Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands the Kingdom of the Netherlands' did not come into being until 1818. The city of Amsterdam was, and still is, the centre of Dutch Lutheranism. Most Lutherans in the Netherlands are descendants of German or Scandinavian merchants, and the Lutheran church has always been quite small. Because of the urban and internationally oriented membership of the Lutheran Church, liberal influences have always been relatively strong. The church was always counted among the most liberal denominations in the Netherlands. They were among the first churches to ordain women. On May 1, 2004, the Lutheran Church's membership was down to a mere
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