Talk:Johan de Witt

Untitled
Shouldn't this be Jan de Witt? I've always seen it as such. john k 07:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * You are right. And you are mistaken :o) For many centuries Dutch children have been given christian names that are never used in everyday life. The official names are spoken at the baptism, their marriage and their funeral &mdash; and never in between. Of course this phenomenon exists in other European countries also, but the Dutch carry it to extremes. Hence the joke: "We proudly announce the birth of our son Quintus Theophilus, we'll call him Bartje". So Johannes de Witt was Jantje as a boy and Jan when a grown man. His brother Cornelis was known first as Keesje and later Kees. Still in a historical account, the Dutch tend to use the official name. This has been rather common for Johan de Witt also, though the name is in a slightly more vernacular form, which should perhaps be seen as sign of endearment, like the stadtholders are never called Wilhelmus, nor the too common Wim, but Willem.

--MWAK 17:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Killing
In the article is said that Cornelis was disembowled while alive. Is there a source for this? According to H.H. Rowen, biographer of De Witt, the brothers were killed immediately outside the prison (as planned) and afterwards their bodies where mutulated, probably not planned. Rowen, H.H., "Johan de Witt. Staatsman van de 'Ware Vrijheid" published in Leiden in 1985. Scafloc 18:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Exhibition
According to the article "the heart of Cornelis de Witt was exhibited for many years next to his brother's by Dirck Verhoeff". Is there any source for this? If not, I think this statement should be removed. Brederode (talk) 08:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I have provided the requested citation and reinstated the passage about the exhibition of the hearts.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Lack of references
I am amazed that this badly referenced article has been allowed to go unchallenged. It makes numerous questionable and debatable statements without providing any source. I appeal for some administrator to mark the article as untrustworthy until it is better documented. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually he is French
Should it not be pointed out that the surname De witt is of french origin And that the De witt ffamily of the netherlands is in fact descended from a french family who moved to the netherlands and that they are more thatn likely jewish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.103.129.21 (talk) 06:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course the addition of such claims requires the support of reliable sources, but if you can provide them it would of course be relevant to mention in the De Witt (family). --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Name of the city of Vlissingen
I was amused to see the minor city of Vlissingen translated to Flushing. Yes, New Yorkers, it's a nice bit of trivia that that's where the neighborhood in Queens got its name. But nobody in either country knows Vlissingen itself by that name. (Former New Yorker now living in The Netherlands here.) --tgeller (talk) 21:25, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Uncited material in need of citations
I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:CS, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, WP:BLP, WP:NOR, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 15:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Early life and education
Johan de Witt was a member of the old Dutch patrician family De Witt. His father was Jacob de Witt, an influential regent and burgher from the patrician class in the city of Dordrecht, which in the seventeenth century, was one of the most important cities of the dominating province of Holland. Johan and his older brother, Cornelis de Witt, grew up in an elite social environment in terms of education, his father having as good acquaintances important scholars and scientists, such as Isaac Beeckman, Jacob Cats, Gerardus Vossius and Andreas Colvius. Johan and Cornelis attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, which imbued both brothers with the values of the Roman Republic.

...but his cool-headedness calmed the situation.

Marriage and children
On 16 February 1655, De Witt married Wendela Bicker, the daughter of Jan Bicker, an influential patrician from Amsterdam, and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek. This marriage made De Witt member of the leading Amsterdam regent-oligarchy Bicker-De Graeff. Jan Bicker served as mayor of Amsterdam in 1653. De Witt became a relative to the strong republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and to Andries Bicker. Because of this relationship, he was able to rely on the political and economic help of Amsterdam during his tenure as head of government.

Grand Pensionary
Holland tended to belong to the Dutch Reformed faction in the United Province.

Act of Seclusion
...did not fill the office of Stadholder.

The peace treaty had a secret annex, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the Dutch ever to appoint William II's posthumous son, the infant William, as stadholder. This annex had been attached on instigation of Cromwell, who felt that since William III was a grandson of the executed Charles I, it was not in the interests of his own republican regime to see William ever gain political power.

