William IV of the United Kingdom
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to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer ... I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady, heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed." The speech was so shocking that Victoria burst into tears, while her mother sat in silence and was only with difficulty persuaded not to leave immediately after dinner (the two would leave the next day). William's outburst undoubtedly contributed to Victoria's tempered view of him as "a good old man, though eccentric and singular". William would survive, though mortally ill, to the month after Victoria's coming of age. "Poor old man!", Victoria wrote as he was dying, "I feel sorry for him; he was always personally kind to me." William was "very much shaken and affected" by the death of his eldest daughter, Sophia, Lady de L'Isle, in childbirth in April 1837. William and his eldest son, George, Earl of Munster, were estranged at the time, but William hoped that a letter of condolence from Munster signalled a reconciliation. His hopes were not fulfilled and Munster, still thinking he had not been given sufficient money or patronage, remained bitter to the end. Queen Adelaide attended the dying William devotedly, not going to bed herself for more than ten days. William IV died from heart failure in the early hours of the morning of 20 June 1837 at Windsor Castle, where he was buried. As he had no living legitimate issue, the Crown of the United Kingdom passed to Princess
Victoria of Kent, the only child of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, George III's fourth son. Under Salic Law, a woman could not rule Hanover; thus, the Hanoverian Crown went to George III's fifth son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. William's death thus ended the personal union of Britain and Hanover, which had persisted since 1714. The main beneficiaries of his will were his eight surviving children by Mrs. Jordan. Although William IV is not the direct ancestor of the later monarchs of the United Kingdom, he has many notable descendants through his illegitimate family with Mrs. Jordan, including Prime Minister David Cameron, TV presenter Adam Hart-Davis, author and statesman Duff Cooper, and the Duke of Fife, who married Queen Victoria's granddaughter Louise. William's reign was short, but eventful. The ascendancy of the House of Commons and the corresponding decline of the House of Lords were marked by the Reform Crisis, during which the threat of flooding the Upper House with peers was used effectively for the first time by a ministry. The weakening of the House of Lords continued during the nineteenth century, and culminated during the twentieth century with the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. The same threat which had been used during the Reform Crisis—the threat to flood the House of Lords by creating several new peers—was used to procure its passage. The reduction in the influence of the Crown was clearly indicated by the events of William's reign, especially the dismissal of the Melbourne ministry. The
Legacy