The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have a strong political and economic partnership. Over forty Dutch towns and cities are twinned with British towns and cities. Both English and Dutch are West Germanic languages, with West Frisian, a minority language in the Netherlands, being the closest relative of the English language if one excludes Scots. In addition, between 90% and 93% of people in the Netherlands claim to speak English, although a negligible percentage of British people can speak Dutch. The Netherlands has an embassy in London, and the United Kingdom has an embassy in The Hague and a consulate in Amsterdam. The UK also has a consulate in Willemstad, Curaçao. There are also strong ties between the UK's overseas territory of Anguilla and the nearby Sint Maarten of the Netherlands. Country comparison History Early Modern Relations In the mid-seventeenth century, after the Dutch had made peace in their war of independence from Spain and the former Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were being united under Cromwell's Commonwealth, Oliver St John was sent to Holland to moot the possibility of unifying the Dutch Republic with the Commonwealth, as fellow Protestant, seafaring republics, though the plan did not come to pass. The Anglo-Dutch wars were battles between England (and the Kingdom of Great Britain during the fourth war) and the Dutch Republic during the 17th and 18th centuries. There were four wars in total, two were won by each side, and ended with the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. The wars were largely fought to secure trade routes and to enable colonial expansion. Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (VII of Scotland and II of Ireland) in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch Republic stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange) who, as a result, ascended the English throne as William III of England. The crisis besetting King James II came to a head in 1688, when the King fathered a son, James Francis Edward Stuart on 10 June (Julian calendar), until then the throne would have passed to his daughter, Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange. The prospect of a Catholic dynasty in the kingdoms was now likely. Already troubled by the King's Catholicism and his close ties with France, key leaders of the