Perpetual Edict
The Second Anglo-Dutch War began in 1665, lasting until 1667, when it ended with the Treaty of Breda, in which De Witt negotiated very favorable agreements for the Republic after the partial destruction of the English fleet in the Raid on the Medway, initiated by De Witt himself and executed in 1667 by De Ruyter.

At about the time the Treaty of Breda was concluded, De Witt made another attempt at pacification of the quarrel between States Party and Orangists over the position of the Prince of Orange. He proposed to have William appointed captain-general of the Union on reaching the age of majority (23); on condition, however, that this office would be declared incompatible with that of stadtholder in all of the provinces. For good measure the stadtholderate was abolished in Holland itself. This Perpetual Edict (1667) was enacted by the States of Holland on 5 August 1667, and recognised by the States General on a four-to-three vote in January, 1668. This edict was added by Gaspar Fagel, then Pensionary of Haarlem, Gillis Valckenier and Andries de Graeff, two prominent Amsterdam regents, which abolished the stadtholderate in Holland "for ever".

Disaster year
The same portrait artist who had made paintings of the brothers in life, Jan de Baen, also drew them in death: The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers.

Mathematics
In presentation of conic sections, de Witt sought kinematic motivation, independent of cross sections of a cone. Johannes Kepler, for example, had used kinematic geometric constructions. From 1647 to 1650 de Witt did legal work in The Hague and composed Elementa Curvarum Linearum, Liber Secundus, when he had the chance. In 1658 the Liber Primus was submitted to Frans van Schooten to introduce Liber Secundus. The first is purely verbal, the second uses algebra: a,b,c as known quantities, u,v,w,x,y,z unknowns.

After the violent deaths of the brothers the 'Staten' issued new life annuities in 1673 for the old rate of 1 in 14.

In 1671, De Witt conceived of a life annuity as a weighted average of annuities certain where the weights were mortality probabilities (that sum to one), thereby producing the present value of a life annuity. In 1693, Edmond Halley (of comet fame) defined the present value of a life annuity as the discounted value of each annual payment, multiplied by the probability of surviving long enough to receive the payment, and summed until there are no survivors. De Witt's approach was especially insightful and ahead of its time. In modern terminology, De Witt expressed the value of a life annuity as the expected value of a random variable.

Legacy
The lynching of the De Witt brothers is depicted with a dramatic intensity in the first four chapters of The Black Tulip, a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas, père in 1850, and this event has implications for the whole plot line of the book. In its time, Dumas's book helped make this tragedy known to a French readership (and a readership in other countries into whose languages the book was translated) who were otherwise ignorant of Dutch history.

The important role of De Witt in Dutch politics and his murder was subject of the 2015 film Michiel de Ruyter, called The Admiral in the English version.

One Dutch warship is named after De Witt, HNLMS Johan de Witt (L801).

Cannibalism
I believe it is a common myth that his body was cannibalized. The citations do not prove this event. They claim that these were exaggerated stories. Rudivanhemert (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The citation is correct. "They were beaten, stabbed, and shot to death. The corpses were dragged to a nearby scaffold and pulled up by the feet to be displayed to the people, and then mutilated, parts being roasted and eaten in a frenzy of cannibalistic hatred." 
 * (The Dutch Republic : Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 (Oxford History of Early Modern Europe) DerElektriker (talk) 13:23, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Needs serious work.
This article is in wretched shape. It has been edited into a state where much of it is grammatical or logical nonsense. 76.90.100.107 (talk) 12:18, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT. -- Jayron 32 13:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Leading Statesman
The first paragraph of this section seems to have been truncated at some point. "However, the Provinces, under the dominance of the province of Holland" The Provinces did what under the dominance of Holland? Makes no sense. Couldn't find where this had been messed up in the revision history. 216.158.130.226 (talk) 19:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)