Amsterdam under the rule of De Graeff, was an important political axis that organized the political system within the republic.
As a leading republican of the Dutch States Party, De Witt opposed the House of Orange-Nassau and the Orangists and preferred a shift of power from the central government to the regenten. However, the Dutch Republic suffered numerous early defeats in the Rampjaar, due to an alliance of England, France, and several German states which planned on invading the Dutch Republic. In the hysteria that followed, he and his brother Cornelis de Witt were blamed and lynched in The Hague, with their corpses at least partially eaten by the rioters. These cannibals were never prosecuted, and some historians claim William of Orange may have incited them.
Content sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0
