Johan de Witt
Popular sentiment remained unsatisfied and frustrations with the hopeless military situation led to the search for scapegoats. In August, Cornelis de Witt, the less gifted and less popular brother of Johan de Witt, was imprisoned in The Hague on suspicion of treason and plotting to assassinate William. When Johan de Witt visited his brother, the small cavalry security detail present was sent away on the pretext of stopping a group of marauding peasants. Around the prison a crowd had gathered, demanding the punishment of the brothers. The prison was stormed — according to some contemporary accounts, after Orangist Cornelis Tromp, an enemy of Johan de Witt, had given the sign — by civil militia. The brothers were taken and murdered by the militia members and their bodies mutilated and partly eaten by the crowd. The names of a few of the murderers became known but they were protected and, in some cases, even rewarded by Prince William. Many modern historians suspect that the murders were the result of a conspiracy involving, among others, William himself.