The Eight Articles of London, also known as the London Protocol of 21 June 1814, were a secret convention between the

Great Power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...

s: the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

, and the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(the four leading nations of the

Sixth Coalition Sixth is the ordinal form of the number six. * The Sixth Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution * A keg of beer, equal to 5 U.S. gallons or barrel * The fraction A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, ...

against France) to award the territory of current

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

William I of the Netherlands William I (Willem Frederik; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was King of the Netherlands and List of monarchs of Luxembourg, Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1815 until his abdication in 1840. Born as the son of William V, Prince of Orange, ...

, then "Sovereign Prince" of the United Netherlands. He accepted this award on 21 July 1814.

Background

In early 1814

Napoleon I of France Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

was reeling under the onslaught of the Allies. The Netherlands, annexed to the Empire by the Rambouillet Decree of 9 July 1810, had already been evacuated by the French occupation troops. In that country power had been assumed by the eldest son of the late last

Stadtholder In the Low Countries, a stadtholder ( ) was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and ...

of the former

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

on 6 December 1813, under the new title "Sovereign Prince." In the former

Austrian Netherlands The Austrian Netherlands was the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Ras ...

, conquered by France in 1794 and annexed in 1795, the Allies made quick progress also. This presented the problem of what to do with this country. The thirty most prominent families of Brussels expressed the wish to restore the old Governorate-general of the Austrians, and this was provisionally instituted by the Allies in February 1814 as their military government. However, Austria itself expressed little interest in resuming its rule. Therefore, the Allies in the secret annexes to the Treaty of Chaumont provisionally apportioned the country to the new Dutch state. This was further formalized in the Treaty of Paris of 30 May 1814, in which Belgium on the left bank of the river

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

was apportioned to the (future) Netherlands (whereas the fate of the right bank area was to be determined later). How this was to be structured was, however, still to be decided, while certain expectations had been raised by the representatives of the Belgian people at Chaumont in February, that also needed to be honored in some way. These "loose ends" were taken care of in the protocol that came to be known as "The Eight Articles of London."

The Protocol

The gist of the protocol was determined by the Sovereign Prince himself in a letter of 16 May 1814 to his minister of Foreign Affairs, baron Van Nagell. Van Nagell put this text in the form of a diplomatic note that the British ambassador in The Hague, Lord Clancarty, conveyed to the British Foreign Minister

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh ( ) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Kingdom of Ireland, Ir ...

on 25 May. Castlereagh and William I were both in Paris for the signing of the treaty at the time. William sent a final draft of the Convention, as edited by Clancarty's Dutch colleague Anton Reinhard Falck, to the ministers of the other three Great Powers,

Metternich Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein ( ; 15 May 1773 – 11 June 1859), known as Klemens von Metternich () or Prince Metternich, was a Germans, German statesman and diplomat in the service of the Austrian ...

Nesselrode The House of Nesselrode is an old German nobility, German noble family originating in the Duchy of Berg. Over the centuries, the family expanded their possessions through marriage with the most powerful families of the region. As a former Imperi ...

, and

Hardenberg Hardenberg (; or '' 'n Arnbarg'') is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Overijssel, Eastern Netherlands. The municipality of ...

on 30 May. The treaty was signed by the representatives of the four Great Powers on 21 June 1814 in London with only a reversal in the order of the articles 7 and 8. The text of the Articles follows: Article 1 The union shall be intimate and complete, so that the two countries shall form only a single state to be governed by the Fundamental Law already established in Holland, which by mutual consent shall be modified according to the circumstances. Article 2 There shall be no change in those articles of the Fundamental Law, which assure to all religious cults equal protection and privileges, and guarantee the admissibility of all citizens, whatever be their religious creed, to public offices and dignities. Article 3 The Belgian provinces shall be in a fitting manner represented in the States General, whose sittings, in time of peace, shall be held by turns in a Dutch and a Belgian town. Article 4 All the inhabitants of the Netherlands thus having equal constitutional rights, they shall have equal claim to all commercial and other rights of which their circumstances allow, without any hindrance or obstruction being imposed on any to the profit of others. Article 5 Immediately after the union the provinces and towns of Belgium shall be admitted to the commerce and navigation of the Colonies of Holland upon the same footing as the Dutch provinces and towns. Article 6 The debts contracted on the one side by the Dutch, and on the other side by the Belgian provinces shall be charged to the public chest of the Netherlands. Article 7 The expenses requisite for the building and maintenance of the frontier fortresses of the new State shall be borne by the public chest as concerning the security and independence of all the provinces of the whole nation. Article 8 The cost of the making and upkeep of the dykes shall be at the charges of the districts more directly interested, except in the case of an extraordinary disaster. According to a protocol signed at the same time, the Powers based their decision to dispose of Belgium on the

right of conquest The right of conquest was historically a right of ownership to land after immediate possession via force of arms. It was recognized as a principle of international law that gradually deteriorated in significance until its proscription in the af ...

. They expressed their desire to bring about the most perfect "amalgamation" of the two countries; they invited the Sovereign Prince to accept the Treaty, and an appointment as Governor-General for Belgium, and take steps in a liberal spirit to bring about the desired amalgamation. William accepted this charge on 21 July 1814

Aftermath

William appointed a lieutenant-governor-general of the Belgian provinces on 1 August 1814. He subsequently tried to get the assent of the (carefully selected) representatives of the Belgian people to the Dutch constitution, but encountered opposition from those who were suspicious of designs to undermine the position of the Catholic Church in those provinces. While this process of negotiation dragged on, Napoleon escaped from his exile on the island of

Elba Elba (, ; ) is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park, a ...

, which started the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days ( ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII o ...

. This period of turmoil prompted William to proclaim himself King of the

Kingdom of the Netherlands The Kingdom of the Netherlands (, ;, , ), commonly known simply as the Netherlands, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united under the monarch of the Netherlands, who functions as head of state. The re ...

on 16 March 1815. While the danger of a Napoleonic restoration still existed, days before the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army (1804–1815), Frenc ...

, which took place on the territory of the new state, the formation of that state was homologated, that is, certified, by the Final Act of the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

on 9 June 1815. After Napoleon's defeat on 18 June the process of approving the constitution by the Belgians was finally forced by the expedient of counting abstentions, and the no-votes that were cast because of religious concerns, in a plebiscite on 18 August, as "tacit approval." This allowed William to be inaugurated formally as King of the new kingdom on 21 September 1815.Edward ''et al.'', pp. 522-524

References

Sources

* * Colenbrander, H.T. (1909) ''Ontstaan der Grondwet, deel 2, 1815'', Martinus Nijhoff * (1907) ''The Cambridge Modern History. Vol. X The Restoration'', New York, The MacMillan Company

External links