The Dutch have for most of history been an almost all powerful force to be
reckoned with. They were the forerunners for a lot of the world's exploration,
and for a long time dominated the seas and the trade routes through the stranglehold
of the Dutch East India Company. Back home in what is to day known
as the Netherlands, was a powerful monarchy ruling over the Dutch Republic. In
the sixteen hundreds, they were still considered to be a fairly new power,
but were ruled by the now infamous Habsburg family, who made the Habsburg Chin
famous. And if you're not show quite what I'm referring to, please do
go and google it. In the preceding century, they were still under Spanish
rule, with two of their kings, Charles the fifth and his son Philip
the Second, simultaneously ruling as the Kings of Spain as well as the so
called low countries of the Netherlands. But the Dutch weren't having any of this
for long, and at the first sign of mismanagement made their feelings known.
These are the bizarre but true stories from history and in some way involved food.
I'm Nick Charlie Key, and this in the fantastic history of food.
In the fifteen sixties, the Spanish rulers began imposing hefty taxes on the Dutch
provinces of Holland and Zeeland, which was bad enough, but when they began
incorporating religious oppression into the mix as well, that's when general unrest in the
population turned into a full blown revolt against the Spanish monarchy. The revolt was
spearheaded by the most powerful family amongst the Dutch aristocrats, who would eventually become
the inspiration for the color of their country's iconic sporting outfits, the House of
Orange. This family was immensely wealthy and immensely powerful, holding significant swaths of
land across both their own nation as well as France. This initial revolt would
mark the beginning of eighty years of on again, off again fighting as the
Dutch War of Independence raged onwards. Eventually, the Spanish monarchy, battling to
stay afloat maintaining all of their global colonies, accepted defeat and officially acknowledge the
birth of the Dutch Republic as an independent state in sixteen forty eight. Now,
as with any newly independent nation, there is a power vacuum that exists
into which hordes of power hungry individuals rush headlong, hoping at the end of
it all to have come out on top. This high level power grabbing and
in fighting would coincide with a major shift in economic power across Europe, which
in turn began to elevate the power and status of wealthy merchants. Trade and
industry had begun to move away from the Mediterranean as its centralized hub, and
more towards the North Atlantic, which made Amsterdam perfectly situated to capitalize. Within
a decade or to Amsterdam would become a major financial and mercantile powerhouse. This
was the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age, which even now was still most
despearheaded by the House of Orange. But times were rapidly changing, and as
the Republic began to settle into its own rhythms, factions within the new ideas
of how the country should be run were popping up left and right. One
of these factions was led by a pair of brothers known as Johann and Cornelius
de Witt. They were the figureheads representing a conglomerate of lesser Dutch nobles and
wealthy merchants who independently could not hope to challenge the House of Orange, but
collectively stood more of a chance as they hoped to adopt more of a republican
model of government. Just two years after gaining their independence from Spain, it
seemed that this faction was largely succeeding in their efforts, as power began to
decentralize to minor nobles and merchant companies across the land. Just three years later
and Johan de Witt was granted the title of Dutch Grand Pensionary, which,
for all intents and purposes, was what we would nowadays consider to be equivalent
to a prime minister. Now, if you've read the title of this episode,
you'll be keenly aware that this man doesn't yet know that this isn't the
big break he'd been hoping for. For the first few years, things were
going rather well, and the Dutch Republic was dominating European and colonial trade across
the globe, with a lot of that success owed to the might of the
Dutch East India Company. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Dordrecht blossomed as enormous wealth flooded
into these cities. But as the famous saying goes nothing, gold can stay,
and their new found wealth and influence simply could not last forever. History
repeatedly shows us the truth of tall poppy syndrome. As soon as one nation
begins to edge ahead of the pack, the daggers swiftly come out. As
such, with the rapid economic rise of the Dutch Republic, the other grand
old European powers became incredibly hostile towards them and resentful of their Atlantic trade dominance.
At this point in time, people believed in a philosophy which argued that
there was always a finite amount of trade that could ever be conducted globally,
and so if one nation was gaining, that had to mean that you were
losing. Conversely, the only way to increase your own share was by acquiring
the trade away from other nations. And what better way to both distract and
deplete a nation's resources than by taking it in turns to declare war on them.
So every few years one of the other nations would do their part in
crushing the Dutch economic might, with England taking the role of primary instigator upon
the high seas and the French upon the land. In sixteen seventy two,
these two nations independently declared war on the Dutch within twenty four hours of each
other. This combined assault stretched the Dutch to capacity, and at its outbreak
was disastrous for your Hund of its government. As the conflict escalated, the
French allied with some disparate German forces and steam rolled the Dutch defenses in the
east. Within just a few days, these combined forces had overrun and now
occupied much of the southern and eastern parts of the Dutch Republic. The citizens
of Amsterdam were watching in horror as this all unfolded before their eyes and quickly
began to panic. This period in Dutch history has come to be known as
the Disaster year. Panic became more widespread, and the internal conflict between the
Republican coalition headed by the Davit brothers and the House of Orange now also became
more pronounced Jahandavit as Prime Minister, had served in his role for almost twenty
years, having been re elected on three separate occasions. As the country prospered,
so his possession strengthened. But now at the first major sign of trouble
that public support would be severely tested. He would also find no backing from
the House of Orange, as he had always been strongly anti monarchy and refused
to let the Prince of Orange hold any political power. The public, fearing
for their lives, began turning on the government, believing they had failed to
secure the Republic's borders and along with it, the economic stability of the nation.
In their minds, it would be better to go back to a monarchy,
with the closest thing to a royal family being the House of Orange,
with Prince Villim the Third being the family figurehead. Riots and protests began in
the streets calling for Prince villem the Third to assume power from the Republicans.
