 The Kingdom of Holland lasted only four years . Though Louis performed his role beyond all expectations , and did his best to defend the interests of his subjects , this was exactly the reason why Napoleon decided that the Netherlands could no longer be denied the blessings of being reunited with his Empire , though over the objections of Louis . Louis abdicated on July 2 , 1810 , in favor of his son Napoleon Louis Bonaparte , who reigned for ten days . Then the Netherlands were finally reunited with the origins of the " alluvial deposits of the French rivers , " of which the country in the view of Napoleon consists . This reunion did not outlast the effects of the disastrous French invasion of Russia , and the Battle of Leipzig . The Empire melted away , and the independent Netherlands took shape again with every city that the retreating French army of occupation evacuated in the course of 1813 . In the ensuing political vacuum a triumvirate of former Orangist regents , led by <unk> Karel van Hogendorp , invited the former Hereditary Prince ( the old Stadtholder had died in 1806 ) to assume power as " Sovereign Prince . " William VI of Orange landed in Scheveningen on November 30 , 1813 . He duly established control in the Netherlands and was offered the crown of the combined area of the former 17 provinces of the Netherlands ( modern Belgium and the Netherlands ) by the Allies in the secret London Protocol ( also known as the Eight Articles of London ) of June 21 , 1814 , which he accepted exactly one month later . On March 16 , 1815 , the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was proclaimed . 
