in the hands of an autocratic
Calvinist king, supported by the predominant Protestant majority in
Holland. A further grievance was that the heavy public debt incurred by
Holland should be made a common burden.

Considerable pressure was brought to bear upon the notables, but without
avail. The Fundamental Law was rejected by 796 votes to 527. Confronted
with this large hostile majority, the king took upon himself to reverse
the decision by an arbitrary and dishonest manipulation of the return.
He chose to assume that the 280 notables who had not voted were in
favour of the Law, and added their votes to the minority. He then
declared that 126 votes had been wrongly given in opposition to the
principle of religious equality, which, by the Second of the Eight
Articles approved by the Powers was binding and fundamental to the
Union, and he then not only deducted them from the majority, but added
them also to the minority. He then announced that the Fundamental Law
had been accepted by a majority of 263 votes. Such an act of chicanery
was not calculated to make the relations between north and south work
smoothly. Having thus for reasons of state summarily dealt with the
decision of the Belgian notables, William (September 26), made his state
entry into Brussels and took his oath to the Constitution.

Already the Congress of Vienna had given the official sanction of
the Powers to the creation of the kingdom of the Netherlands by a
treaty signed at Paris on May 31, 1815. By this treaty the whole
of the former Austrian Netherlands (except the province of Luxemburg)
together with the territory which before 1795 had been ruled by
the prince-bishops of Liege, the Duchy of Bouillon and several small
pieces of territory were added to Holland; and the new State thus
created was placed under the sovereignty of the head of the House
of Orange-Nassau. As stated above, however, it had been necessary
in making these arrangements to conciliate Prussian claims for
aggrandisement in the cis-Rhenan provinces. This led to a number of
complicated transactions. William ceded to Prussia his ancient
hereditary Nassau principalities--Dillenburg, Dietz, Siegen and
Hadamar. The equivalent which William received was the sovereignty of
Luxemburg, which for this purpose was severed from the Belgian
Netherlands, of which it had been one of the provinces since the time
of the Burgundian dukes, and was erected into a Grand-Duchy. Further
than this, the G