During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Netherlands was a confederation of states, consisting of seven sovereign provinces which had united in 1579 in the Union of Utrecht, mainly for the purposes of defence. This form of co-operation, which turned out to be increasingly unsatisfactory in practice, continued until 1795, when a unitary state, the Batavian Republic, was created under the influence of the French Revolution. Restless years followed. The influence of France steadily increased; in 1806 this resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Holland, ruled by one of Napoleon's brothers. In 1810 the Netherlands' independence came to an end in a formal sense when it was incorporated in the French Empire. This situation continued until 1813; in November of that year the power was taken over by a number of prominent figures in the expectation of the arrival from England of a descendant of the House of Orange. This House had assumed the most important position in the Union, the position of Stadhouder during the period of the federation of states. Within the limits of the constitution that was laid down, he was granted sovereignty over the unitary state to be created. Even today, the crown passes on to the successors of this first monarch.