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Time for monarch number 4 this century and this was one that would last into the next century and, until recently, had been the longest serving monarch in our history.
William IV had been nearly 65 when he ascended to the throne in 1830. He was a quieter man than his brother, George IV and during his reign there were many social changes. He didn't much like Buckingham Palace and, when Parliament was destroyed by fire, he offered to give them the Palace as their new home. He had served in the Royal Navy and was nicknamed, “the sailor king”, because of this. Unlike his father and brother he didn't interfere so much in politics although he was the very last monarch to choose a Prime Minister against the wishes of parliament. He dismissed the government of Lord Melbourne and appointed Sir Robert Peel as PM in 1834. Peel was actually in Italy at the time so the Duke of Wellington stood in for him until his return. Peel didn't last long and an election in 1835 saw Melbourne returned. Nowadays a new Prime Minister has to go to Buckingham Palace to be appointed by the monarch but that monarch has no real power to say no although, in theory, they could.
William had no legitimate children, having lived with an actress for nearly twenty years before marrying, on 11 July 1818, Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the daughter of George I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. At 25, Adelaide was half William's age. None of his legitimate children survived childhood.
William died on 21 June 1837 at Windsor Castle. Time now for a little family tree to say who came next.
Edward Augustus (they liked that name didn't they?) should have come next but as he died in 1820, it wasn't considered a good idea. That meant his daughter was next even though the next three sons of George III were still alive. Therefore Victoria, the long dead Edward's daughter, became Queen.
Victoria was just 18, having celebrated her birthday on May 24, and, if William had died before her eighteenth birthday, Victoria's mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, would have become regent for her daughter. Her mother seems to have been a bit of a schemer and tried to keep her daughter away from her uncle. She had taken rooms in Kensington Palace and forced Victoria to share her bedroom. Her mother associated with a man called John Conroy and they both believed that William IV would die prior to Victoria's birthday and that they would wield great power.
It didn't happen and Victoria, on becoming Queen, banished her mother from the palace and was apart from her for some time. Victoria was very much a sheltered young woman, now running the biggest empire in the world. In 1840 she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Theirs was an extremely happy marriage although it didn't last too long. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the title "the grandmother of Europe". We will see more about Victoria and her reign in the next section of our history.
Forward to 1838AD
