The Loevestein faction [1] (Dutch : Loevesteinse factie) or the Loevesteiners were a Dutch States Party in the second half of the 17th century in the County of Holland, the dominant province of the Dutch Republic. It claimed to be the party of "true freedom" against the stadtholderate of the House of Orange-Nassau, and sought to establish a purely republican form of government in the Northern Netherlands. [2] [3] [4]
The name Loevestein refers to Loevestein Castle. There, stadtholder William II locked up six members of the States of Holland and West Friesland during his coup d'état of 30 July 1650. Amongst them was the burgomaster of Dordrecht, Jacob de Witt (father of Johan and Cornelis de Witt). After pressure by the States of Holland, they were already subsequently released between 17 and 22 August 1650. [2] Jacob de Witt lost all his functions, but when William II died several months after his coup, Jacob retrieved most of his functions. These events made the term Loevestein faction synonymous for pro-States regenten who opposed the stadtholderate.
The term "Loevestein faction" was invented by their Orangist adversaries. It has been suggested that Jacob had 'poisoned' his sons with anti-Orange sentiments, and he allegedly told them every day to 'Gedenck aan Loevesteyn' ("Remember Loevestein"), although this is disputed. From the 1660s onwards, the Prince's supporters would start identifying the Brothers de Witt with earlier States supporters such as Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (executed for his opposition against Maurice of Nassau) and Hugo Grotius (sentenced to life imprisonment in Loevestein in 1619 at Maurice's instigation, but he escaped in a book chest in 1621). After the assassination of the Brothers de Witt in 1672, their allies started doing the same, reappropriating the word "Loevesteiner".
In the 18th century, van Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius were retroactively counted amongst the "heroes and martyrs of the Loevestein tradition". In the early 19th century, king William I preferred to let the factional struggles during the Dutch Republic be 'forgiven and forgotten', but amongst others the firmly Orangist historian Willem Bilderdijk on the one hand and the liberal historian Reinier Cornelis Bakhuizen van den Brink (calling himself a "Loevesteiner [...] to the bone") on the other, vehemently disagreed, and sought to rewrite the history of the Netherlands according to their own views. [4]
Johan de Witt was a Dutch statesman 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 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.
Cornelis de Witt was a Dutch States Navy officer and statesman. During the First Stadtholderless Period, De Witt was an influential member of the Dutch States Party, and was in opposition to the House of Orange. In the Rampjaar of 1672 he was lynched together with his brother Johan de Witt by a crowd incited by Orangist partisans.
Andries de Witt was Grand Pensionary of Holland between 1619 and 1621.
The Act of Seclusion was an Act of the States of Holland, required by a secret annex in the Treaty of Westminster (1654) between the United Provinces and the Commonwealth of England in which William III, Prince of Orange, was excluded from the office of Stadtholder.
Andries Bicker was a prominent burgomaster (mayor) of Amsterdam, politician and diplomat in the Dutch Republic. He was a member of the Bicker family, who governed the city of Amsterdam and with it the province of Holland for about half a century. At that time, the Republic was at the height of its power.
The Perpetual Edict was a resolution of the States of Holland passed on 5 August 1667 which abolished the office of Stadtholder in the province of Holland. At approximately the same time, a majority of provinces in the States General of the Netherlands agreed to declare the office of stadtholder incompatible with the office of Captain general of the Dutch Republic.
Johan Kievit (1627–1692) was an Orangist Rotterdam Regent, who may have been one of the instigators of the murder of former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, of the Dutch Republic, and his brother Cornelis de Witt on 20 August 1672, together with his brother-in-law, Cornelis Tromp.
Johan van Banchem was one of the leaders of the lynching of Johan de Witt and Cornelis de Witt on 20 August 1672. He was rewarded for this crime with an appointment as baljuw of The Hague by Stadtholder William III. After a few years in this function he was arrested and convicted for gross abuse of his office. He was sentenced to death on 26 November 1680 by the Hof van Holland, but appealed the verdict to the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland. He died in jail before this appeal was finished.
