Batavian Republic - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Kingdom of Holland lasted only four years. Though Louis performed his role beyond all expectations, and did his best to defend the interests of his subjects, this was exactly the reason why Napoleon decided that the Netherlands could no longer be denied the blessings of being reunited with his Empire, though over the objections of Louis. Louis abdicated on July 2, 1810 in favor of his son Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, who reigned for ten days. Then the Netherlands were finally reunited with the origins of the "alluvial deposits of the French rivers," of which the country in the view of Napoleon consists. This reunion did not outlast the effects of the disastrous French invasion of Russia, and the Battle of Leipzig. The Empire melted away, and the independent Netherlands took shape again with every city that the retreating French army of occupation evacuated in the course of 1813. In the ensuing political vacuum a triumvirate of former Orangist regents, led by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, invited the former Hereditary Prince (the old Stadtholder had died in 1806) to assume power as "Sovereign Prince." William VI of Orange landed in Scheveningen on November 30, 1813. He duly established control in the Netherlands and was offered the crown of the combined area of the former 17 provinces of the Netherlands (modern Belgium and the Netherlands) by the Allies in the secret London Protocol (also known as the Eight Articles of London) of June 21, 1814, which he accepted exactly one month later. On March 16, 1815 the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was proclaimed.