in the Germanic Confederation, was bestowed upon the Dutch
sovereign in compensation for German principalities ceded by him at
this time to Prussia.[718] March 15, 1815, William began his reign
under the new regime in Holland, and September 27 following he was
crowned at Brussels.

[Footnote 718: These ceded territories comprised
the ancestral domains of the house of Nassau which
lay in Germany--Dietz, Siegen, Hadamar, and
Dillenburg. The grand-duchy of Luxemburg was joined
with the Netherlands by a personal union only, and
in its capital, as a fortress of the German
Confederation, was maintained a Prussian garrison.
William dealt with the territory, however,
precisely as if it were an integral part of his
kingdom, extending to it the constitution of 1815
and administering its affairs through the agency of
Dutch officials. At the time of the Belgian revolt,
in 1830, Luxemburg broke away from Dutch rule and
there ensued in the history of the grand-duchy an
anomalous period during which the legal status of
the territory was hotly disputed. In 1839 the
Conference of London assigned to Belgium that
portion of the grand-duchy which was contiguous to
her frontiers and remanded the remainder to the
status of an hereditary possession of the house of
Nassau. In 1856 a separate constitution was granted
the people of the territory, and in 1867, following
the dissolution of the old Germanic Confederation,
the grand-duchy was declared by an international
conference at London to be a sovereign and
independent (but neutral) state, under the guaranty
of the powers. The connection between Luxemburg and
Holland was thereafter purely dynastic. Until the
death of William III., in 1890, the king of the
Netherlands was also grand-duke of Luxemburg; but
with the accession of Queen Wilhelmina the union of
the two countries was terminated, by reas