Johan de Witt

Johan de Witt (1625–1672) was a Dutch statesman born at Dordrecht. Trained in law at Leiden, he became Grand Pensionary of Holland in 1653 and dominated the Republic through its Stadtholderless Golden Age, opposing the House of Orange. In 1667 the Dutch raid on the Medway humiliated England, and he carried an act barring the House of Orange from the stadtholderate.

In the Rampjaar of 1672 the Republic suffered defeats and French armies invaded. De Witt was stabbed in June, resigned in August, and on the 20th was lynched with his brother Cornelis by an Orangist mob in The Hague.