Capital of the Netherlands Years War, which allowed the city a lot of trade opportunities, but made it unsuitable for the seat of government of the emerging 'rebel' state. Before the institution of the Batavian Republic of 1795 the Netherlands were not a unitary state, but more of a confederation in which the independent provinces and the larger cities and towns were very much politically autonomous. During the seventeenth century, the Prince Stadtholder as official of the States of Holland clashed several times with the city government of Amsterdam about policy, up to the point that the city was beleaguered by the army. Up
Constitution of the Netherlands numbering; however, all except articles IX and XIX are now abrogated. Each of the four countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (The Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten) has its own constitution or "basic law". These constitutions are legally subjected to the Statute of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which is the constitution of the entire Kingdom. The constitution of the Netherlands is only applicable to the territory in Europe and its public bodies of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, since 2010 municipalities, in the Caribbean, except when the Statute does not cover a certain legal subject. The Statute