In OTL Prussia was granted the Rhineland and Westphalia at the Congress of Vienna in part to serve as a bulwark against France and in part to compensate it for its loss of most of its formerly Polish territory. It did have possessions in western Germany even before Napoleon's radical rearrangement of the map; the areas of Kleves, Mark and Ravensburg (as well as East Frisia) were all Hohenzollern possessions since the 17th century, which gave their acquisition of the Rhineland legitimacy.
So what events TTL could cause the Rhineland to be held as an independent state by another dynasty instead of being handed over to Prussia?
So what events TTL could cause the Rhineland to be held as an independent state by another dynasty instead of being handed over to Prussia?