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
Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands The Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands (in Dutch: "Statuut voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden"; in Papiamentu: "Statuut pa e Reino di Hulanda") describes the political relationship between the four countries that constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten in the Caribbean and the Netherlands (for the most part) in Europe. It is the leading legal document of the Kingdom. The Constitution of the Netherlands and the Basic Laws of the three other countries are legally subordinate to the Charter. The first version of the Charter, which described