Abstract
Louis XIV planned and began the war of 1672 against the States General of the United Provinces, his allies of the previous decade, to punish their participation in the Triple Alliance of 1668. He was convinced that John de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, was the originator and organizer of this league between the Dutch Republic, England, and Sweden, formed to halt the French advance across Belgium during the War of Devolution. Yet, after the outbreak of the Dutch war, John de Witt and his brother Cornelius were accused of being traitors in the service of France and murdered by a mob at The Hague on August 20, 1672. Despite this paradox, most historians from that time to this have considered the Triple Alliance as De Witt’s “personal work.”1
Published originally in the Journal of Modern History, 26/1 (March 1954). © 1954 by the University of Chicago. Reprinted with permission.
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Notes
Abraham de Wicquefort, L’ ambassadeur et ses fonctions, new ed., 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1730), II, 125.
A. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Vingt années de république parlementaire au dix-septième siècle: Jean de Witt, grand pensionnaire de Hollande, 2 vols. (Paris, 1884), I, 450; Japikse, Johan de Witt, 265.
De Witt to Van Beuningen, May 31, 1668, Brieven van Johan de Witt, III, 411.
Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois et de son administration politique et militaire, 7th ed., 4 vols. (Paris, 1886), I, 138–139; Camille-Georges Picavet, Les dernières années de Turenne (1660–1675) (Paris, 1914), 226 29.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Harline, C.E. (1992). John De Witt and the Triple Alliance. In: Harline, C.E. (eds) The Rhyme and Reason of Politics in Early Modern Europe. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 132. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2722-6_10
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