William IV ( August 21, 1765 – June 20, 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from June 26, 1830 until his death in 1837.
William was born in the early hours of the morning on August 21, 1765 at Buckingham House, the third child and son of King George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Ludwig Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince of Mirow (1708–1752), and his wife Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1713–1761). Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a small north-German duchy in the Holy Roman Empire.
Prince William had two elder brothers, George, Prince of Wales, and Prince Frederick (later Duke of York and Albany), and was not expected to inherit the Crown. He was baptised in the Great Council Chamber of St James’s Palace on September 20, 1765. His godparents were the King’s siblings: Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh; Prince Henry (later Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn); and Princess Augusta, Hereditary Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
William spent most of his early life in Richmond and at Kew Palace, where he was educated by private tutors. At the age of thirteen, he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman, in Admiral Digby’s squadron. For four years the lieutenant of his watch was Richard Goodwin Keats, with whom he formed a life-long friendship and whom he described as the one to whom he owed all his professional knowledge.
William sought to be made a duke like his elder brothers, and to receive a similar parliamentary grant, but his father was reluctant. To put pressure on him, William threatened to stand for the British House of Commons for the constituency of Totnes in Devon. Appalled at the prospect of his son making his case to the voters, King George III created him Duke of Clarence and St Andrews and Earl of Munster on May 16, 1789, supposedly saying: “I well know it is another vote added to the Opposition.” William’s political record was inconsistent and, like many politicians of the time, cannot be ascribed to a single party. However, he allied himself publicly with the Whigs, as did his elder brothers, who were known to be in conflict with the political positions of their father.
William’s elder brother, the Prince of Wales, had been Prince Regent since 1811 because of the mental illness of their father. In 1820, George III died and the Prince Regent became King George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover. William, Duke of Clarence, was now second in the line of succession, preceded only by his brother Frederick, Duke of York.
Deeply in debt, William made multiple attempts at marrying a wealthy heiress such as Catherine Tylney-Long, but his suits were unsuccessful. Following the death of William’s niece Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of the Prince Regent then second-in-line to the British throne, in 1817, George III was left with twelve children, but no legitimate grandchildren.
The race was on among his sons, the royal dukes, to marry and produce an heir. William had great advantages in this race—his two older brothers were both childless and estranged from their wives, who were both beyond childbearing age anyway, and William was the healthiest of the three. If he lived long enough, he would almost certainly ascend the British and Hanoverian thrones, and have the opportunity to sire the next monarch.
William’s initial choices of potential wives either met with the disapproval of his eldest brother, the Prince of Wales, or they turned him down. His younger brother Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was sent to Germany to scout out the available Protestant princesses; he came up with Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, third daughter of Prince Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel, and his wife, Princess Caroline of Nassau-Usingen. Through her father, she was a great-granddaughter of George II of Great Britain, her grandmother being George II’s daughter Mary.
Her father Friedrich declined the match between his daughter and Prince William, Duke of Clarence. After that rejection Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge married Augusta himself two months. Eventually, a princess was found who was amiable, home-loving, and was willing to accept (even enthusiastically welcoming) William’s nine surviving children, several of whom had not yet reached adulthood.
The bride selected was Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. She was born on August 13, 1792 at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany, the eldest child of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and Luise Eleonore, daughter of Christian Albrecht, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. She was baptised at the castle chapel on August 19, 1792 and was titled Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Duchess in Saxony with the style Serene Highness.
At the time of their marriage Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was 26 years old and Prince William, Duke of Clarence was 53 years old. They had only met for the first time a week earlier on 4 July at Grillon’s Hotel in Bond Street. Neither William nor Adelaide had been married before, and William was 27 years her senior.
Adelaide married William in a double wedding with William’s brother, Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and his bride Princess Victoria of Saxe-Gotha-Saalfeld, Dowager Princess of Leiningen, on July 11, 1818, in the Drawing Room at Kew Palace in Surrey, England. Despite these unromantic circumstances, the couple settled amicably in Hanover, where the cost of living was much lower than in England, and by all accounts were devoted to each other throughout their marriage.
William’s marriage, which lasted almost twenty years until his death, was a happy one. Adelaide took both William and his finances in hand. For their first year of marriage, the couple lived in economical fashion in Germany. William’s debts were soon on the way to being paid, especially since Parliament had voted him an increased allowance, which he reluctantly accepted after his requests to have it increased further were refused. William is not known to have had mistresses after his marriage.