Henri de Fleury de Coulan, Sieur de Buat, St Sire et La Forest de Gay was a captain of horse in the army of the Dutch Republic, who became embroiled in a celebrated conspiracy during the First Stadtholderless Period to overthrow the regime of Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt in favor of future Stadtholder William III, known as the Buat Conspiracy. He was convicted of treason in 1666 and executed.
Pieter de Groot was a Dutch regent and diplomat during the First Stadtholderless Period of the Dutch Republic. He led the Dutch delegation that vainly tried to negotiate the Dutch capitulation to King Louis XIV of France during the Year of Disaster, 1672.
Cornelis Musch was Griffier of the States-General of the Netherlands, the governing body of the Dutch Republic, from 1628 till the start of the First Stadtholderless Period. He was a byword for corruption in his lifetime.
Andries de Graeff was a regent and burgomaster (mayor) of Amsterdam and leading Dutch statesman during the Golden Age.
In the history of the Dutch Republic, Orangism or prinsgezindheid was a political force opposing the Staatsgezinde (pro-Republic) party. Orangists supported the Princes of Orange as Stadtholders and military commanders of the Republic, as a check on the power of the regenten. The Orangist party drew its adherents largely from traditionalists – mostly farmers, soldiers, noblemen and orthodox Protestant preachers, though its support fluctuated heavily over the course of the Republic's history and there were never clear-cut socioeconomic divisions.
Pieter de Graeff was a Dutch aristocrat of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the most influential pro-state, republican Amsterdam Regents during the late 1660s and the early 1670s before the Rampjaar 1672. As president-bewindhebber of the Dutch East India Company, he was one of the most important representatives and leaders of the same after the Rampjaar.
Jacob Dircksz de Graeff, free lord of Zuid-Polsbroek was an illustrious member of the Dutch patrician De Graeff family. He belonged to States Faction and was an influential Amsterdam regent and burgomaster (mayor) of the Dutch Golden Age.
De Witt is the name of an old Dutch patrician and regenten family. Originally from Dordrecht, the genealogy of the family begins with Jan de Witte, a patrician who lived around 1295. The family have played an important role during the Dutch Golden Age. They were at the centre of Dordrecht and Holland oligarchy from the end of the 16th century until 1672, and belonged to the Dutch States Party.
The Dutch States Party was a political faction of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. This republican faction is usually (negatively) defined as the opponents of the Orangist "Pro-Prince" faction, who supported the monarchical aspirations of the stadtholders, who were usually members of the House of Orange-Nassau. The two factions existed during the entire history of the Republic since the Twelve Years' Truce, be it that the role of "usual opposition party" of the States Party was taken over by the Patriots after the Orangist revolution of 1747. The States Party was in the ascendancy during the First Stadtholderless Period and the Second Stadtholderless Period.
The Attack on Amsterdam in July 1650 was part of a planned coup d'état by stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange to break the power of the regenten in the Dutch Republic, especially the County of Holland. The coup failed, because the army of the Frisian stadtholder William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz got lost on the way to Amsterdam in the rainy night of 29 to 30 July. It was discovered, and once the city had been warned, it had enough time to prepare for an attack. The attempted coup made the House of Orange extremely unpopular for a lengthy period of time, and was one of the main reasons for the origins of the First Stadtholderless Period (1650–1672).
Elie Luzac was a Dutch jurist, journalist, writer of philosophical, historical and political literature, and book-seller, who was considered an important ideologue of the "democratic wing" of the Orangist movement, both after the Orangist restoration in the Dutch Republic in 1748, and during the Patriottentijd.
Reyer or Reynier Pauw, was an Amsterdam regent of the Golden Age. Pauw was pensionary and eight times mayor of Amsterdam. He was involved in the Compagnie van Verre, the VOC, and the trial of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.