Capital of the Netherlands capital city somewhat, as Emperor Napoleon declared the city to be the third city of the Empire (after Paris and Rome) and an imperial residence. In December 1813, after the fall of Napoleon and the accession of Prince William VI of Orange as Sovereign of the Netherlands, The Hague was restored as the seat of government. Although the proper legal status of Amsterdam as capital of the Netherlands is of recent date, the city has been uniformly recognised as capital ever since 1814. This is partly because it is a "Royal City", used not only for the inauguration of kings,
United Kingdom of the Netherlands as a rump state and refused to recognise Belgian independence until 1839 when the Treaty of London was signed, fixing the border between the two states and guaranteeing Belgian independence and neutrality as the Kingdom of Belgium. Before the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), the Low Countries was a patchwork of different polities created by the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648). The Dutch Republic in the north was independent, while the Southern Netherlands was split between the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The former was part of Habsburg Austria and both were part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the aftermath