After their marriage Adelaide soon became pregnant, but in her seventh month of pregnancy, she caught pleurisy and gave birth prematurely on March 27, 1819 at the Fürstenhof Palace in Hanover. Her daughter, Charlotte Augusta Louise, lived only a few hours. Another pregnancy in the same year caused William to move the household to England so his future heir would be born on British soil; however, Adelaide miscarried at Calais or Dunkirk during the journey on September 5, 1819.
Back in London, they moved into Clarence House, but preferred to stay at Bushy House near Hampton Court, where William had already lived with Dorothea Jordan. Adelaide became pregnant again, and a second daughter, Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide, was born on December 10, 1820 at St James’s Palace. Elizabeth seemed strong but died less than three months old on March 4, 1821 of “inflammation in the Bowels”.
Twin boys were stillborn on April 8, 1822 at Bushy Park and a possible brief pregnancy may have occurred within the same year. Ultimately, William and Adelaide had no surviving children. Despite this, false rumours that she was pregnant persisted into William’s reign—he dismissed them as “damned stuff”.
William’s brother, Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and his wife Princess Victoria of Saxe-Gotha- Saalfeld,had one child, Alexandrina Victoria, born May 24, 1819. He was 51 years old at the time of her birth. The Duke took great pride in his daughter, telling his friends to look at her well, for she would be Queen of the United Kingdom.
Reformed since his marriage, William walked for hours, ate relatively frugally, and the only drink he imbibed in quantity was barley water flavoured with lemon. Both of his older brothers were unhealthy, and it was considered only a matter of time before he became king. When his brother Frederick, Duke of York, died in 1827, William, then more than 60 years old, became heir presumptive. Later that year, the incoming Prime Minister, George Canning, appointed him to the office of Lord High Admiral, which had been in commission (that is, exercised by a board rather than by a single individual) since 1709.
When George IV died on June 26, 1830 without surviving legitimate issue, William succeeded him as King William IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover. Aged 64, he was the oldest person to that point to assume the British throne, a distinction he would hold until surpassed by King Charles III in 2022.
When William became king he wanted to be known as King Henry IX (he was christened William Henry) until it was pointed out that the last Stuart pretender, Henry, Cardinal York, was known as King Henry IX by his supporters. Cardinal York died in 1807 and that was recent enough for him to change his mind and call himself William IV.
William IV had a short but eventful reign. In Britain, the Reform Crisis marked the ascendancy of the House of Commons and the corresponding decline of the House of Lords, and the King’s unsuccessful attempt to remove the Melbourne ministry indicated a reduction in the political influence of the Crown and of the King’s influence over the electorate. During the reign of George III, the king could have dismissed one ministry, appointed another, dissolved Parliament, and expected the electorate to vote in favour of the new administration. Such was the result of a dissolution in 1784, after the dismissal of the Fox-North Coalition, and in 1807, after the dismissal of Lord Grenville.
But when William dismissed the Melbourne ministry, the Tories under Peel failed to win the ensuing elections. The monarch’s ability to influence the opinion of the electorate, and therefore national policy, had been reduced. None of William’s successors has attempted to remove a government or to appoint another against the wishes of Parliament. William understood that as a constitutional monarch he had no power to act against the opinion of Parliament. He said, “I have my view of things, and I tell them to my ministers. If they do not adopt them, I cannot help it. I have done my duty.”
During William’s reign, the British Parliament enacted major reforms, including the Factory Act of 1833 (preventing child labour), the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (emancipating slaves in the colonies), and the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (standardising provision for the destitute). William attracted criticism both from reformers, who felt that reform did not go far enough, and from reactionaries, who felt that reform went too far. A modern interpretation sees him as failing to satisfy either political extreme by trying to find a compromise between two bitterly opposed factions, but in the process proving himself more capable as a constitutional monarch than many had supposed.
Both the King and Queen were fond of their niece, Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent. Their attempts to forge a close relationship with the girl were frustrated by the conflict between the King and Victoria’s widowed mother, the Duchess of Kent and Strathearn.
As William had no living legitimate issue, the British throne passed to his niece Victoria, the only legitimate child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, George III’s fourth son. Under Salic Law, a woman could not rule Hanover, and so the Hanoverian throne went to George III’s fifth son, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.