Note 513 — BOOK III[496]

William I. King of the Netherlands had united Belgium and Holland under his sceptre since 1815. But, after the Insurrection of Brussels on the 25th August 1830, the Belgian Congress had voted the deposal of the House of Orange-Nassau. On the 21st of July 1831, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected and proclaimed King of the Belgians. William I. continued to hold the Citadel of Antwerp, refused to recognise the new kingdom and persisted in his resistance even after the Siege of Antwerp and the capitulation of the citadel (23 December 1832). On the date when the Duchesse de Berry wrote her Note (7 May 1833), he had not yet yielded. It was only on the 21st of May that he signed a convention for the suspension of hostilities and the resumption of navigation on the Scheldt and the Meuse. He did not definitely agree to the separation of Holland and Belgium until five years later, in 1838. He abdicated in 1840, was succeeded by his son, William II., the Prince of Orange mentioned above, and died suddenly, in Berlin, on the 12th of December 1843, in his seventy-first year.—T.