Ravenstein's sovereignty was real but never quite secure. The Valkenburgs lost a war with nearby Cleves, and the town became a Clevian possession. In 1399 it hosted negotiations between the Duchies of Brabant and Guelders, briefly the sort of place where dukes argued about borders. Charles V demanded the demolition of its bulwarks and bastions in 1543. Only the city gates survived. When the Duke of Cleves and Julich died without heirs in 1609, Brandenburg eventually inherited the claim and outsourced the actual defense to Holland. By the early 17th century, Ravenstein was following Dutch law in most respects. One of its two Catholic churches was demolished; the other was repurposed as a Protestant church, because Catholicism was forbidden across the Low Countries at the time. But Ravenstein never formally joined the Dutch Republic, and its in-between status would soon turn into an unlikely refuge.

In 1630, ownership changed again, this time to the House of Pfalz-Neuburg. The Hollandic garrison built a special church for itself in 1641 to handle its Protestant worship needs. But the new owners gradually re-established freedom of religion in their tiny domain, and the consequences were striking. Catholics from across the Low Countries, where their faith was officially banned, started moving to Ravenstein, drawn by the simple fact that they could practice openly. Non-Protestant minorities followed. For a few generations, this little Brabant town functioned as a sanctuary, a place where the religious laws of the surrounding country did not apply. The French invaded in 1672, blew up the fortifications again, and the cycle continued. Through it all Ravenstein remained, on paper, an independent state.

Revolutionary France ended Ravenstein's sovereignty in 1794. The land was sold to the Batavian Republic, the Napoleonic-era forerunner of the modern Netherlands, in 1800. After Napoleon's defeat, it slid quietly into the new Kingdom of the Netherlands like any other municipality. The castle, the original reason any of this had ever existed, was demolished in 1818 because no one had a use for it anymore. The 19th century treated Ravenstein gently. In 1874 a railway bridge crossed the Meuse here, dragging some light industry into town. Ravenstein flourished, modestly, the way small Dutch towns flourish: a brick station, a few new houses, a windmill called De Nijverheid still turning on the dike.

What remains of Ravenstein's defenses is the most rewarding thing about visiting. Bits of the old works are scattered around the edges of the historic center in various states of repair. The bastion called the Rondeel Maasdijk, with a cannon still aimed roughly nowhere, sits along the dike. Restored sections of rampart have been turned into walking paths. The town gates that survived Charles V's demolition orders in 1543 are still there to step through. The whole historic core is small enough to circle in twenty minutes; the main visitor parking lot is on a street called Bleek, just outside the old walls. From the train station, the city edge is just under a kilometer's walk.

Ravenstein is not alone. The Meuse along this stretch of Noord-Brabant strung together a small chain of fortified towns that, for much of their history, were independent states arguing with their neighbors over tolls and titles. Grave, where Maurice of Nassau broke the Spanish garrison in 1602, is just downstream. Cuijk and Boxmeer are farther south. Across the river in Gelderland, Nijmegen claims to be one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, founded as a Roman oppidum and still defined today by its enormous student population from Radboud University. Cycling between any two of these places puts you on a route that has been a frontier for longer than the Dutch state has existed. Ravenstein, the smallest of them, is the easiest to walk around, and the only one that ever charged tolls because it could.