[2] Graeff was the founder of a regent dynasty of the Dutch Golden Age[3] and the short time of the First Stadtholderless Period that retained power and influence for centuries and produced a number of ministers.

[5] His older brother was Lenaert Jansz de Graeff, an important figure of the Protestant Reformation in Amsterdam and privateer and leading captain of the Sea Beggars in the Capture of Brielle.

[2] Dirck Jansz Graeff was a merchant, he bought and sold steel at his house De Keyser in a street, now called Damrak.

In 1564 he was a member of a delegation who spoke with the Spanish Regent Margaret of Parma about the political situation in Amsterdam and the province Holland.

[11] In March of that year, backed by the brothers De Graeff and a large part of the bourgeoisie Henry, Count of Bréderode became the Generalcaptain of the city.

In 1566, the Protestant-minded community of patrician and wholesale merchants around Graeff, Jan Jacobsz Bal Huydecoper van Wieringen, Jacobsz Reael, Adriaan Pauw and Cornelis Hooft took over the social leadership within the city of Amsterdam in order to hold it in a political sense after the Alteratie of Amsterdam in 1578.

[13] When the prince paid him a visit in his Amsterdam town house “De Keyser” in the crisis year of 1567, the two discussed the issues of the city and the country.

[23] Dirck Jansz Graeff play a rol in the historic roman Krone der Welt by Sabine Weiß.