Wendela Bicker

Biography

As the daughter of Amsterdam merchant and Mayor Jan Bicker (1591-1653) and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek (1603-1656), she was a descendant of the Bicker-De Graeff clan, the two most influential Amsterdam families of the Dutch Golden Age, and also relative of the families Hooft and of Volkert Overlander and Frans Banninck Cocq. Wendela grew up in a city house on Keizersgracht. Her sisters married influential people: Elisabeth Bicker (1630-1660) married the arms dealer Jacob Trip, Geertruid Bicker (1634-1702) married the wealthy banker and investor Jean Deutz, Cornelia Bicker (1638-1665) married her cousin Gerard Bicker (I) van Swieten and Jacoba Bicker (1640–1695) married her cousin Pieter de Graeff.

Wendela Bicker met her future husband Johan de Witt when her uncle Cornelis de Graeff met the young statesman. De Witt had been the first man in the republic as Grand pensionary since 1653, but kept a “miserable bachelor household” in The Hague. Johan's father Jacob de Witt urged him to find a wife befitting his rank, to start a family and a "tidy household" with her. Wendela made this undertaking easier for him insofar as she presented herself as a "gentle woman of slender and graceful growth", "with blond curls and gentle eyes". In the late summer of 1654, De Witt began courting her. On 16 February 1655 the couple married in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Holland's national poet, Joost van den Vondel, recited a poem written for the occasion at the celebration. After the wedding, the young couple moved to The Hague, where de Witt worked as council pensioner of Holland and West Friesland in the Binnenhof. On the advice of the English ambassador, William Temple, the couple set up a large household with numerous servants and two liveried servants for the council pensioner in their new residence in the "Hofsingel".

Within twelve years of marriage, Wendela gave birth to eight children, three of whom died young. She took her mother's job very seriously, ran the household herself and also looked after Johan's elderly father, Jacob. In the long run, however, this exceeded their strength. When her two-year-old daughter Elisabeth died in June 1668, Wendela was at the end of her strength and she died after four days of illness at the end of June or beginning of July of the same year. Wendela Bicker was buried on 6 July in the family grave in Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk with a large turnout of the population.

Many family members helped Johan de Witt by looking after his five children, including Johan de Witt, during this difficult time. After de Witt's murder in the summer of 1672, Wendela's cousin Pieter de Graeff became the breadwinner for the orphans.