As town after town fell in defeat to the French, the public outcry grew
louder and louder, until it deafened the ears of aristocrats across the country.
On the twenty first of June, one man decided to take matters into his
own hands and waited outside the home of Jehund Vit as the Prime Minister stepped
out onto the street that day. The would be assassin lunged at him with
a knife, piercing Yehandivit's stomach and wounding him severely. He was then rushed
to a hospital and stabilized before he lost too much blood, but it was
now clear to him that neither he nor his brother was safe. While Johan
was still recovering in the hospital, his brother Cornelius, who was even more
despised by supporters of the monarchy, was under the current circumstances of his brother's
near miss, ironically arrested on charges of treason for his apparent plot to murder
the Prince of Orange. Needless to say, these charges were never proven and
were clearly designed as a tactic to remove the only remaining an active divit from
public office. Cornelius was thrown in jail and tortured, but still he would
not confess to any plot. Eventually, after days of not getting the information
they needed from him, they simply sentenced him to be exiled forever, never
again to set foot on Dutch territory. On the morning of the twentieth of
August, when Johann heard about his brother's mistreatment, he pulled himself out of
bed and made his way over to the jail to see him and plan for
where he would have to go. He entered the jail, and, while
conversing with his brother, a large crowd began to gather outside the gates.
They were restless, and after retribution, the Hague militia was called in on
the auspices of being there to control the crowd, but it had seemingly all
become too much for everyone involved. They were all tired of waiting for the
men to emerge, and at some point gave up trying and just stormed the
prison to find the two Davite brothers and subject them to some mob justice.
The two men heard the commotion, but were trapped without any possible hope for
escape. The crowd swarmed them, and in their efforts to fight back,
gave the militia all the reason they needed to shoot them right there on the
spot. The brothers fell down dead in front of the baying masses, but
even their now deceased bodies could not satisfy the blood lust that had been whipped
into a frenzy by the crowd. Their bodies were symbols of everything that was
wrong in the world and became the canvases upon which the crowd would paint their
displeasure. At this point, I just want to give a quick content warning.
I've tried as bet as I can to not indulge in unnecessary goriness,
but I do spell out fairly plainly what happened to them in the ensuing acts.
So if you have any sensitive listeners, maybe now's a good time to
switch off or pause until they're not in the room and we're back. The
crowd began dragging their lifeless bodies out of the prison, tearing off their clothes
and kicking, hitting and spitting at them as they went. Ropes were tied
around their necks and they were strung up to sway in the wind from some
nearby gibbets, but even this didn't seem to quite quench the fury of the
crowd. A few particularly enraged citizens began attacking the strung up bodies, hitting,
clawing, and scratching at them as if they were the root cause of
all the world's evils. Some even grabbed knives and began stabbing and slashing the
brothers corpses until the wounds grew large enough that they're intestine began to spill out
of their stomachs. In what is now viewed as an incredibly shameful moment and
one of the lowest points in Dutch history, the devit Brothers livers and other
internal organs were pulled from their bodies and began to be roasted over open fires
right there in the street. Crowds gathered around the frankly heinous sight and watched
in stunned silence as their former prime minister's liver sizzled and popped above the roaring
flames. Once it had been satisfactorily cooked, the men's livers were passed around
and bites were taken by as many people as could get their hands on them,
in some sort of bizarre cannibalistic ritual. Possibly the strangest part of all
of this was that, by all accounts from my various sources, this entire
procedure actually happened in a very subdued and orderly fashion in style contrast to the
previous violence and chaos, leading some scholars to believe that this was in fact
their twisted intent all along. What made the lynching of these two men even
more cruel was that when it occurred, the war, if it had actually
begun to improve for the Dutch, and they had begun winning some decisive battles
against the French, reclaiming their towns as they went, it is speculated that
Villain the third, the Prince of Orange, saw his window of opportunity to
reclaim power rapidly closing as the tide of the war turned. Many observers point
to the Hague militia themselves being the ones to actually breach the prison gates,
in contrast to their mandate to in fact keep the peace amongst the protesters.
There was also meant to have been a detachment from the federal cavalry on their
way to the prison that night, who at the last minute, were ordered
to turn around by nine other than the Prince himself. Now, when viewed
through this lens, the orderliness of the divitzs, butchering and consumption seems to
make a bit more sense when seen as being orders simply carried out, as
opposed to the outworkings of a crazed mob. The three ring leaders on the
night were well known men, and instead of being prosecuted by the state,
Prince villem in fact gave the men promotions. And while we will never be
able to say for certain whether the Prince really did have a guiding hand in
any of these events, things do seem to line up a little too nicely
for us to let him off the hook. In the aftermath of the horrendous
lynching, the public's fury abated, and they collectively seemed to take a moment
to look at themselves and were horrified by what they saw. Villam the Third's
prominence in Dutch society allowed him to fill the power vacuum left by the murder
of the Divitz, and instead of very obviously placing himself in power, he
simply orchestrated the appointment of a new prime Minister named Gaspar Fagel, who just
happened to be incredibly pro orange. After a few years of ruling the Dutch
Republic through his puppet Prime Minister, Prince Villam the third married Mary Stuart,
the daughter of the Duke of York, and once again put his political meddlings
to work. Through his marriage, in sixteen seventy seven, he acquired a
claim to the English throne. Twelve years later, in sixteen eighty nine,
he usurped the crown from his very own father in law, and so doing
became King William the Third of England. This show is made entirely by me
Nick Charlie Key, with our theme music having been made by the Enigma that
is the mysterious Breakmaster cylinder. If you'd like to support the show, the
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out for your name in an upcoming episode. So until next time, bonappetit. Who yuh