For higher or for worse, the Netherlands is thought for one in every of a handful of issues to most Britons: windmills, clogs, tulips, cheese, and the Satan’s Lettuce.
The nation is successful for these searching for European historical past, and a technology of individuals hoping to enjoy what is against the law in British espresso outlets.
It’s, typically talking, a relaxed and carefree nation, whose home points largely go with out be aware, such is their peaceable nature.
Issues have not all the time been as clean crusing, nonetheless, and the Netherlands wasn’t precisely a straightforward place to stay again within the day.
Maybe probably the most bloody and controversial within the nation’s historical past got here within the late seventeenth century when fed up with the best way issues had been going, an offended mob of Dutchmen descended on their Prime Minister and… ate him.
In 1672, the Netherlands was referred to as the Dutch Republic and was on the time trapped in a conflict with England, France, and the 2 German cities of Cologne and Münster.
The 12 months would grow to be referred to as the nation’s ‘Rampjaar’, or ‘Catastrophe Yr’, through which a set of occasions despatched it on a wayward course.
The moniker even has its personal slogan: “Het volk was redeloos, de regering radeloos, en het land reddeloos”, which interprets to one thing like, “the folks had been irrational, the federal government helpless, and the nation past salvation”.
Johan de Witt ended up turning into the image of all the pieces the Dutch folks hated at the moment. He had for 20 years till 1671 been one in every of Europe’s solely leaders who wasn’t part of a royal household.
Opinion of the royals again then was much more constructive than it’s in the present day, and lots of Dutch wished the well-known William III of the Home of Orange-Nassau in workplace, the home being the closest factor the Republic needed to a royal household on the time. He would, after all, go on to rule over a lot of the Netherlands and grow to be the King of England, Scotland, and Eire.
The De Witt household — a strong household who had been a part of the robust and rich service provider class — had ruled the town of Dordrecht since medieval instances.
They held excessive places of work across the Republic and had been as such targets of the individuals who hated all the pieces they represented.
On June 21, 1672, De Witt was stabbed and noticed the occasion as an indication for him to step down. For his enemies, nonetheless, resignation was not sufficient.
Later that 12 months, in August, De Witt went to go to his just lately imprisoned brother. An offended mob and navy group quickly caught wind of his presence and descended on The Hague.
As the 2 brothers left the jail, the navy group shot them each and, wounded, left them to the offended crowd.
Studies from the time are different, however in some unspecified time in the future, the brothers had been stripped and mutilated, and their livers eliminated and eaten by members of the gang.
Individuals are additionally stated to have scrambled for souvenirs, issues like pulling enamel out of the brothers’ mouths and ripping their fingers off.
A darkish chapter in Dutch historical past, it is usually maybe probably the most weird second in a tumultuous century of European politics, which additionally noticed England’s first and final civil conflict.
In the present day, guests who’re interested by the entire debacle can go to the jail the place the De Witt brother was held, and the positioning of the assault.
Gevangenpoort is now a museum in The Hague and doubles up as an artwork gallery, situated proper subsequent to the sq. the place the brothers had been killed.
Look intently, and you may even see a commemorative statue of Johan de Witt there, full with all his limbs and very important organs.
