Roger Knight - William IV: A King at Sea

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published 2015

Copyright Roger Knight, 2015

Cover design by Pentagram
Jacket art by Tina Berning

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-141-97721-8

Let the conversation begin...

Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinukbooks

Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks

Pin Penguin Books to your Pinterest

Like Penguin Books on Facebook.com/penguinbooks

Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books

Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk

THE HOUSES OF WESSEX AND DENMARK

THE HOUSES OF NORMANDY, BLOIS AND ANJOU

THE HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET

THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK

THE HOUSE OF TUDOR

THE HOUSE OF STUART

THE HOUSE OF HANOVER

THE HOUSES OF SAXE-COBURG & GOTHA AND WINDSOR

For
Freddie and Connie, Eva and Jonah, Ella and Joseph

King William IV is probably more remembered today for fading into the background at a critical time rather than for any positive achievement. In 1830 he succeeded his by then unpopular elder brother, George IV. It was a perilous time, for the country was in turmoil. The thorny question of Catholic emancipation had recently been settled, but emotions surrounding it were still raw. The long-brewing problem of the reform of Parliament came to a head in the first year of the new kings reign. Petitions with tens of thousands of signatures flowed into Parliament. Serious rioting occurred in London, Derby, Nottingham and Bristol. The economic situation was dire, marked by strikes in the north of England; in the south agricultural workers protested violently over the introduction of threshing machines. On the other side of the Channel, the French experienced another revolution, though bloodless, and the Belgians revolted against Dutch rule. Radicals talked of the establishment of a republic in Britain.

Williams father, George III, and brother George IV had between them actively resisted change for seventy years. William did not like change either, but when he came to the throne he left the politicians to govern (with one or two

Further criticism was and can be levelled at William: he was quick-tempered, not very bright and extraordinarily tactless, often quite impervious to the impression he was making on people around him. At times he drank far too much, and for most of his life was careless with money. Yet Wellingtons judgement, as so often, was too harsh, for there was a good-natured, amiable side to Williams character. When he upset someone by his boorish behaviour he was contrite and quick to make amends, and this remained an attractive trait. Once, when he was Duke of Clarence, which he was created at the age of twenty-three, he saw a Quaker girl looking in a shop window and said teasingly to her, So, I see thou art not above the vanities of the world. But when he saw that he had upset her, he immediately went into the shop, bought an expensive work basket and persuaded the girls mother to accept it on her behalf. This generous side of his nature, which his brothers lacked,

Some of this contradictory behaviour can be traced back to Williams childhood, dominated by the formality of life in a royal family, where he made his first appearance in the Drawing Room aged four. But he also experienced the hurly-burly of competition with five brothers. Born in 1765, he was the third child of George III and his queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was known as Prince William Henry, and after 1789 as the Duke of Clarence. He was born three years after the first son, George Augustus Frederick, who became the self-indulgent and fast-living Prince of Wales, Prince Regent and then George IV; William was influenced by the Prince of Wales and looked up to his oldest brother. In 1763 the second son, Frederick, was born, who became the Duke of York. Twelve further children followed William, two of whom did not survive beyond early childhood. The two sons whose lives were to be most entwined with Williams own were younger: Edward, to be Duke of Kent, born in 1767, quieter and more withdrawn that his brothers, and Ernest, to be Duke of Cumberland, in 1771, who grew to be tall, ugly, perverse and an Ultra-Tory. William was closest of all to his sister Augusta, three years younger, quiet and reflective, who never married. She cared little for her appearance and enjoyed Williams unpolished manners and stories of naval life.